Sunday, September 07, 2008

New York, New York

It has been a dreadfully long time between posts! For the faithful blog followers:

Our alarm went off at a slightly unreasonable 3.45 am on the morning of flight to the Big Apple. The intent was to make it in plenty of time for our flight, leaving O'hare at the chirpy hour of 9am. Cam and I were still excited enough to stay positive, as we dragged our bags down to the Hilton loading dock, where our reliable driver from the airport had kindly told us to wait for our 5am ride. And so we waited....

And waited....

And waited....

After several calls to the transfer company ("our operating hours are between 9 - 5pm") and several attempts from the valets to try the front entrance, we admitted defeat at 5.30 and jumped in a cab...only to be honked off the road by our driver, who apparently had been waiting for us since 5 am....hmmmm.....

Anyhow, we made it safely to the airport and before long, our plane was floating down from the clouds - and there it was! The Island of Manhatten. I strained to get a glimpse of some familiar landmarks and yep! There was the statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. We had made it to the East Coast!

The next section of our trip is a little blurry as I think I blacked out from the terror that was our transfer from the airport to our hotel, through the streets of New York. Cam recalls the running of the red lights, the swaering and honking with a little more fondness than I. Unfortunately, there had been an accident in Manhatten that day and so our driver dropped us off about three blocks from our Hotel. Cam and I, ever the adventurers, trudged through the streets of New York with our luggage, in 25 degree heat and still a bit sluggish from the early morning rise, to reach our hotel. We had a quick rest, then decided to venture out and get some pizza...before turning in for the night.

The next day was the commencement of our Eastern Tour and saw us spend the morning travelling around the key sites of New York. We visited Stawberry Fields in Central Park (John Lennon memorial), drove down 5th Avenue past Tiffany's and the Rockefeller Centre, past the Flatiron building and then on to Ground Zero. The mood at Ground zero was quite subdued and our guide described the day of 5/11 - he had actually been in New York at the time.






The afternoon was to ourselves, so Cam and I decided to take a stroll up broadway and visit the discount ticket booth. We managed to get half proce tix to Chicago for that afternoon, which was a fantastic production of the show. We then wandered back through time square - stopping in at Toys R us on the way! - and then readied ourselves for our trip to upstate New York and Canada the next day.