Arriving at JFK airport around 4:30pm I eventually arrived at the hostel at around 7:40pm!! The shuttle took an hour to arrive and then was as slow as a snail in getting to the hostel! By this stage I was absolutely b*****ed and ravenous so went up the street to Broadway Avenue and got a slice of New York Pizza, which was very delicious!! The slices are huge - monster size! The hostel is really nice except for the fact that there is no kitchen due to renovations so eating in is not a possibility - they do have a cheap café though so that's alright. I found a cheap fruit vendor up the street where I can get a tub of pre-cut melon for $1 so that's breakfast for me in the morning!! My first day in New York I was walking down Fifth Avenue along Central Park and what do I see?? Sex and the City being filmed!! It was so awesome - Sarah Jessica Parker was about three metres away from me!! It was so exciting to see someone not just famous but REALLY famous! I went down to the World Trade Centre site which was really awful - I couldn't stay too long because it was just too upsetting. There is a church across the street where people have made memorials - there are drawings by little kids and letters to loved ones who died - it just tears at your heart. I had to go and visit Wall Street and got up close to the American Stock Exchange. There is also an absolutely amazing church at the end of Wall Street called Trinity Church - beautiful gothic architecture. Sadly I couldn't go in because there was a service taking place. I also visited Carnegie Hall and took a tour of it - it is absolutely beautiful. I couldn't take any photos though because we weren't allowed. I even got to sing the Australian National Anthem to hear the acoustics inside - it was amazing! I managed to get a ticket for a concert there on Tuesday so I'm going to watch a concert at Carnegie Hall!! SO EXCITING!! The subways here aren't too bad once you get the hang of things. I have ended up heading in the wrong direction many times though. The first time I had to exit the subway, cross the street and then get on the subway going the other way. Let's just say that I chose the wrong street to exit on…I was the only white person there!!I did a tour that the hostel provided which involved heading out on the Staten Island Ferry at sunset and then Times Square on the way back. The views of Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge and New Jersey are amazing at sunset and at night. The Statue of Liberty was also really pretty at night but I was a bit disappointed to find out that it is REALLY small!! I was imagining this huge statute but sadly it's not so huge. We stopped at Staten Island for an hour and I had coffee with three other girls on the tour. The tour guide then took us to a 9-11 memorial of the people from Staten Island who died. This was really sad - the memorial highlighted where the Twin Towers stood in the New York Skyline (it's on the waters edge with the NY skyline in the background) and each person's facial profile had been carved into the stone along with their birthday and name. It was just too awful - I couldn't imagine what it must have been like for all the people living in New York. Times Square is amazing at night!! There are so many lights and such a buzz! We ended up in the m and m factory which was really cool - there is every different colour m and m you can think of!! Three of us decided to leave the tour and hang around Times Square for a bit which, was good - we walked around and took in all the sites. We ended up at a bar called 'Hooters', which has a very appropriate name seeing as the waitresses are half-naked!! The drinks were really expensive though so we only had one and then left…the price not being the only reason!! We then went to the supermarket and got a sandwich for dinner at around 11pm (the sandwich cost US$6!!!) and then headed back to the hostel. The Empire State Building was easy to find seeing as it's so tall!! To get up to the 82nd Floor Observatory involved queues, queues and guess what…MORE QUEUES!!! You had to queue to get into the elevator to go up 2 floors. You had to queue to get tickets. You had to queue to get to the elevator to take you up 76 floors and then you had to queue to get into the next elevator to take you up to the observatory deck. Once you are up there the view is amazing though!!!! You can see for absolute miles and miles and it's so funny to watch all the people down below on the streets because they are so tiny! They are like ants walking amongst all these enormous buildings! And guess what…queues to come down again!!! I then headed over to a suburb known as 'Little Italy', which was really cool - they had a festival taking place and there were stalls set up everywhere selling Italian food and goods. I got an Italian pita with chicken and salad for lunch which was very delicious and then got some sort of Italian pudding thing (I can't remember the name because it was in Italian!) - lunch was so big though so I didn't need dinner!! (I had a couple of my m and m's from the factory!!) Grand Central Terminal….this place is a maze of trains, newsagents and food places but once you reach the main hall it is absolutely beautiful. Stone walls with a huge high ceiling and huge glass windows on either end!! It's so big I think if you ventured into one of the halls you would never come out again. Someone would find you in 50 years still trying to find the way out! I walked through the lower end of Central Park, which is really beautiful. There are lots of playgrounds