The Greyhound bus was late again leaving Toronto but we made up time as the driver went like the wind and took corners on two wheels. Nutcase! We had a stop at customs along the way as well where we had to unload the bus completely and pull through all our bags (we are now up to 4 from the 2 we started out with, due to shopping and picking up stuff from the family! Nothing like travelling light eh?). It wasn't a problem for us at all though as we simply walked through a room, showed our passports and hopped back on the bus again. So we got to New York safe and sound and walked the 10 blocks to our hostel, which was surprisingly pleasant for Midtown New York. And once again we got great room mates. We've been so lucky on this trip not to have had to share with weirdos and crazy people - all of them have been really nice. The next morning Andi got up and took all our washing to a Laundromat while I had a lie in - I'm getting him well trained already. Then it was an action packed day as we tried to see all the sites on a bus tour. Yes we were complete tourists and sat on the top deck of a bus with our little maps and cameras at the ready. We did all the sites Downtown including the Empire State Building, Wall Street, Soho and Ground Zero. This was quite eery actually. Pretty sureal, to be standing next to the site of where the Twin Towers once stood. They are currently building on the site to erect a new Liberty Tower office building, but apparently they are still finding remains here and in a nearby building which is being taken down bit by bit. The nearby church has a display about the events and the part it played in helping look after people at the time. You really do forget how horrible it all was. But it's good to see that Manhattan seem to be moving on well, even if it is in the front of their minds all the time.

Then on the evening we took the night tour and went to Brooklyn etc. Now on this bus we had the most unusual and eccentric tour guide EVER! It was like he was trying to do his own stand up comedy, while telling his own life story (instead of telling us about the sights!), dressed like a 'want to be cool NYC band member' with over-sized glasses that he didn't actually look out of, slighty camp, and talking like a machine gun, so most likely on drugs too! Not really playing to the crowd in my opinion. It was hard work listening to him and trying to keep up with his ramdom tangents, but after a while Andi started to warm to him, although I think he was in the minority of those on the tour. The trip itself was good though and we saw a huge telescope structure that they have put up under the Brooklyn Bridge area which is actually linked up to London at the London Bridge. You stand and look through a man sized circular hole and at the other end are people in London doing the same. Although when we were there it was about 2am in London so there was only the securitiy guard there who kept popping into view now and again to keep those of us in NYC happy! A great idea, but of course London charges people to have a look through it so they're not getting as many people at that end apparently.

Our second day in NYC was spent doing the rest of the tour Uptown. Now this is what I thought New York was going to be like. Posh! Downtown and Midtown are cool, but they're a bit busier and grimmy in places but Uptown is full of Arty places, cool luxury appartments and of course Central Park (which is great, complete with lakes, baseballs diamonds and wildlife). We were going to walk all the was down but we were running out of time, so just hopped back on the tour bus again - to be greeted by....you guessed it, the weird tour guy again! Thankfully he was a bit calmer and we only had a few stops to go. We had dinner at Planet Hollywood and then I managed to drag Andi (screaming and kicking) to see a musical on Broadway - The Lion King. In the end he actually enjoyed it (which I thought he might) with a rating of 7/10 being given!

Our last day was spent running around like headless chickens trying to do last minute shopping and sightseeing which included a boat trip out to the Statue of Liberty. Then we'd to try and pack everything once again before getting the underground out to JFK. It was a bit of an effort with all those bags - thankfully this was at the last stages of our journey and not the beginning! So when we arrived at the airport we finally had a chance to sit down, grab a cup of tea and have a chat about our quick visit to New York. Then we found a bit of freezing cold floor to curl up on to try and get some sleep before checking in at 4.30am for our flight.

So that was our last foreign destination, and we're on the very last leg of our journey now - the flight back to London. Soon we will have made it the whole way round the world..........