As anyone who knows me is probably sick of hearing, and as I've mentioned numerous times on this blog, this summer myself and my friend Rosita spent 10 days in New York. Admittedly I intended to relay the events of each day on here a lot sooner. But with moving into my new University house, and staring my final year of study I've found myself with a lot less time than I'd hoped for. So here I, belatedly, go.
The holiday got off to a delayed start when after being loaded onto a plane, we were told it was not suitable for flight then unloaded and given a delay and a food token as compensation. Considering I hadn't been on a plane for around 8 years I was a little apprehensive but the flight was fine, only a little bit of turbulence and some pretty awesome views from the window and I also got two films watched, The Lucky One and Wrath of the Titans as well as the first 20 minutes of The Avengers before I decided I could do something slightly more productive (it was my fifth viewing, and purely based upon the novelty of watching it in the sky). We arrived in the city at around 9pm, and so got a taxi to the hotel, got acquainted with said hotel and then went to sleep. Enter Day 1.We kicked off our first day by visiting Ground Zero. I should mention that up until this point I had (perhaps semi-conciously) been unaware of the plans for the Ground Zero memorial site and so arrived completely unaware of what I was going to see. What architect Michael Arad has created is two stunning fountain/pool hybrids surrounded by bronze parapets into which are engraved the 2,983 names of the victims. Being at the site was unexplainably surreal, but so peaceful. The sound of the water, and even the smell, create an extremely calm and relaxing place to be, which was surprising considering it's being surrounded on all sides by the loud, busy city. I could have stayed there for hours, it really is a wonderful memorial.
After Ground Zero we spent some time simply soaking up the city and visiting shops, one of which was completely dedicated to Halloween. Now, as in a few posts time I'm sure you will find out, I bloody LOVE Halloween, and so to see a store that all year round is dedicated to the holiday was great fun. The store also had disposable plates and similar party related cutlery in almost every colour known to man, a trend that Britain definitely needs to catch on to, small things small minds and all that! For lunch we headed to a great place called Pop's of Brooklyn, where I had an incredible Berry Chicken Salad with a side of the best onion rings I have had, ever. We then made our way back towards the hotel via the High Line. An old freight rail line converted to a public park, the High Line is a wonderfully scenic route which had a halfway point with great food and drink stands and featured numerous pieces of beautiful art on the walls of the surrounding buildings. To finish the day off we headed to the nearest cinema for a showing of Total Recall, where we sheepishly discovered that we had to purchase tickets from a box office outside of the main building and found that some Americans are fond of leaving the cinema before the trailers are even over.
It was a great first day surrounded by some beautiful scenery, topped off with amazing food and decent film.
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