Happy New Year! Spent the first day of the year with the Welch's!!!

Had to combine my blogs from the 1st - 3rd, as I've not had time to write in my journal since Nicola and Laura came out. All six of us took a trip down to the Statue of Liberty, where we had to catch a ferry across to the island. It was great to experience seeing such an iconic statue with everyone and I'm really pleased that we had such mild weather while we were out. The Statue of Liberty was very impressive - I was told by a few people at Metropol hostel that the statue is not as big as what they'd thought, so when I saw it up close it wasn't a disappointment.

Once on the island we walked around the perimeter of the island; there was more to see there than what I first thought and because there was alot of snow and ice around still, we had a bit of fun playing in the snow! We were on the island for a good couple of hours - alot longer than what I anticipated.

Once back in Manhattan, we walked to ground zero, where the twin towers once stood. Me and Amy thought it inappropriate to take any photos, but everyone else wanted to spend some time there, so we had a look around the area. Even though we were in the hustle and bustle of New York city, this part of town was pretty sombre; quite respectful in a way.

It was great walking around on foot, as we saw some great architecture! I love that!

As me and Amy had already been up the Rockefeller centre, we had a walk around while everyone visited this. So at night we all visited the Empire State Building; just so that we could get a different perspective of the city at night - and in my opinion we saw the city at its best! It was beautiful to overlook the city and capture all the lights. The interior of the Empire State is as just a beautiful as the view too! I couldn't believe at how busy it was at the top of the Empire State. It was a shame as it was difficult to get any decent photos.

The next day we took a lovely Sunday stroll in Central Park, where we walked around Strawberry Fields and saw the John Lennon "Imagine" plaque again. I'd love to come back to New York in the summer or autumn just to see Central Park at its best! Its such a beautiful place and it amazes me that it can be so quiet, you wouldn't have thought you were in the middle of Manhattan!

Dan wanted to visit the Apple store, which was a very impressive building! It was a glass cube with its signature apple logo hanging from the ceiling - the store itself was underground and so when we entered the glass cube, we had to walk down the spiral staircase. We then stumbled across the Guggenheim Museum, which has a pretty impressive exterior!

After showing the others Grand Central we walked through Times square as it was getting dark and we were able to see how magnificent Times Square is at night! We were all blow away by just how big, bright and busy it was! Was a great experience and glad I got to share this with Nicola and Laura!

Me and Amy managed to change our internal flight so that we were able to spend an extra day with them, which we were really pleased about! On our last day in New york we took everyone to see the famous Christmas tree and ice rink. We then spent the day shopping and headed to Times Square again as this seemed to be everyones favourite place!