New York City!! Everything I ever dreamed of!

So today we departed from Quinipet , leaving the peace behind us! :) We got up at 5am and packed remaining stuff, was on the ferry by 6.30am and on the Hampton bus on route to Manhattan by 7.15am.

(As you can see we had a lot of luggage)

After arriving in New York City at 10am we hopped into a taxi are drove to the hotel... Well not quite. The taxi driver was a Middle Aged Indian man that couldn't help us lift the luggage into the taxi because of his heart problems (bless him!). He was the most stereotypical Indian man I've ever met, and absolutely hilarious! We heard his life story and I just happened to look at his badge and guess who's taxi we had jumped in?

So as the story goes 'me- you're a Kumar?! I'm a Kumar!' And the Kumar bond was formed and a mutual respect for each other also formed . We got to the hotel, handed Mr Kumar his cash and tip and he drove off, only for us to find out later that he had dropped us 3 blocks away from our actual hotel and we ended up having to walk with our huge suitcases !  Typical!! Anyway we finally arrived at the hotel, checked in and dropped off our luggage where we met the maintenance man Allonso who we ended up speaking to for half an hour :) he was super helpful and have us some hints and tips about NYC.

Off we then went to Central Park and what a jam packed day it was... I didn't realise how big it actually was until we arrived. We saw the mall ( where many movies have been filmed such as batman, breakfast at tiffinys, maid in manhattan etc)...

Also the John Lennon imagine mosaic in the strawberry fields...

Columbus circle...

Bethesda fountain ( the one from 'Friends')...

The Alice in wonderland statue...

We also had packed a picnic from Quinipet which we enjoyed in a grassy area with a good view of the New York skyline.

It was so much fun and I think we must have looked totally crazy and we took some videos of us dancing to Pharrells song 'happy' in various parts of Central Park just like the music video (did I mention we have a selfie stick which we can put a camera on with a self timer?). Yes I know it all sounds crazy but it was super fun. I think we must have walked miles by 5pm when we got back to the hotel because everyone's feet were hurting. After doing a bit of unpacking we left the hotel to grab some food and I had a slice of 1 dollar pizza which was delicious! ( dinner for $1 sorted). We are going to try and eat at some typical American places, there is a Wendy's down the street, also chipotle, Auntie Anne's pretzels and many diners to choose from. 

Times Square was a 5 minute walk from our hotel so we stopped to take a look and yes it really is as good as you imagine. It had such a buzz.

After eyeing up some souvenir prices we have figured out that I'm good with haggling down Indian shop owners so we know where we are going to get our gifts from (thanks for that skill there dad!). Tomorrow is Rockerfeller centre, Metropolitan museum of art, Natural history museum, Empire hotel (from gossip girl) and the Empire State Building in the evening ! Busy busy busy.

Will write tomorrow.

Xoxo Aims