Our bus trip to New York was pretty uncomfortable - thankfully it was only 5 hours. The busses in South America are waaay better. We arrived in the afternoon on Saturday 14 April and were kinda just dumped on the side of the road in the middle of the city - a bit overwhelming at first. Fortunately we had good directions where to go! We picked up a US SIM card on the way to the train station (first time having a working phone in 6 weeks. In the end we used it for a few days, but by now had become accustomed to life without a phone... its now packed away again.) We were kindly invited to stay with an old school friend of mine, Stuart, who is now living in this pretty cool place called Huntington on Long Island. He was at a wedding that eve, so his friend Tanya met us at the local Starbucks and hung out with us for the evening. Later, when all the wedding people got back, we all headed out to a nearby bar for a few drinks and some catching up and then grabbed some awesome pizza on the way home at about 3:30am. It had been a long day for us and we slept like babies that night!

Sunday we got to sleep in a bit and then decided to walk around the town. We got some coffee and wandered through a nearby park and eventually found ourselves down by the marina. There are a lot of really wealthy people on Long Island (basically, what a lot of people do around here is just hang out at their country club or yacht club for the summer) so it was a bit wierd comming from mostly poor South America seeing all these massive mansions and expensive sports cars. We got home and watched some ice hockey - go Rangers! - and then walked down to the nearby supermarket to get some things for dinner. We had a nice chilled evening cooking and chatting and then did a bit of admin before heading off to bed.

Monday morning Stuart took us to see the country club where he works, which happens to be the most expensive on the island - its kind of like the Mount Nelson but with a golf course. Was interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look at how some of these people live. The drive there and back was also really cool - long, wide, winding roads through the forest. When we got home we said our last goodbyes and settled down to do some admin. Stuarts flatmate Thomas kindly drove us to the train station and we were soon on our way to Craig and Emma's who had so kindly agreed to host us at the last minute (they are both from Cape Town - Monique knows Emma from CMC days.) They stay on the other side of the city (actually accross the river in a place called Hoboken, New Jersey.) Craig cooked us yummy burgers for dinner and later we all drove to the nearby Target for some grocery shopping.

Tuesday morning we woke up pretty tired, but there were lots of sights to see so we ate a quick breakfast and walked down to the subway station. We got the train to 33rd street and walked up 6th avenue towards Central Park. We stopped at Times Square, which was actually smaller than we imagined, for some photos. Central Park is huge - we walked for ages and only made it halfway up. Its a bit strange knowing that you are in this huge city, but not being able to see any skyscrapers anymore. Next we stopped at the Guggenheim Art Gallery - just to visit the shop. We wandered randomly around the streets a bit, eventually arriving at the infamous Apple Store on 5th Avenue (single-most lucrative store in New York, 28th most photographed landmark in the WORLD.) After months of deliberation we had finally decided to bite the bullet and get an iPad for travelling, and what better place than here :-) Afterwards we headed home, stopping in at the Rockerfeller Center (didn't go up :-/) and Grand Central Station along the way. We got back in time to cook a lasagne which went down so well while chatting with Craig and Emma.

Wednesday we woke up early again. We were due to visit the 911 Memorial at Ground Zero (which is free but you have to book tickets for) so we were in a bit of a rush. The security at the memorial is stricter than at an airport, but eventually we got through. There is not too much to see actually - 2 massive pools and a tree. They are busy building a museum on the site but it wasn't open yet, and obviously you get to see them building the 4 new buildings that will comprise the new World Trade Center complex. Afterwards we walked a short distance to catch the ferry to Staten Island to get a closer view of the Statue of Liberty. We got the next ferry back and then wandered around the financial district a bit, seeing the New York Stock Exchange building, Wall Street and the United Nations building. We ate lunch at this awesome mexican fastfood chain called Chipotle. The queue to order was right round the perimeter of the restaurant, but it moved quickly and in about 10 minutes we were munching on yummy burritos :-) Satisfied, we caught the subway to go and see the Highline - an abandoned raised railway track that has been cleverly converted into a park. By the time we got to the end we were really tired, and guiltily headed home for a secret nap :-/ That evening, feeling refreshed, we grabbed a slice of local pizza and made our way to Times Square to experience the lights at night. Needless to say, it is really bright and busy - some of the buildings' walls are completely covered in LED screens. We visited a few of the shops before catching a train home.

Thursday we were up early again to say our final goodbyes to Craig and Emma. We really felt so blessed during our stay in New York to have people invite us into their homes and host us so well - thanks guys, it is very much appreciated! We had a bite to eat and then headed back into the city - it was IKEA day! We made our way to the South Street Seaport where you can catch an IKEA Ferry to the store which is in Brooklyn. They have a deal where if you spend $10 dollars at IKEA then the ferry trip is free :-) They also sell slabs of chocolate there for a dollar each, so ya... ;-) Turns out we were terrible at doing IKEA - we forgot to get our discounts on two separate occasions - and the resulting admin caused us to run late and miss the return ferry literaly by seconds - we waved goodbye to the driver as he sailed away :-/ The next one was a 40 minute wait away, which meant that we would be rushed for the rest of the afternoon if we had any chance of catching our bus up to Toronto. We packed like crazy and pretty much ran to the train station and then to the bus terminal. We should have known though - the busses here are just not up to scratch compared to South America, so we ended up waiting for about an hour on the pavement anyway for the bus to arrive :-/ We loaded our bag and found some seats and settled in for the long, uncomfortable ride to Canada.