Travelling the USA | New York City, NY

Wednesday 21st/Thursday 22nd September

So, it's the last place on our journey before heading back to sunny England, New York City. The Big Apple itself. As I woke up on our last day in Tahoe, I was so excited to see a place that I've been wanting to see ever since I was a kid. We got our car from the valet and headed back into San Francisco so that we could get our flight. The ride back took us on 3 hours, which is really good when comparing it to the 4.5 hours it took us on the way to Tahoe; however, we decided to have a quick stop in Sausalito. While we were here we took in the sights of the seaside town and the multitude of boats of all different sizes in the sea, it was great. We even stopped for ice-cream at a little popular store named Lapperts Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt (if you ever go, get a chocolate fudge sundae, it was amazing). As we only had an hour to park, we decided to head back to the car and back into San Francisco to drop it off. By the time we'd made our way through the heavy traffic of San Fran and to the hotel car park it was 6pm, so we left the car with the attendant and hopped on the shuttle to the airport. Unfortunately, as we got to the airport, we had to say goodbye to Emma as she was staying in San Fran. This was a bit strange as we flew to the US together, so we'd been travel buddies since day 1, but we said goodbye and Bethan and myself headed on into the airport.

This is when the waiting started. We arrived at the airport by 7pm and our flight wasn't until 7am, the day after! What we expected to be a grueling wait, ended up being pretty fun, I had my laptop, it was free wi-fi and we just chilled on some sofas, I even had a nap. Soon enough, the time came for us to get on our flights and head to the big city!

Our flight was only 5 hours long, and I slept for some of it, so it seemed like the flight went a lot faster. We eventually arrived at JFK, figured our route and headed to our AirBnb. We'd booked a room in Astoria, Queens and when we got there we were happily surprised with the quality of it. The room only cost us $140 each, however we were meeting 3 of our friends from camp who were staying with us, so that's why it was so cheap. Bethan and I dropped our bags and headed out on the hunt for some food. At the top of our road was Steinway Street, which is home to a tonne of restaurants, shisha bars and stores. We eventually settled on Greek food and we found a small little restaurant called Gyro Uno, where we both got the gyros. We headed back to the room and met up with the guys, before hitting the hay after a long, LONG day (or two days).

Friday 23rd September

After a brilliant (and much needed) nights sleep, we woke up as early as we could to see as much of New York as we could. Bethan and I had written a list of things we wanted to do whilst in NY and we were super stoked to start ticking them off. We decided to stick with the lads as they wanted to do the same things, so we waited for them to get ready and we set off into the concrete jungle. Our plan was to do the south of Manhattan and get all that we could do there, done first; so we hopped on the metro and headed down to the 9/11 memorial where the twin towers used to be. We walked through the Oculus, and headed out to the memorial. I feel like the fountains they've made are a beautiful way to honor the people and the families of the people who died in the 9/11 disaster. It's terrible to remember what happened, but we don't forget; especially the people who gave their lives to help others out of the towers. There was a family stood next to me at the memorial who seemed to focus on one name on the plaque and I can't help but feel this person must be related to them; it's horrible to think what these families must go through, we can only pray and hope they work/worked through it.

From here we headed further south and to the Staten Island Ferry. This is one of the best ways to see the Statue of Liberty, and best of all, it's FREE! This is the greatest thing you can say to a budget traveller. Outside of the building there are numerous people trying to sell the boat trips and helicopter rides, but if you can make your way through them, you can get on the ferry for nothing. As you sail over the short stretch of water, you get a great view of the Statue of Liberty and have plenty of time to take your photographs and take in the views of the City and of Staten Island. The boat ride is only 20 minutes long and you have to get off on the island, so we decided to take this opportunity to grab some lunch. We headed to a small little bar named 120 Bay Cafe, which was a small, trendy bar that was not really expensive at all. I got the Jamaican Jerk Wrap with sweet potato fries, and it came to just under $10. Bargain.

We shot back to the ferry and headed on back to the mainland to see the Brooklyn bridge. It wasn't a long walk from the ferry terminal to the bridge, so we decided to walk across it. The bridge walkway is only 1.1miles long and it was interesting to see all the padlocks and headphones tied up on the fences. Just like the Golden Gate, you can't help but think about how hard it must've been to build a grand structure like this, without the help of modern equipment, but they did it. We got to the other side and decided to take the metro back into the city.

