The musings and misadventures of a girl unprepared

Friday 23 March 2012

Shattered after Day 1!

I can't believe we've only been here for one day, we've already done SO much!!
We got up around 8 and went for a wander to Times Square, visited a few shops and bought lots of sweets from the Wonka shop :D Getting used to the money here is really proving a challenge - where is the sense in having a 25c coin but no 50c?? And why have a coin called a dime with no number on the front to indicate what it's actually worth?? Silly american currency.

On the way back to the hotel at lunch time we stopped at a corner shop and bought theses AMAZING cheesy soft popcorn things, which I now plan to live off for the rest of my time in the states. SO tasty. We also bought a $1 slice of pizza each from the place on the corner of our street, which is convient but probably not the best for our health :P

After that we headed out to an art exhibition called "Heads" that Rach wanted to see on 20th Street in some little art gallery. It was actually pretty cool. I really liked this image in particular, though Aimee said it was creepy:

http://www.flowersgalleries.com/uploads/49680.jpg

Then we wandered down to Greenwich to see the big arch and Washington Square Park. There was such a nice atmosphere there, like some cool buskers playing guitars and saxophones and a street artist drawing with sand on the floor. There was also a little area to let dogs off the lead - which looked like my idea of living hell with dogs running around like crazy in packs - and a strange man who was letting pigeons perch all over him... So we took pictures there and had tea in a quirky little italian place on a side sreet.

However I'd say that one of the highlights was walking back up because we discovered we discovered how to get to loads of places we want to see - Macy's, the Empire State Building (which looks fantastic all lit up) and a few others.

It's funny really, we thought we were staying in a pretty quiet area but the city seems to come to life at night. Nothing is closed yet and there are people EVERYWHERE. It's more difficult to walk down the street now than it was at midday! However I don't feel unsafe like I thought I would, there's so many people about and so much going on that the atmosphere really isn't sinister or threatening at all, even in the dark.

Also the people of New York obviously never ever cook for themselves because we cannot find a single supermarket. Surely they can't afford to eat out EVERY night??

Plans for tomorrow very much depend on the weather. Fingers crossed it'll be really sunny so we can go to Central Park and rent bikes :D

I've left my camera lead in my room and unfortunately that's on the 21st floor, so I won't be uploading any pictures on this post but hopefully I'll remember to bring it down tomorrow so you can see some of our antics for yourselves.

I apologise if I have made a lot of spelling mistakes/I'm not making sense; today we've walked around 8 miles in total and that mixed with jet lag and a lack of sleep is finally kicking in. So we've all crashed back at the hotel with ice-cream, crisps, fizzy pop and a pack of cards. Lovely :)

1 comment:

  1. That all sounds so fun!
    The dimes are ten cents by the way... I think... maybe.

    I hope the weather's good for you tomorrow, I was looking through the pictures of my family in New York today and it's gorgeous in the sun, plus you can start on your tan.
    Did you remember your sun cream?

    EDIT: Does aimee have a blog too? Or will she be posting here?

    ReplyDelete