Sunday, June 25, 2006

Day 4 - This city rocks!

We managed to get up fairly early this morning as last night was not too heavy. Today, we did it all! Our last full day in the Big Apple calls for a big day, so we pulled out all the stops to see as much of the city as we could. It was a bit of a rainy one again as New York seems to be getting a bit of a damp patch at the moment, but at least it made us feel at home.

Central Station was our first stop (notice you can't see any trains!)

We bought rooftop bus tour tickets for a better view of the city... and got rather wet!

This cheered us up tho. It looks a lot like Rosies in Falkirk*

Times Square is just as impressive during the day

Thar she blows

Funky building down town

Next stop... Liberty Island

The view of the city skyline was amazing

The view on the boat was pretty hilarious!

This made us smile a lot

Hiiiyyaaa!!

And I thought Americans were large... that's one BIG french girl

If you look closely you can even make out her nose hairs

The boys

I have to admit, that's one nice flag

Next stop... Ellis Island (stupid!)

Here we met Tiny Tim and Little Bob

And some stupid Scottish lads

"Whit ur ye tryin tae sae likes!!"

The two islands were pretty cool, and the view across the water towards Manhattan was spectacular. Ellis Island used to be the first port of call for hundreds of thousands of immigrants wishing to live in New York or the United States. You could see for many people this was about as much history they could find in this country. New York has such a wide mix of cultures, and all of them would have relatives who passed through these gates.

Next stop was the World Trade Center site.

One thing you notice about New York is that it really is a city that never sleeps, never stops and makes one hell of a lot of noise! You're ears are constantly being bombarded with people talking and shouting, horns blasting, trucks passing, sirens and street vendors. This made the visit to the World Trade Center site all the more poignant. The place was near silent, with people staring out into the rubble full of emotion. It's quite an emotional place and one of real historical influence on our lives. Pretty heavy stuff.




After our lap of the city we headed back to the hotel to dry off as we were pretty drenched. We decided to have a last view over the city by going to the Top of the Rock, The Rockerfeller Center. This offered uncomparable views over Manhattan and it's millions of people. A great way to finnish our sight seeing of NYC.

The rooftop view let us see the real spectacle of the Empire State Building

The city has so many interesting buildings, not just really tall ones

The clouds were just above our heads providing an ominous, surreal sky

This could have been something out of a Batman movie

Keeping with the surreal theme

Don't worry, the building wasn't moving from side to side, just us!

After a marathon Taxi journey right around the city looking for somewhere 'busy' on a Sunday night in New York we ended up in the same place we were before, Off the Wagon. We were pretty surprised of the lack of people out on a Sunday. I suppose some of us have to work eh...

Some friendly locals

*Are you kidding me!?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Met some locals??? Im from Scotland and the other two from Florida and like you guys on a road trip and we are locals???? lol come on now!