After hopping back on the metro, Jake and Craig decided to leave and head back to the room as they were super tired, but Bethan, Tom and myself marched on and headed towards Times Square (I wanted to see it during the day and during the night). As we got off the train, you know you're in Times Square; the lights and advertisments are completely different to the rest of New York. We took our pictures, then decided to stay for sundown, so we headed into McDonalds for a drink and waited for the sun to go down. As it became darker, the lights got brighter and more people seemed to flood the streets. The street acts where in full flow and we managed to grab some more pictures of the square; something I've wanted to do since I was very young. From here, we were all cream crackered, so we hopped on the metro and headed back to the room to have a well deserved sleep.

Saturday 24th Sept

Now, the intention was to wake up as early as possible to try and see more of the city, however this was easier said than done due to long days and we didn't end up leaving the apartment until about 11am. From here we headed straight to the metro and into the city to see Central Park. I don't think I realised how big central park was until I actually got there; 6.2 miles long. Our plan was to rent bikes and see the whole park as quickly as we could as we only had the day. Outside of the park, we bumped into a lovely man named Vince, who told us about a rent-a-bike company he promoted. This was a company we'd seen online and was actually looking for, so it was great to actually bump into someone who could give us more information. Vince also told us about a nice little cafe near the rental company that we could eat at as we were all starving. We grabbed a quick spot of (late) breakfast and headed back to meet Vince, who then took us to the bike place. It was a God-send to meet him actually as in the end, he made a deal so we got 5 hours on the bikes for the price of 2 hours; only $20 each!

We grabbed our bikes and after a few issues with one, we were on our way around the huge park. Central Park is a huge one-way system for bikes, but there is so much to see along the way. There is a huge lake in the middle of the park that we all stopped to take pictures in and to admire the scenery and after a short ride we ended up at a small duck pond that was incredibly peaceful and beautiful. If you are to ever hit Central Park, I would definitely recommend getting a bike; it's such a fast and efficient way to see so much of the park if you only have a few hours. It's such a beautiful part of NYC, almost an oasis in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city.

After about 3 hours of cycling around the park, we decided it was a good idea to drop off the bikes and go to the Rockefeller Centre. We'd been told by some friends that this is the best was to see the city skyline from high up. I really wanted to climb the Empire State Building, but that was over $50 and as we were almost at the end of our trip, I was low on cash, so we went up to the Top of the Rock for $32. When we got to the top, you could see why people recommend it as you could see the whole skyline, with the Empire State in it, for $20 cheaper. I would recommend going up here if your even in NYC, but I still want to go up the Empire State when I next get the opportunity.

Once we came down from the Rockefeller Centre it was getting pretty late in the day, so we decided to take a trip through the city and head back to our room to rest up for the next day.

Sunday 25th September

After another late start in the day, we all decided to head to the American Museum of Natural History. Now this is a place that came highly recommended by friends and other blogs, and somewhere I really wanted to see. I love the Natural History Museum in London, so I was super excited to see it. As we got off the Metro, Bethan and myself got distracted as there was tonnes of market stalls, so we headed into the crowd and browsed through the stalls, before headed to the museum and meeting up with the guys. The museum is a great place to go in New York if you're into that sort of thing and low on cash as it's 'pay what you want' on the door (music to your ears if you're low on cash); they have a recommended price, but they explain that that is just a suggestion. The museum itself was great, it had so many cool exhibits, from ancient weapons to dinosaurs; but then again, it had quite a few exhibits that I found pretty boring, but I guess trees and moss isn't something I'm interested in (each to their own). Now if you're a nerd like myself, or even not, the Natural History Museum is a great thing to see; there are so many interesting things and you pay hardly anything to see it, it takes up quite a few hours without even knowing and you don't feel like you've wasted your day.

A few hours passed by and after we'd seen the dinosaur exhibits (my favourite), we decided to head out of the museum to try and find some food. We'd heard from a friend that Applebees is a great place to eat due to the size of the portions, so we jumped on a tube and shot back into Times Square. The stop was right outside of the restaurant, so we headed in and found a booth. I read the menu and was stunned at how expensive the meals were but after a while of deliberation, I decided to order one of the cheapest things on the menu, steak quesadillas. For the price of the dish (nearly $20), I was quite disappointed in the size of the portions and it tasted the same as if I was to get it from anywhere else; I didn't feel like it was really worth the money. I probably wouldn't recommend Applebees to a budget traveller like myself, as you probably could get tastier food and bigger portions for a fraction of the price from any of the multitude of food vans in NYC.

