NYC 11-12/9

We left London in a pre-booked minicab instead of tackling the tube. A great move in retrospect as we wouldn’t have managed very well considering how bloody heavy our bags are at the moment. The flight was with American Airlines whom we’ve not flown with before. It was a good flight and we managed to get through three movies each before landing at John F. Kennedy Airport. Getting through US Immigration was fairly straightforward and we had a remarkably pleasant officer (compared with some UK counterparts). He even recommended some live music venues after discovering that was one of our interests. Once we cleared customs we grabbed our bags and headed out to the cab dispatcher. Our cab saw us headed towards Manhattan, very pleased to be in the US. Unfortunately the cabbie didn’t seem to share our enthusiasm or good mood for that matter, he was pretty much driving dangerously most of the way into the city and upon arrival (once he found our hostel) proceeded to berate us when we started to ask a question about the fare. We came to an understanding fairly quickly and, determined not to let his vile attitude spoil our evening we settled into our room with some dinner. On Saturday morning we got up fairly early and walked from our hostel on the Upper West Side (94th Street) down Broadway to have some breakfast. We then continued walking and taking in the sights: hundreds of yellow cabs and New Yorkers out walking their dogs. We worked up a bit of an appetite by lunch time and had some food at the Brooklyn Diner, a traditional styled American diner serving what they called ‘uncomplicated American food’. I had a bagel along with scrambled eggs and salmon while Kirsten had a super yummy prawn salad. Next up we walked down to Times Square, which was really busy with people queuing for tickets to broadway shows and generally milling about gawping at the giant neon signs and souvenir stores. Further down Broadway we came to the Flat Iron Building, a real highlight in New York architecture, the photos we took will hopefully do it justice. We had a fair bit of drizzle most of the day, though not enough to stop us walking. There was a market in Union Square, we also had a bit of a look in Puma where Kirsten got some 80’s style high top sneakers. We needed a bit of a rest stop at this stage so we found a cool bar named Leela Lounge and had a drink. Following our recovery we had a look at some cool stores around Houston and Wooster Streets, like the Adidas flagship store, Camper (new shoes for me!) and Kid Robot (where it was difficult not to buy awesome collectibles). It was time to get something for dinner by this stage so we walked over to Little Italy where a street fair was in full swing. We had read about Lombardi’s coal fired pizza restaurant in a guide book and wanted to check it out. Lombardi's is apparently the first pizza restaurant in NYC, having been established in 1905. It was quite busy being a Saturday night but after about half an hour we were seated. It was well worth the wait. The pizza was delicious accompanied by some great atmosphere to boot. To finish off our massive day we caught the subway home and made it back to the hostel ready for a serious rest.