I travelled up to New York from Washington by bus which wasn't too bad, only took about 4.5 hours. When I arrived I met Mum, Richard and Ian at the hotel. Was really nice to see them after all this time. Didn't feel as if I last saw them almost 8 months ago though.

We had a great time in New York, did all the touristy things. It was just sooooooooo cold though. They had had a huge snow storm just before we arrived and, although it didn't snow whilst we were there, the snow that was present was there the whole time we were, it was never warm enough to melt it.

As this was both mine and Ian's second visits to New York it was more sightseeing for mum and Richard. We did the hop-on-hop-off bus tour. We stopped at Ground Zero where all the building work is being carried out there to replace the twin towers with 7 new skyscrapers (not as big as the twin towers though). We did the ferry ride out to Liberty Island and saw the Statue of the Liberty and got great views of the Manhattan skyline from the boat. This boat ride was freezing though!!!! But it was a lovely clear day with a blue sky to it was a nice view for the 2 minutes you could brave outside in the cold.

We went to Lombardi's restaurant which was America's first pizzeria. The pizza in here was soooooo good, and also don't come in small sizes, they were massive!! All of the food in New York was very good, we had some great meals here.

We also went up the Empire State building. We did this at night so got awesome views out over the city with all the lights on, was so pretty!!! I visited Rockerfeller Centre and their massive Christmas tree with the giant Swarovski crystal star on the top of it. New York really went to town with their Christmas decorations. We also went and saw the Lion King on Broadway which was really good and also headed across the water to Brooklyn for a visit there.

On Christmas day we headed to Central Park. Here we did a horse and carriage ride around the park before heading to the ice skating rink. This was great fun, I think Ian and I had more fun laughing at mum and Richard, but it was a good laugh. We went to a really nice restaurant in the evening for our Christmas dinner. Was as traditional as we were going to get in America....mashed potatoes and no vegetables, but better than nothing. The others still got their turkey.

Needless to say lots of shopping was done here and I certainly will be heading back with plenty of things :-)

New York was good fun, a nice way to end the trip. Just can't believe it's time to head home now!!!

xxx