After crossing much of middle America on a mid afternoon flight from Houston, I arrived to New York right on sunset, and was greeted by a window seat view of the skyline of my favourite city in the world. That's right. The world. Deal with it, Australia.
So pleased to be reunited with my beautiful friend Prue who flew over on the same day to travel with me for 10 days before commencing a semester of her studies in Pennsylvania. After staying our first night near JFK, on Tuesday morning we trekked (by which I mean a private transfer, of course) to our hotel in the heart of Manhattan, one block from Times Square. After dumping our bags, we headed to the nearest subway station, destined for Chelsea where we'd planned lunch with Luci - an Armidale friend who happened to be visiting NYC for a few days from Toronto. (gotta love facebook for facilitating random international encounters!) Low and behold, Luci tapped me on the shoulder as I was buying my week pass for the subway and we got all excited and "huggy" (new word) before all heading down to Chelsea together.

We braved afternoon rain and walked along the High Line before finding a really neat little restaurant for lunch. August by month, and August by restaurant name, as it were... http://augustny.com/. Highly recommended.
After lunch, we caught the subway back up towards midtown and explored a bit, including the giant Macy's, before saying bye to Luci. (Great to see her!)

That night, Prue and I did the 2 hour sunset loop cruise of Manhattan, and got to see the city from all angles. I didn't get to do this in 2006, and was so glad I did it now - gives you a full perspective of the layout of Manhattan and all that the city encompasses - architecturally at least. In a more cultural sense, I'm always moved and inspired by how much of a melting pot New York is for all cultures, religions, political views, attitudes, and so forth. The context of how the city has evolved over the last 400 years is possibly one of the most fascinating examples of human development I have studied, and it's particularly interesting to see the extent to which NYC pioneered so many social and political conventions that we take for granted in our modern society. For more, I suggest EVERYONE watch the PBS 'America: A Documentary Film' series. I own it on DVD but you can only borrow it one at a time: form an orderly queue.
Back on dry land, Prue and I utilised our City Pass to go to the top of the Empire State Building - preceded by a Kevin Bacon narrated 4D film experience 'Sky Ride'. Suffice to say my response to this was somewhere in the middle of being overwhelmed and underwhelmed... "Can you ever just be 'whelmed'??"
The views from the 86th floor were, of course, magnificent. After our fill of tourist activities, we grabbed massive slices of pizza and crashed around midnight.
I love you, New York.
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