A day in New York.

22^nd June Wednesday

We woke up ridiculously late. We had one hour for everyone to shower, pack, and check out before we were charged for taking too long.

We made the epic journey, using public transport (a shuttle, a free bus, another bus, a metro train, and a mile long walk) to Sas’s hotel. We met a few interesting characters on this adventure. The driver of the free bus decided to give us a free gymnastics demonstration using the railings on the ceiling to hang upside down (breaking his phone in the process as it fell out his pocket onto the floor), and another odd, Greek man started chatting to Alice at the bus stop, and invited us to have dinner with him. Don’t worry parents and other people, we’re not planning to take him up on this offer . Three hours later, we arrived, with very tired arms and legs, at the hotel which was a whole ten miles away from where we’d started. The US once again demonstrates its highly efficient public transport system.

Upon arriving at Sas’s hotel (which was amazingly posh) we spent a while admiring the view she had from her 20^th floor room.

We then walked up the street to Central Park.

We were all pretty hungry by this point, so we went into the nearby Plaza Hotel (definitely 5*, and probably costing an arm and a leg to stay there each night) to ask the concierge where any cheap cafes were. By the time we’d walked across the marble floors and underneath the sparkling chandeliers, we thought better of this plan, and decided to save ourselves some dignity, and not ask such a cheapskate question in such a wealthy place.

Instead we walked outside, and bought some pretzels and a hot dog off a street vendor instead. Much more us!

(Sas isn't completely won over by the pretzel.)

We ate our lunch on some grassy part of Central Park, right by a lake, which was beautiful and really serene.

Next stop was Chinatown. We had to make a stop here because Gillian required an extra bag to fit her growing amount of belongings. She is absolutely convinced that her clothes are getting it on and breeding like rabbits in the bottom of her case. That, and things like a large, blue, LA Dodger hand, and a poster of the Grand Canyon are taking up precious room. If only things like extension cables and laptops took us less space!
We found a nice cheap, smallish case with wheels and a handle (which later turned out to be the most ineffective handle ever made by mankind. It twists every time someone touches it, and especially in the middle of busy roads when we’re all about to get run over by an enthusiastic taxi driver at any moment) which was exactly what we were looking for.

Ruled by our stomachs, as ever, next on our list of places to go was Little Italy.

We had a very pleasant dinner in a very nice little Italian restaurant, with some rather charming waiters. This was our final meal with Sas, which was pretty sad since she’d pretty much instantly become part of our little group, and we’d all spend almost every waking moment with her since June 1^st.

We made the journey back to her hotel after the meal to collect our cases so we could make our way to the Greyhound bus terminal. Saying goodbye to her as we waited for the elevator down from her room was really awful- we felt like we were just abandoning her in some foreign city in some foreign country. It was all pretty sad, and I think as we made the long descent down in silence, we were all missing her terribly already. It’s okay though, because we have faithfully promised to meet up with her when we’re back in the UK for a good catch up. It will be very strange seeing her again back home rather than in some crazy American state in the middle of absolutely no where.

From our last experience on a Greyhound bus (if you remember it was from San Francisco to Los Angeles back in May!) we’d all dressed up warmly. Which was a massive hassle when dragging our many cases, uphill, through a hot and sticky New York, for miles. We eventually made it though- hot, and sweaty, and exhausted, and seriously dreading what kind of night’s sleep we were about to have.

There’s not really all that much to say- I think we were all very excited to be finally on our way to Canada. America and the Americans had been very hospitable to us, and we’d all very much enjoyed our four week stay, but we were all ready for a bit of a change of scenery, and for a new country to home us for a while. The bus was a whole lot more crowded than our first experience, and we only got one seat each (gutted).

By the way, we forgot/ couldn't be bothered to put this in the correct blog post, but this is a fun little video of us actually arriving in the Empire State (which as Bill Bryson points out in the book we've all been reading, is a ridiculous name for New York- since out of its many achievements and world renown, owning territories overseas has never been one of them).