New York (September 2008)

We had a shuttle bus to the airport; the driver seemed to suffer from road rage quite a bit! I was nervous about my bags being overweight, but thankfully with a bit of reshuffling I was okay. We flew to Atlanta first and had a bit of time there as our flight to New York was delayed; we’d now arrive at 1am instead of midnight. The flights were good although turbulence made us drop a few times and I ended up with Rachael’s Sprite over me! We got off in New York and had to wait quite a while for our bags as the conveyor belt had stopped suddenly. Rachael managed to pull my leg by saying that was the end of the bags, which I fell for! We got a taxi to the hostel and on the way we saw lots of workmen working on the road. We were in luck at the hostel as they’d had some flooding somewhere so we had to stay on mattresses on the floor which was enough for them not to charge us for the night! Any kind of mattress would be comfier than what we’d been used to for the previous 10 weeks! The following morning we had to check out of that room store our bags in the lockers on the ground floor and then in the afternoon check back in again. It was sod’s law that the lift was broken so we were dragging our 50kg of bags (each!) down a floor and then back up again 3 floors! We bought a week’s pass on the subway for only £12.50 which we would use for 4 days and then pass on to someone else in the hostel. My first stop was to buy a new camera in Times Square and then we walked down some of Central Park. It was so beautiful! Apparently it is designed based on the park in Birkenhead, where Rachael is from! We spent the rest of the day looking at all the really cool shops like the giant Toys R Us which has a Ferris wheel in it, M+M World which has so many different colours you wouldn’t believe it!, Hershey’s World – famous US chocolate, Disney World – with art shop upstairs, the Apple Store and Bloomingdales. I had my photo taken with someone dressed up as Elmo from Seasame Street too! We were so fascinated by all the lights and the huge signs outside and the fact that the shops didn’t shut until 9pm/midnight that we were out until quite late without realising it! The city never slept, and neither did we! We went to bed about 2am and got up before 8am! Another Raleigh venturer Jason was also in New York. He’d arrived and was leaving a day earlier than us so we thought it would be good to explore together. We started off walking over Brooklyn Bridge, so we could see the Statue of Liberty; then back over to Manhattan which was a pretty sight. We saw Ground Zero which was just a huge building site, and then to Wall Street. We signed our names on the metal supports that will be used for a World Trade Centre memorial. We passed lots of squirrels and people dressed as the Statue of Liberty on the way to it. Next up was the Staten Island Ferry, a free trip from which you can get a bit closer to the Statue of Liberty. We just went there and back and didn’t explore the Island as we were feeling pretty exhausted! We got some food and then went to the Rockefeller Centre where you can go to the Top of the Rock for a fantastic view of Manhattan. Central Park is probably the most spectacular thing you see, followed by the Empire State Building with the memorial lights for the WTCs shining upwards. In the evening when trying to get money out for the accommodation I realised my bank card wasn’t working so I was frantically calling my parents to ask if they could go into the bank etc. On the last couple of days Rachael wanted to do shopping and I wanted to see a bit more of the sights so we split up and met up every so often. I saw The Naked Cowboy (almost naked man with a guitar) in Times square, at Union Square there was a group of dramatists acting out little plays which were less than a minute long but quite entertaining. Next to Union Square was a shop selling vegan treats like chocolate cake, brownies, muffins and cookies! I went back to the hostel in the afternoon and met up with Rachael and then we headed out to find a Broadway show to go to. We enquired about Mamma Mia but we’d have had to stand for all of it! We went to Hairspray instead, which was amazing!! It was so funny and the actors were perfect, they got a well deserved standing ovation. We did a bit of shopping afterwards in the Virgin Megastore where we were lucky enough to see a Metallica tribute band perform.

On our final day I packed my bags so that my hand luggage was very heavy as I thought my checked-in luggage would be over the limit. We put them in the lockers in the basement. I tried sorting my bank card out again (parent had already ascertained from the bank that it hadn’t been blocked so I thought it was something wrong at my side). We spent quite a while in the morning looking for a Royal Bank of Scotland but with no luck, I also tried several banks to see if they could do anything. It had taken me a while but I had a brainwave to call the number on the back of the card! It only took me three days to work that out! It was a short 5 minute conversation and they told me my card had been blocked and would be reactivated within 15 minutes! I felt so relieved! I spent the rest of the day shopping but didn’t go overboard. Having to watch what I spent for the previous few days made me very conservative! I went back to Central Park to see the ‘Imagine’ memorial paving close to where John Lennon had been murdered. Rachael and I met up in the afternoon and we had to rush back on the subway and then run to the hostel! We were in a mad panic when on the subway, counting down until 5.40pm which was when we should have been getting into the shuttle bus. We arrived with one minute to spare and let people know we were there, we had to carry our bags up which was quite a struggle as we did it in one trip to save time! The shuttle bus only arrived at 6.10pm, it usually is late apparently! The traffic was very busy and we were dotting around Manhattan picking up a few more people, one of whom was catching a 9pm flight. She arrived at 8.20pm and we arrived 8.40pm. We checked our bags in and headed through security. We got a bit carried away looking in the shop and thankfully my ears were open so I heard “final call for flight... to Edinburgh”. I was in a bit of a panic, but said goodbye to Rachael who was flying on to Manchester at the same time although her flight hadn’t been called. I ran down along beside someone else who was late! We got on the plane but then had to wait for another flight to transfer their passengers over to us. Then we had to wait for our turn in the queue to use the runway (time which is accounted for in the flight time). The trip was good. I was sitting beside some girls of the same age, and the entertainment system worked for the first time!! I was met at the airport by Anna which was really great!