New York, USA

Friday 21st October 2016:

Flights from London to New York aren’t exactly cheap or quick. Facing eight hours in the air, Brendan was slightly nervous about his journey with budget carrier, Norwegian.

Worried that the seats would be small, with no leg room and with no entertainment to pass the time, he was pleasantly surprised to board an ultra-modern Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The Dreamliner is equipped with extra large windows and instead of an annoying plastic sun shade has a button to electronically black out the windows. It also has an automatic light dimming system that adjusts according to the lighting outside of the plane, and each seat has a monitor screen with plenty of movies and TV shows.

Arriving at New York JFK Airport, Brendan somehow managed to keep getting diverted by airport staff to lines with the longest possible waiting times. Eventually he made it through to the other side and met up with Roslyn who by this stage had been waiting quite a while.

Out of the airport and we were straight onto using the New York subway for the first time. Although she’d been to New York previously, Roslyn had never before ventured below ground onto the trains.

Our accommodation in the esteemed Upper West Side of Manhattan was at Jazz on The Park Hostel, and was easily the most expensive hostel we’ve ever stayed at. It would also be a major contender for most basic. Not the grubbiest or worst. Just basic. For the full New York experience, the hostel is just moments from the huge Central Park on a very New Yorky numbered street, West 106th Street.

On Saturday morning we boarded the subway again and headed downtown. A side note about the subway. We managed to get around without major incident over the weekend, but overall found the system harder to figure out than the London tube or even the Paris metro.

The first stop was to see the bright flashing lights and billboards of Times Square.

Next we headed across to the Staten Island Ferry, probably one of New York’s best attractions and yet also free! The ferry sails from the main commercial hub of Manhattan across to Staten Island, past the Statue of Liberty. At Staten Island we disembarked the ship, walked through the terminal and boarded another ship for the return to Manhattan.

At the site of the 2001 terror attacks, the former World Trade Centre complex is now largely an open plaza with copses of trees, known as the 9/11 Memorial. Two huge recessed fountains sit within the building footprints of the Twin Towers, with the names of the almost 3,000 victims inscribed into bronze plates. The 9/11 Museum is also here, mostly underground beneath the plaza, however due to the lengthy admittance line we elected to keep that as an activity for later.

We were feeling the cold and so after a quick stop off to buy an additional layer of clothes (thermal shirts as it turned out these were the most practical), we set off to walk over one of the world's most iconic bridges, Brooklyn Bridge. Measuring just over 1.8 kilometres in length, the bridge connects Manhattan to Brooklyn and we walked the full length. The views of the city were amazing, but the icy wind made us wish we were in a car below.

Once we'd reached Brooklyn we headed into another of America's burger institutions, Shake Shack. Shake Shack did actually open a store here in London last year that we went to, but Brendan was unimpressed by the relatively plain and overly greasy flavour and poor value for money. The experience in New York was much better though!

Now dark we ventured back out into the cold night air and set off across the bridge once more, heading towards Broadway and Times Square. We passed by the street where Taylor Swift lives, although she was out of town that weekend anyway. The square becomes even more alive at night, illuminated by the colours of the countless huge moving billboards, with street performers and tourists everywhere.

We eventually made it back to our accommodation, exhausted from having walked more than 11 kilometres today.

The next morning started with a cycle tour of Central Park. The size of the 341 hectare park really is hard to grasp until you are there and see it in person. There were plenty of sights familiar from movies and TV shows, including the Bethesda Terrace that overlooks the lake and the nearby Boathouse, in addition to The Mall. With its wide paved walkway, unique fencing and canopy of trees, The Mall is the epitome of Central Park sights.

Around two hours of cycling later we headed to Ess-a-Bagel, which is regarded as one of the best bagel shops in New York and came highly recommended by Roslyn's New York-based colleague, Josh. We'd been told to prepare for a wait, although queueing for almost an hour for what is basically a sandwich with a hole in it was borderline insanity. The bagels were really good, but if we were to return it wouldn't be on a weekend when all the other tourists are there as well.

Next we were off to the Rockefeller Centre to ascend 70 floors to the Top of the Rock Observation Deck. From up here we had sweeping views across the city, looking out at the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Times Square, over Central Park and across the Hudson and East Rivers.

Later on we caught up with one of Brendan's long lost friends from high school, Sam Daley. Hailing from humble Burrawang, she's now living and working in New York as a nanny! We wandered around for a while and then went to Junior's for cheesecake (also on the suggestions from Josh).

For Top of the Rock we'd booked a Sun and Stars package, enabling us to visit both in the daytime and at night. After showing us around for a few hours, Sam headed off and we returned to the Rockefeller Centre to watch the city sparkle as our night drew to a close. But this is the city that never sleeps so even if we mere two individuals were sleeping, the city was surely still alive.

On our final day in the Big Apple we headed back over to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, to pay a visit to the Museum itself. The layout and displays are all very well put together, documenting the lead up to 11 September 2001 and the impact of that fateful day, whilst honouring the victims. The museum is set underground beneath the Memorial plaza, with parts of the original Twin Towers building foundations integrated into the displays.

Other items on show include emergency services vehicles that arrived at the scene and were later damaged by debris, news broadcasts from the day, as well as various versions of footage from the attacks. Amongst the more harrowing parts of the collection are actual recordings of radio conversations between the cabin crew and air traffic control, and answering machine messages left by and for the victims.

We returned to the Theatre District for lunch then doughnuts from Dough Doughnuts (one more ticked off Josh's list). A final stop in Times Square, in front of a web cam that Brad was watching at home, and then it was back to our hostel to collect our belongings and head to the airport.

Since Roslyn had initially flown over to Las Vegas for work, she was entitled to a work-paid return journey. We farewelled each other on the airport shuttle and then boarded our separate planes. A wonderful and whirlwind time in New York, and somewhere we look forward to visiting again.

Highlights:

- Long time waiting in immigration

- First time using the New York subway

- Stayed in the esteemed Upper West Side of Manhattan

- Times Square

- Staten Island Ferry, past Statue of Liberty

- 9/11 Memorial

- Walked over Brooklyn Bridge

- Shake Shack

- Times Square at night

- Walked over 11 kilometres on Saturday

- Central Park cycle tour

- Bethesda Terrace

- The Mall

- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

- Lunch at Ess-a-Bagel

- Rockefeller Centre, Top of the Rock – Sun and Stars package

- Caught up with Sam Daley
- Grand Central Station

- Junior's for cheesecake

- 9/11 Museum

- Dough Doughnuts