So this is our final blog entry....the trip has finally come to end! (I know it is over given I write this from London 10 days after landing!!) But it has been a phenomenal journey and we both feel very fortunate to have travelled so extensively and glad that we didn't experience any difficulties along the way. Our eyes have been opened to the beauty of South and Central America and we would not change the experience for anything. Admittedly, we were a little tired by the end but that was of our own doing in chasing so many countries in so little time and trying to see as much as we could. Its a great feeling to know there isn't much that we would do differently, given the chance!

We were very excited for the last leg of our trip....the BIG APPLE!! We left San Jose practically punching the air and eager to get there quickly. Our journey would last all day as we flew into Charlotte, Nth Carolina for a brief stopover before arriving at La Guardia airport at midnight. The flights were both fine and it was fun to run through Charlotte airport gawking at all things American and enjoying being reconnected with the english language! As much as we have loved adding to our spanglish vocabulary it was a relief that the brain didn't have to work double time anymore! The one thing I couldn't get over was how big the Nth American people are...and I don't mean fat...I mean just big...tall and broad! Giants were everywhere!

When we landed in New York our flight was one of the last in so it didn't take long to collect bags and jump into a taxi. It was drizzling with rain but likely to clear for the next day. Our first night was to be spent at L Hostels in Harlem. Our other accommodation couldn't fit us in until the next day so we needed a quick place to crash. This turned out to be one of the best hostels we have ever stayed in. It is an apartment block that has renovated apartments within it. Each apartment allows for the bedrooms to be private doubles and the lounge room to be the dorm bed set-up. It was a great use of space and felt private even though there may have been 12 people in each apartment. The common areas were bright and filled with great facilities and we had our first NY bagel for breakfast!

We stored our luggage at the hostel the next day whilst we hit the streets. The hostel was very close to the top end of central park and so we started there and walked for miles down through Manhattan. We bought our metro cards for 7 days and were determined to master the subway! Although I must say it is a sorry system in comparison to the London tube! In those first hours we walked and walked with our mouths open at the sheer size of the city and all it had to offer. We bought a guidebook and stopped for coffee at a diner (!) to try and work out some kind of plan. In the end it was agreed to just try and get our bearings. We walked to Grand Central Station, Broadway, 42nd St, Times Square, Bryant Park and had lunch in Macy's before deciding it was time to go back and get our bags so we could move to the East Village.

We caught a cab downtown and enjoyed the views along the East River and even passed the United Nations building. Our new hosts were the East Village Bed and Coffee at 110 Ave C. It was a great 3 storey terrace house that can be described in a nutshell as 'quirky'. They had just taken delivery of a massive IKEA order when we tried to 'check-in' and so we were a little shocked at what we found but once we had dropped our bags, cuddled the resident dogs and climbed the ladder to our treehouse room we were happy. The hosts were very relaxed in their approach to running the place which made it feel very comfortable and homey. We had big kitchen and lounge areas to use and could venture between the 3 floors if other people were around. Mark and I fell in love with the two dogs, Mango and Blanquita, who are rescue dogs from Puerto Rico. They were very smoochy and loved cuddles so we spent a lot of time sharing the couch with them and enjoying the 1000 cable TV channels! If you want to see more of them visit the website where you will see they came 4th in the local park Halloween contest dressed as Hugh Heffner and a playboy bunny! www.bedandcoffee.com/faq.php#doggies

The weather whilst we were there was fantastic. Clear and sunny in the mid twenties. This meant that our escapades outside continued and we walked our socks off! The East Village is well situated to walk to SoHo, the West Village, Greenwich Village etc and so we meandered for hours around these areas looking at shops and stopping for refreshments. I have never seen a city that has so many independent businesses ranging from vintage boutiques to gourmet delis, bistro's and small bookshops. It is not all chain stores and massive franchises making it a shoppers and foodies paradise and at times we just didn't know which way to turn. We found the East Village reminded us a lot of North London and we tried to think of ways that we could move here...immediately!

Out of the major sites that tourists visit we covered the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the financial district and Ground Zero, The Rockefeller Centre and Observation deck, Central Park, The History of New York Museum, the Brooklyn Bridge, my 'Sex and the City' tour and the major shopping areas. We know this is only scratching the surface and we would have loved to have included more museums and theatre but the weather was too lovely to be indoors.

We did allocate one day to shopping and bought a few new things to replace our bohemian traveller clothes but I had to ask Mark to prevent me from doing any more shopping as I am sure I would have gone crazy. A trip back to the city just for shopping is definitely in order!

My SATC tour was a definite highlight! It is a coach tour that takes you to various locations where the series and movie was shot and then you watch the clip they are referring to on the bus. The hosts of the tour are all aspiring actors and so really ham it up and it just made for a lot of fun. I met some nice Australian girls on the tour and hung out with them and we all got to share a cosmo at the end! Mark was officially MIA and was later found to have been to the movies!

Mark and I also saw some improvised comedy in a little comedy club. It was only $10 per show and so we saw two acts and they were very funny. They asked one girl to come up and explain her family dynamic and then they recreated what they thought the relationships were. It was hysterical and this girl was a maniac and so I am still not sure whether she was actually one of their mates and had given them the plot already but what the hell it was funny!

All in all it was a great way to end the trip and we had a fabulous time. We would both love to go and live there but not sure we could make that happen...sigh! So here we are back in London and happy to be reunited with family and friends. This is the last blog that I will write for some time unless we think of some other topic to annoy you all with. Thanks to everyone that has followed our trip with interest and sent us messages along the way. Even though we were so far away it never felt it given we were in such frequent contact. Mark worked out we travelled approx 14 500 miles from London-Hong Kong-Australia-South America-Central America-New York-London. No wonder we are tired! We are glad to have put the bags down for a bit and look forward to getting back to some sort of routine soon. We have the excitement of moving back to Melbourne but also the sadness of leaving all that we love in London. Adventure still awaits us......