The Big Apple is brilliant! I loved it! We spent 3 nights in New York before our departure to Ireland – 2 nights on long island and our final night in midtown Manhattan.
As my friend from High School, Hayley, lives and works in NY she took very good care of us during our stay. She was working the first day so she leant us her car and pointed out a few nice spots on Long Island worth seeing. We
spent the majority of the morning, however, in the supermarket (me
drooling obsessively over the salad bar!) and in the Laundromat getting
all our clothes clean.
My favourite store ever!
Long Island is HUGE! I had no idea it was so big and so beautiful! The dense tree-lined streets and stereotypical ‘Desperate Housewife style’ of American Surburbia was fascinating to see. We drove around, getting lost in the winding streets, and then went over to Port Jefferson on the mid-north coast of Long Island; a cute little fishing village. We wanted to drive over to the Hamptons
to see all the mansions but it really would have taken all day to get
there and back, and I didn’t feel too confident driving on the freeways.
That night we relaxed in the hotel and I got to spend some quality time with my friend the Gym. The
hotel gym was pretty amazing; flat screen TVs on the cardio equipment
and another big flat screen TV in the weights area – I could have spent
all night there. I know noone else cares but I liked it and I got the place to myself so it was a highlight! Haha
A girl's best friend!
The next day we met with Hayley to take our luggage on the train to the hotel in Manhattan and then we spent the day wandering the city and seeing the sights. We went all the regular places; Rockerfeller Centre, Radio City Music Hall, Times Square, Empire State Building,
Wall Street, Macy’s etc… The rain was a bit of a dampener (literally…
my feet were soaked all day) but it didn’t slow us down too much. My favorites places were the M&M’s store (I found Peanut Butter filled M&M’s!! OMG they were so good!) and the Victoria’s Secret store :-)
The raging Wall Street bull
After
throwing stones at Wall St (kidding!) and seeing ‘Ground Zero’ (it
changes your perspective on the matter a bit) we wanted to go to Liberty
Island but the ferries had stopped for the day so we said goodbye to
Hayley (poor thing was exhausted from working all night), took the ferry
to Staten Island and back, went back through the city to see Times
Square by night, picked up more peanut butter M&M’s (for the trip!)
and got an ‘I Love NYC’ T-Shirt (a must-have!).
Andrew in Times Square
Our
final day in New York was a whirlwind journey to visit Lady Liberty on
her little island, a trip which takes several hours and 3 ferries (a bit
annoying when you are in a hurry) and then met with Hayley to have
lunch in Times Square before getting on the train to JFK.
Visiting Liberty and Ellis Island
After running all day we hit a brick wall at JFK airport. It
started very well - our plane left on time – but on our way to the
runway there was an emergency landing taking place and everything ground
to a halt. Typically it can take 45 mins to an
hour to get off the tarmac at JFK but as we were ‘number 71’ in the
queue it was closer to 3.5 hours. Andrew and I
both had our regular take-off nap (honestly, Andrew falls asleep before
the plane even moves!), woke up and realized we were still on the
ground!! It was bizarre.
But finally we were off to Dublin for the next part of our journey…..
