The BIG Apple!

We arrived in New York City at lunch time on Friday 3rd. September and got a yellow taxi from JFK airport to our hotel, the Millenium Broadway, which was on West 44th. Street, just off Time Square. Our room was on the 37th floor so had an interesting view - we could see the people working in their offices in the TV Channel 4 building directly opposite!
We decided we'd go for a walk to get a feel for the place - BIG is really the only words we had to describe it! We couldn't get over how tall the buildings were (though by the next day it did seem quite normal) and just how generally large everything is.
The first shop we went into was Toys R Us, pretty similar to England but this one had a big wheel in the middle of the store! And we also recognised a man discussing a bike with his son, did a double take and realsied we knew who he was because he was Boris Becker! Very bizarre!
We spent the rest of the day walking around the Rockefeller Centre and Fifth Avenue and tried to stay awake as late as possible! One thing that helped was spotting the 'big apples' that were dotted around, decorated in all sorts of designs - my favourite was the one that looked like a strawberry dipped in chocolate!

On Saturday we walked down Broadway through Greenwich Village and Soho to the World Trade Centre site. On our way we visited the Union Square farmer's market and went for a very nice lunch in the Union Square cafe - the number one place to eat according to our Top Ten guide book to New York! We ate at the bar, which is apparently a popular thing to do and it allows a fantastic opportunity to 'people watch'! A very friendly lady, called Claire, chatted to us and was delighted by Natalie's accent - she wondered if we were in the US to pursue careers in broadcasting!

Having visited the World Trade Centre site (just can't imagine what it was like when the towers were still standing)we walked to the Hudson River and, from a distance, saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We then began the long walk back up Manhattan as we wanted to ascend the Empire State Building at just the right time so we could see it in the daylight, as the sun went down and as night fell. A bit of a tricky thing to plan because we had no idea how long the queue would be nor were we entirely sure of what time the sun set! We did intend to catch a bus but the traffic was stationary and it was a one-way street which confused us further!
Anyway, we reached the Empire State building at 5:15, queued until 6.30 and the sun set at about 7pm so it all worked splendidly! The views were just amazing, impossible to describe but we might try and get a picture up. We had an audio tour which pointed out sites and told little stories about New York and it's people from different positions of the viewing platform. It was our fifth wedding anniversary and it was rumoured to be a very romantic venue but to be honest it was so crowded that, amazing as it was, romantic is not a word we would use to describe it! There were a couple up there having their wedding photos taken and I'm sure they thought it was lovely!

We spent most of Sunday in Central Park - people were having picnics, sailing mini motorised boats on the lake, jogging round the reservoir, rowing boats, fishing, cycling, having wedding photos taken - all the usual stuff! More opportunites to watch the world go by!
Then we had to make our way to the airport for our flight to Charleston. We were slightly concerned because the streets were completely jammed due to it being Labour Day weekend, theatre goers and the Brazil Day street festival which had completely closed a large section of road with stalls and a stage! Our driver told us they have different festivals for different countries on most Sundays. Anyway, we got to JFK in plenty of time, ready for the next part of our holiday!