Tuesday

Berlin to New York.

Alarm set at 4am, up and out of the hotel to get the shuttle bus to the airport at 5am, encounter a bit of trouble at the passport control as Chrissies passport had not been stamped when leaving Kraków and they wouldn't let her through until someone in authority checked it all out and stamped it, finally all ok and we are airborne at 7am to London Heathrow airport and then a mad dash to get to our connecting flight to New York, this is around a six and half hour flight so settle in to watch movies, we are flying British Airways, arriving in New York ahead of time and was held on the plane for approx 15 minutes due to the amount of passengers being processed through customs, finally allowed off the plane to join a long queue and then through customs and then a wait for our transport to our hotel, and what a long ride from JFK to the city, and to make it seem longer there were 4 other groups in the bus to be dropped of at seperate hotels all over the city and us being the last ones left, got into our room and just dropped, at this stage we had been up for over 18 hours and just headed for bed.

Wednesday
A great nights sleep was had and today we were up early and ready to go, we are staying at the Hotel Beacon on Broadway and 73rd street and right on the corner is a little restaraunt open for breakfast, pancakes for me and eggs and bacon for Chris, unfortunately we had forgotten what big meals are served in America and definitely could not finish it all, leaving there we had decided to walk all the way to Times Square, the weather is rather chilly, therefore making the walk brisk and easy, and got here in good time, it really has a life of its own walking around just soaking up the whole atmosphere and finally slowly making our way back to the hotel, calling in to a supermarket across the road to pick up food for the night

Thursday

Once again up early and on our way back down town to find the hop on hop off bus, finally boarding the red line again and we had a driver who was constantly on the horn and I can see why, the New York traffic was insane and it doesn't seem to move in any organised road rules, I suppose it does as we never saw any accidents, we always do one round and work out what we want to see and then start over again, this time once we had completed the first round, off we got as this had taken over two hours and we needed coffee and food, once settled we just sat and collected our thoughts and in our voucher was a a boat trip around the Hudson, so off we go to attempt to catch the 3 o'clock boat, easier said than done, just making it, and the trip was great, the commentary very informative.

Leaving the boat we headed for the 9/11 site and the main tower is now all finished but still a sad place, it is now after 5pm and the traffic is bumper to bumper and going nowhere slowly, found the bus and hopped on as we could see no option for a quicker way back to Times Square, bad mistake again it took us over an hour to go only a few miles, finally just getting off the bus and working our way back to our hotel, eventually calling into a pizza place for a quick meal,

Getting back to our hotel after 8pm and totally exhausted to bed, never to get on a bus again

Friday
Today we decided it was going to be a quiet day, we left the hotel and ambled along the street calling into shop after shop just looking, until we came across a cafe for breakfast, then headed for Central Park and just walked and walked. and then going back to the hotel early and resting.

Central Park is the most visited urban park in the U.S with an estimated 37-38 million visitors annually and one of the most filmed locations in the world. and was first approved in 1853 as a 778-acre park and the parks first areas were open to the public in late 1858, in 1859 additional land was purchased and the park was completed in 1876, while much of the park appears natural, it was actually almost entirely landscaped during the 1850s and 1860s, the park contains seven lakes and ponds that have been created artifically, there are several wooded sections, in addition to lawns, the meadows and many grassy areas, in addition there are 21 childrens playgrounds as well as 6.1 miles (9.8km) of drives located within the boundaries and are heavily used by runners, joggers, pedestrians, bicyclists and inline skaters. there are 26 baseball fields, 12 tennis courts, 6 soccer fields and four basketball courts, it has two ice skating rinks, graffiti doesn't last 24 hours in Central Park, visible litter gets carried away by 9am each morning and throughout the day, broken benches and playground equipment gets fixed on the spot

This is one of my all time favourite places, and considering it is in the middle of New York city the traffic noise is no existant.

Saturday
Weather not good just light rain in patches, it very annoying, our plan is to wander 5th Ave and wherever, stopping off at Trump Tower only to find a Starbucks outlet and naturally we stop for coffee and muffin, eventually just walking on taking photos looking at shops and ended in Times Square and came across an anti abortion demonstration, my god the police presence was insane and on the other side the pro abortion group, very vocal depending on where you were within the crowd, worked our way out of Times Square, rain had gone sometime ago and headed for the hotel

Sunday

Woke up to rain again, but we had a mission to finish, not far from the hotel is a shoe warehouse and we headed there to do some last minute shopping, getting what we needed back to the hotel as we had booked tickets to see the 9/11 museum and tower, ended up getting a taxi and once dropped off realised that the museum was not booked but the NYPD Tribute museum, which focused on the role the fire dept had in the 9/11, due to the rain we were the only ones that had turned up so we had a one on one overview of the tower collapse, which was very interesting as the lecture/talk was facilitated by an actual fireman who was called to 9/11 and hearing his experience of the day and the following weeks was very powerful, within this booking was a guided walk around the site but the rain had not let up so we forgoed the whole thing, the other part of the ticket allowed us to go to the top of the new One World building but once again due to the rain the cloud cover was right over the building therefore the staff changed the ticket to Monday, we made our way over to the actual 9/11 Memorial Museum and bought tickets to enter the site, and this was fantastic, so well done, it is 110,000 square feet of exhibition space and is unique as it located within and surrounded by remnants of the original World Trade Centre site, telling the story of 9/11 through multimedia displays, archives and a collection of monumental and authentic artifacts, the exhibition is made up of three sequential parts, the events of the day, before 9/11 and after 9/11.

The experience begins at the atrium of the museums entry pavilion, hence both the North and South memorial pools can be seen, there are two 80 foot tridents or steal columns that once formed part of the exterior facade of the North Tower also are the International flags and are part of a collection of 180 United Nations members that once hung from the mezzanine level of the original Twin Towers lobby of the World Trade centre and I beleive the flags also represent the country of each person that was killed.

The largest of the spaces is Foundation Hall, a room with ceilings ranging from 40 to 60 feet and nearly 15000 sqare feet of floor space, there you can find the slurry wall - a retaining wall originally built to hold back the Hudson River and the remnants of cutoff box colmmns that once formed the exterior of the Twin Towers.

This exhibition is one not to be missed.

Leaving the building we found our way to the train station and with the help of the staff we eventually braved the underground, not a problem, tonight we went out to dinner at the corner diner and then to bed

Monday

Up early as we were heading to the post office to send some shoes and clothes back home, mission accomplished we then stopped at the Magnolia Bakery for coffee and cupcakes, fabulous, back to the hotel until it was time to catch the train back to 9/11

Luckily we arrived early and therefore the line up was not long and went into the building, naturaly we had to go through all the security, but finally we entered the inside of the building and were directed to a passageway with screens all on one wall, amazing montage of the city skyline and then all of a sudden the screens lift and you are looking out over the city, amazing, onto the theatre to get accounts of the 9/11 day from George Bush, Condalisa Rice, the Mayor of New York etc, very moving the whole scenario, you are then out onto the floor that over looks the whole city, the view is amazing.

One World is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Centre and is the tallest building in the U.S. in March 2009 is was confirmed that the building would officially be known as One World Trade Centre, rather than Freedom Tower, the building is 104 standard floors high

Leaving the tower we made our way back to the train and headed back to our hotel to finish packing and eventually had pizza for dinner. then early to bed and alarm set for 5am as we are leaving early to fly to San Francisco

Goodbye New York, one of my favourite cities.