So the trips excitement kicked off at Heathrow.If any of you have any worries over airport security let me put your mind at ease.The knife was found and disposed of most efficiently - in front of mine and Ollis' parents which was not at all embarrassing…..

The plane journey was fine except our TVs broke.This was balanced out by the huge whiskey and cokes that the aircrew happily mixed (free).

We got to the hostel fairly easily.Its right next to central park and only a few minutes walk from Broadway. We arrived at 10pm and checked in.The hostel is really friendly with plenty of facilities on site.However the temperature in the rooms is unbearable as the heating is on full and never turned off.Olli really has drawn the short straw as his bed is next to one of the radiators and slept under a wet towel last night to give him a better chance of seeing the night through without dying.

After checking in we went and got the usual from McDonalds and found a really nice pub called the abbey.As warned by everyone at home I had gone armed with my ID as even my Godfather gets ID'd and we weren't!Which reminds me - having geared up for the stone faced custom officers they turned out to be real friendly.The guy that dealt with me was called Racey and he turned out to be incredibly friendly but just couldn't get his head around us quitting good jobs to go around the world.

Today we got up early for the free breakfast and headed off through central park to have a look around.We got down the financial district and saw ground zero and had a look around Little Italy and China Town.However the snow of last night has been melted by today's rain and there was no point in carrying on so came back to chill out mid afternoon.

Tonight we are staying in to play a few drinking games with our room mates whilst our clothes dry out on the radiators (with regular checks to make sure they have not caught fire).We become good friends with a girl called Jackie who is on the bunk above mine.She has just moved here from LA and is an aspiring musician who is in a meeting with a record company as we speak.

Marcus