for kids and lakes where you can rent row boats. I found the fountain from the TV show Friends which I was very happy about!! It took me ages to find it though!! They also have a huge lawn in Central Park, which is the beach for New Yorkers - it's so funny to see them all sitting on the lawn in their bathers, with towels and suncream! Don't know what you would do when you got hot though because there's no ocean! I also went for a run through Central Park and on the way back I thought I was heading in the right direction and when I reached the road it turned out I had exited on the completely wrong side so off I went in the other direction - it took me an hour to find my way home! I visited the Modern Museum of Art, which was amazingly cool. I never thought I would be the type of person to enjoy looking at art in galleries but it was actually really fun. There were numerous paintings where you had to decide for yourself what you wanted it to be so I sat on the bench provided and stared - all sorts of things started jumping out at me!! There was also a special exhibit by an iron sculptor which was absolutely massive and was an exhibit that you could walk into - the iron was shaped in such a way that it enabled you to do this - don't ask me how!! (I think it was iron…for all those art buffs…I'm sorry if I'm wrong!) The Circle Line Cruise took me on a 3-hour cruise around Manhattan Island past the Statue of Liberty and down the East River where they showed us all the various neighbourhoods and important buildings. The United Nations building is right on the waterfront and there were so many coast guard boats around there due to the UN Summit that is being held at the moment…can you believe that the Iranian President is here!!! What a joke….If you walk anywhere near the UN Building on foot you will also pass numerous guys with wires attached to their ears on every street corner…kind of scary like the CIA or something…also kind of unnatural like 'Men in Black III' or something! (Minus Will Smith). The one-day it rained was the day that I decided I was going to find the various spots from movies so I ended up getting absolutely soaked due to the fact that my umbrella was funnily enough nice and snug in my bag at the hostel. Most of the people on the sidewalks were just as soaked as me!! After finding the Cosby House, the Friends Building, The St. Regis Hotel from 'Miss Congeniality' and the Waldorf Astoria from 'Serendipity' I decided that I was too cold and too wet to carry on so lugged my poor, drenched body onto the subway and back to the hostel. I went on a walking tour through Harlem, which was…different! This area is Dodgeville deluxe so I was quite happy to stay very near to our guide and listen to all he had to say. It has so much jazz history, which is amazing to hear about - there is even a street named Duke Ellington Boulevard. The USA's largest cathedral is also in this area although it is deteriorating very rapidly because they have no money to fix it up which is very sad. We walked through Morningside Park, which was very scary - the guide was showing us crack cocaine viles and syringes in the hedges along the park as well as heroine wrappers!! Wouldn't want to be anywhere near that area by myself that's for sure! His words were, "we don't have as big a cocaine problem as we used to have"…yeah right!! I then attended a gospel service which I only stayed for half an hour of because they kept asking for money every 5 seconds!! They were for 'outreach programmes' (mmm…or for their pockets!) and if you didn't walk up to the front to put money in the baskets they priest would make the ushers walk up to you where they would shove the basket in your face until you put money in…not something I liked to much! I'm a poor backpacker…I gave you money already so stop asking for more!! The gospel singing was really fun though - everyone gets up and claps their hands and just sings their hearts out! I then went to Times Square where they were holding a 'Broadway Cares/Equity for Aids' fundraising market, which was fun to walk around. I watched an auction run by Vanessa Hargrove at the end of the day where they were selling various items related to Broadway. Two dolls from 'Hairspray' went for $2500….hello people….this is ridiculous!! I didn't stay for much longer because I wasn't bidding but it was interesting to watch people spend thousands of dollars on pointless things. Well, okay they're not pointless but the money could be used for starving kids in Africa and not dolls! I watched 'Monty Python's Spamalot' on Broadway, which was amazing. It was hilarious - had me in stitches through 90% of the show and the music was also very clever and entertaining. I can now say that I have watched a show on Broadway, which is an awesome experience and one to cherish forever!I spent today wandering around the huge Rockefeller Centre and did a tour of NBC Studios. I visited the set of 'Saturday Night Live' and the 'Today Show' and even had a hand at reading the news!! I was lucky enough to run smash back into the set of Sex and the City and saw all four girls this time!!! Very exciting!!I was walking down the street just before lunchtime and suddenly was surrounded by police cars and big black vans all with their sirens on and out jump half the US Army with huge guns - I got out of there very quickly!!! Had no idea what all that fuss was for but had no intention of finding out. I sat and had lunch outside the NYC Library which was really nice - got to sit and watch the world go by and boy does the world go by!!