From San Francisco we had another fun overnight flight to get to New York City - we left SF at 1am, flew into Dallas (who knows why!?), then had about 10 minutes to make the connection onto our flight to New York. We made it with a couple of minutes to spare, then we had another 3 hours flight up to our destination. We arrived at lunchtime and, because we'd been on a domestic flight we hadn't been given any food on the plane, so we hung around in the arrivals hall eating and also killing time until we could check into our hostel. We eventually got on the bus, followed by the subway (which was packed!), and after walking a couple of blocks made it to our home for the next 3 days - it's actually pretty nice, very quiet to say it's in the centre of Manhattan and very modern. We were really tired by this point, so we had a nap then went to McDonalds (so cultured of us) to get some food, before going back to the hostel to sleep. The next morning we felt pretty well rested, so we got up to have the free coffee and doughnuts that the hostel buys for breakfast, then made our way over to the Empire State Building. It was still quite early in the morning, but the queue was already pretty long -= luckily we had already bought express tickets online, so we skipped all the queues and got straight into the lift up to the 86th floor, where there is an outside observation deck. We walked around getting loads of great views over Central Park and Downtown Manhattan - we could even see the Statue of Liberty in the distance! When we'd had enough of the crowds we went back to the lifts and went up to the observation area on the 102nd floor, which was smaller but much less crowded, so we could get some much better views. After a while we'd had enough, so we went back down to street level and headed towards Times Square. We were both expecting it to be really impressive, and it was pretty nice to see all the displays and bright lights of the city, but the whole experience was pretty well ruined by all the people trying to scam money out of us! First of all some people dressed up as Iron Man came over and insisted we had photos taken with them, then said we had to pay them for it! Joel gave them $1 and refused to give them anymore, they were pretty annoyed but went away. We then started walking up Broadway to get to a cheap burger bar recommended by the hostel (which was really good!), where we had a so-called 'band' thrust CDs into our hands which they promptly 'autographed' for us, then demanded we give them $20 per CD! Joel said no way and walked off, I had ended up giving $5 because my foot was hurting and I just wanted them to go away, but afterwards Joel walked back and said that I wanted my money back and didn't want the CD - luckily they gave it back with no hassle; we have been avoiding eye contact with everyone else in the city ever since! We got to the burger bar and had some good food, then decided to go have a look at Grand Central Station on the way back to our hostel - we walked well away from Broadway and things quietened down loads thankfully. The station itself was really cool - the architecture and the ceiling were beautiful! Next door was the Chrysler Building, and after going to have a quicker look we realised a film/tv was being recorded right outside - we tried to get a look, but someone from the production company soon came and made everyone leave the street; apparently they were filming a Ninja Turtles movie, but we're not 100% sure about that. The next day we were up early again to get more free doughnuts, then we got on the subway down to Battery Park to get on a ferry to Liberty Island. We reserved our tickets to go up to the top of the crown in the Statue of Liberty back in January and it's a good thing we were so organised - there are no tickets to get to the pedestal (underneath the statue) for a month, and you can't get into the crown for the next 3 months! It was a really hot day even by 10am, so as soon as we disembarked on the island we went to the statue and started making our way up to the crown - 393 steps all the way up, some very steep and narrow and windy! We both made it, where we had a look out of the windows in the crown over the harbour and the skyline of New York, but we didn't stay long because it was 30+ degrees up there! We walked back down to the pedestal and walked around the outside, getting photos of Manhattan and New Jersey, then we headed down to the bottom part of the monument where we had some great views looking up at the statue. We also went inside and had a look at the museum, which explained how and why the statue was made. Once we'd cooled off in the air conditioning we went outside and walked around the island, getting some better views of the city and also the statue. After a while we'd had enough so we got on the ferry back to New York, where we walked up Broadway to have a look at Wall Street. The buildings were really nice, especially the Federal Reserve and the New York Stock Exchange which are old stone buildings with columns, but the only people there were tourists (it is Sunday today, so to be expected). From there we walked across the city to the 9/11 Memorial Plaza and the place where the Twin Towers used to stand. Ground Zero has now been developped into a memorial for all the people who died there, with 2 memorial pools with the names of all the victims around the edges of them marking the place where the towers were before the attack. It was quite moving to see, although the atmosphere was marred a bit for us by all the people posing for selfies with massive grins on their faces - not really appropriate at a memorial for victims of a terrorist attack, but that's just our opinion. By this point we were both really hungry, so we headed off to a place that Joel had heard of from Man vs Food, a cafe called Katz's Deli. It was meant to be somewhere that served cheap, delicious sandwiches and the like, but we were sorely disappointed when we arrived - the queue to order food was huge, we had to wait around 20 minutes to get a table, and when we finally got a menu we found out that the cheap food from the tv show has now increased in price to around $20 for a hot sandwich! We promptly left and headed down the road to McDonalds (see a pattern emerging here), where Joel ordered us both a large cheeseburger meal, which it turns out here in New York means you get almost 2 litres of drink, a huge box of chips and 2 burgers each! Well that sorted out our tea as well, and once we had stuffed ourselves we headed back to the hostel to veg out. We have a nights sleep here, then another fun-filled overnight flight tomorrow (yay). We have to check out of our hostel by 11am, so our plan is to head up to Central Park to hopefully relax in some greenery (which is sorely lacking in the rest of the city), before heading over to the airport for our final long haul flight of the trip. We'll soon be back in Europe, and only 5 sleeps left until we arrive home!