NEW YEARS EVE

Friday in the Big Apple and we were off reasonably early to go shopping - funny how women can get ready very quickly when there is shopping mentioned - and headed straight to 5th Avenue, via a couple of train swaps and a few blocks walk!! Tiffany was the major target and it was not long before I was considerably lighter in the wallet and Mumsie was clutching a little turquoise bag containing a little gold key! Katie, however, had trouble deciding so I wandered off to have a look at a Nike sports store nearby, very happy that there were very few people about and walking was quite straight forward! The only problem was that as I entered the store I saw a bloke wearing a Dorkers scarf!!!!!!! Eeeeeeyukkkkk!!!! Imagine that!!!! Thousands of miles from WA and I have to see one of those!!!!!
Katie eventually made her purchase(s) and we spent a couple of hours wandering about the shops before stopping for a bit of late lunch at a great little cafe that made the best crepes. By now the crowds were building up enormously in readiness for New Years Eve and as we were close to Times Square, it was the wrong place to be!!!!!!!!!! Mumsie and I had had enough shopping by now and we caught the subway back to Grand Central and then caught our number 7 train back to Long Island City, leaving Jase to be towed around a few more shops!!!
Mumsie had a nanna nap while I went for a walk along the waterfront hoping to get to the Water Taxi Beach, which is an artificial beach created by the local Council. Unfortunately, the way was blocked by lots of construction work and I wasn't going to walk about three kilometres to get around it, so I headed back northwards along the newly created Gantry Park  redevelopment. Lots of landscaped public open space has been created along the waterfront surrounding two old gantry cranes that were used at the turn of the century to unload barge cargo onto rail wagons. They have been restored, along with the old jetties around them. The whole area will be very popular once residents move into the numerous apartments being built, especially in summer.
Had to detour past the Duane Reade Pharmacy to get a some beer - yep, thats right, beer from the chemist and at $7.47 for a six pack what a bargain!!!
By now Jase and Kate were back and so we enjoyed a drink and then got ready to head out for a NYE dinner at a restaurant on the waterfront. We had booked our table and had to be there by seven o'clock because they had a big party happenning later in the night, but at $200 per head, we weren't interested! Our table had a view right across to Manhattan, looking right up 42 Street and we could actually see some of the big advertising screens in Times Square! What a magnificent spot to be in and the meal that followed was just as impressive, with Jase and I ordering a steak and lobster combo that $51 seemed to be very cheap! What turned up was a plate about forty by forty centimetres square and had a sensational steak fillet, a corn cob, a baked potato and a whole lobster!!!!!!! Yep, a lobster weighing about a kilo, complete with claws but nicely slit down the back to access the flesh! Wowsers! What a meal! The steak was tender as could be and the lobster was much sweeter  than our crayfish! Those who know me know I am pretty good on the tooth, but this just about stumped me! NOTE! I said just about!!!! The girls had some totally vague stuff that they enjoyed and then they had sweets, but Jase and I definitely had no room for that!!!!
While we had dinner we discussed what we would do to see in the new year and Jase wanted to at least have a peep at the estimated million revellers who would cram into Times Square, and so he and Katie caught the train in to have a look while Mumsie and I found a beaut little bar about a block away and settled in for a drink or two. There were only a few locals in there, but when the waitress discovered we were from OZ she gave us the VIP treatment and our glasses were never empty! By about 11pm Mumsie and I decided to head home and watch the New Year in on TV and we were just leaving when in walked Jase and Katie, having found that you could get nowhere near the action in the City - the police had it all barricaded off. So we got some more drinks and joined the locals to celebrate at midnight! Our waitress got us some party hats and whistles etc., we had already bought some outrageous big 2011 sun glasses and with a free champagne in hand we saw in the New Year in grand style!!! We discovered there was another Aussie in the bar and had a talk to him for a bit before making our way home and into bed!!!! It turned out to be a great evening and one we will remember for quite a while!

NEW YEARS DAY

After getting to bed well towards 2am this morning and having had numerous extremely potent Jack Daniels and Coke courtesy of our waitress, it was little wonder that when I lifted my head off the pillow at 9am I felt a bit shabby!!!! But after a cuppa and some toast normality returned and we headed off into the city to do some more exploring, starting off at Columbus Circle and then finishing up at The Empire State Building. The crowds there were huge and after learning that the wait to get to the top was an hour and a half, we caught a train to the Rockefeller Centre where Mumsie and I rode the 67 floors to the lookout deck without any wait at all!!! The view from the top was amazing but spoilt somewhat by the dense haze that had settled onto the City. We had been to the Empire State Building last time and been impressed by that, and the Top of the Rock was just as good and much easier and cheaper to access. Katie and Jase had done it last year so they waited for us and when we got back down we returned back home just as it started to get dark. All of us are feeling a bit weary today, so we cooked some dinner and hit the bed pretty early!
Tomorrow Mumsie and I are going to do a bus tour of Brooklyn in the morning and then try to get some cheap tickets for the Broadway show "Chicago" for tomorrow night!