So after feeling a little bit robbed, but wiser for the future, we took a walk through the market stalls on the street outside the restaurant (sunday must be a market day in NYC). Each stall was selling trinkets and souvenirs which pretty much all had NYC on. We ended up at Times Square again, but this time the sun it was dark and we got to go on the infamous red steps. We must've stayed here for about an hour taking photos and videos of the hustle and bustle of New York City before decided to head back to the room to rest up and prepare for our final full day in the Big City.

Monday 26th September

Late days were pretty much becoming a normality as we were all so tired, so we didn't end up leaving the house until about 11am again. We'd decided the night before to hit up Coney Island, right at the bottom of Brooklyn, so we hopped back on the Subway and made the long trip south of the city. About about 70 minutes and a metro change, we arrived in Coney Island and as most of us hadn't had breakfast yet, we stopped at the local Subway for a sandwhich before heading out to the see the famous landmark. We made our way through the neighbourhood whilst checking out a couple of stores before heading into the outdoor art exhibit. If you're into art, especially street art, I would definitely say go and see the Coney Island Art Walls; super talented artists have created a vibrant and colourful art piece in, what seems to be, an old part of the amusement park. It was crazy to see the detail and colour put into the street art, I wish I could do this! We made our way through the exhibit and ended up on the promenade, where we took a nice walk until the amusement park stopped and we headed back. Unfortunately, because is was Money, nothing was open and there was a lot of construction work happening, but you could still see the life on the 'strip' and I can only imagine what it must be like on a weekend. There's a huge pier that stretched out onto the atlantic ocean that we all walked down, before decided to head back into the city so Jake could look for some gifts.

The metro back seemed to be much faster and we alighted in Soho where we wandered the streets looking for a Tiffany's and other stores that I can't afford. We eventually found everything we were looking for and decided to go on the hunt for food. After deliberating, we all decided we wanted Chinese food, so we set off on a walk to Chinatown. I love Chinatown in every big city I've been too as I love the little trinkets and novelties they sell and as you walk down the streets, you are greeted by various new sights and smells from the food that they sell there. After a while of deciding, we settled on a small little Chinese restaurant in the heart of Chinatown and we ordered our meals. For a large bowl of beef fried rice and a can of coke, it came up to less than $10, which is definitely what I like to hear. I couldn't finish the meal and I had it boxed up for breakfast the day after. If you want a tasty, cheap meal in the city, there is no better place to go than to Chinatown, the portions are always huge and the price is always small; a great way to fill up on a budget. From here, the whole group where pretty knackered, however the guys headed back to times square to get last minute gifts but me and Bethan headed back to the room to pack and prepare for our flights home tomorrow. Once the guys got back, we watched the presidential debate and hit the hay. (By the way, I feel sorry for you Americans in terms of the election... good luck).

Tuesday 27th September

Leaving day! After 110 days in the USA, today is our day to head back to 'sunny' England. It was a pretty basic morning of last minute packing and a hella long metro ride to the airport. Although I'm sad to be leaving the USA, I'm excited to be going home and seeing Tamsin and my family; it's weird being away and seeing pictures of your nephew growing up and your niece starting school but it's something we have to get used to if we're going to see the world. America has been great to me and I would recommend it to anyone to come and visit the states. Obviously I worked for a large sum of my time here and I'm glad that I did, I learned so much about other cultures and got to increase my knowledge of working with children and working overseas. I'm sad to be leaving the people I've met along the way, but I know this isn't going to be the last time I see a lot of these and I've made some lifelong friends here. I don't think I could live in the USA at the moment, but I think that it has a lot of great benifits. I knew there were differences between Britain and America, but I didn't think the divide was so extreme. The only thing I would change from this summer is that I'd have probably brought more money, America is not cheap! I wouldn't change any of the experiences I've had or any of the people I've met and I'm excited to see where my travels take me next and what I'll experience along the way.

I plan to keep this blog as up-to-date as possible with recommendations and pros/cons, but the posts probably won't be as often or as full. But who knows.

Here's to the next trip.