New York: third time lucky!

Dec 21-23

For my last two nights in America I headed back to New York. Though I went by myself, I managed to meet up with four friends from UMass (who were all there separately) and by huge coincidence one of them was staying at the same hostel as me!

I arrived early afternoon on Wednesday but it took forever to get to the hostel, due to the amount of time I had to wait for a bus. Eventually, I got there..And then quickly left to start my tourist-ing! While in Toronto I saw something on the news about Lady GaGa taking over a floor of Barney’s (a department store) to sell weird and wonderful things in the name of charity. After discovering that it was only a few blocks away from my hostel, I decided to have a look. It was actually really cool, even though I’m not a Lady GaGa fan. The whole Lady GaGa “area” was colourful, with very strange drawings and figures all over the place. The stuff they were selling wasn’t actually all that interesting: mostly make up, hair things, bits and bobs. Worth seeing though.

I walked back along 5^th Ave towards Times Square, where I saw many Christmas decorations. At Times Square I bought my ticket to “Anything Goes”- a show I had tried to see on both of my previous trips to NY, but missed out on both times. I then went down towards the Rockefeller Center, stopping a few times to take pictures of the incredible Christmas decorations. Of course now I don’t have those pictures.. But I’m glad I had a look, nonetheless. The Rockefeller Center has a HUGE Christmas tree, decorated with magnificently colourful lights. There is also ice skating, and the plaza is decorated with angels and lights. The Rockefeller Plaza was impressive last time I came, but it was so much more incredible with all the Christmas cheer!

I met up with Mari (friend from UMass- from Japan) for dinner. We ate at a nice little Irish pub. Irish pubs seem to be ridiculously common in NY, and often quite cheap places to eat. Slightly rushed dinner because I had to get to the show, but it was nice to catch up one last time. Then “Anything Goes”!!! It was sooooooooooooooooooooo good! I’m so glad I finally got to see it. The title number, which includes tap dancing, was by far the highlight. It’s one of the most incredible musical numbers I’ve ever seen performed. Sutton Foster was amazing. And Emily from Gilmore Girls was in it! Never knew she could sing... Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Thursday morning I set off to get myself tickets to another show. This time: “Memphis”! I then got a subway down to the bottom of Manhattan, where I found the Brooklyn Bridge. I managed to take some pictures on a disposable camera, so *fingers crossed* some of them come out decent. You get an incredible view of the city from Brooklyn Bridge, even though the bridge itself is largely under construction. Next stop was St Paul’s chapel which is effectively a memorial for 9/11. The chapel was used as a shelter and food supplier for volunteers during the time of crisis, and inside you can read about many people’s stories, as well as photos/letter/anything in memory of those who were lost. Really interesting. After this I headed to the official WTC memorial. It’s free to go, but they limit how many people can go in each day, by allocating times online (so you have to book ahead). It only opened September this year (on the ten-year anniversary) and it’s still not complete, so they’re trying to make sure not too many people are there at once- and security is very very tight. Basically they’ve made the places where the buildings used to be into "pools" which are like fountains, with the names of everyone whose lives were lost around the edges, sorted by their position; whether they were part of the rescue effort, a passenger on one of the planes, or inside one of the buildings etc.

I got the subway again up to the High Line. The High Line used to be a rail line, but has now been turned into a park/walkway which looks over the roads. It’s really cool sitting on a bench, surrounded by plants, looking over the roads below. The whole place is really pretty, a nice walk with some good views of Empire State & Chrysler, plus the general area (Chelsea) 

Then I met Florian (friend from UMass-from Germany) at Penn station, from which we walked to the Rockefeller Center to Julienne (also from UMass- also from Germany). Florian and I got tickets to go up the Rockefeller, hoping to be up there for sunset. Sadly, we were too late, there was a ninety minute wait between purchasing tickets & actually going up. At least you don’t have to wait around in a queue!  In this time we got dinner at a Chinese restaurant. It was sooooo good to catch up with both of them, as they are both really close friends. I said goodbye to Julienne, and Florian and I headed up the Rockefeller.

The ceiling of the lift is clear, and there are weird lighting/visual effects as you go up all 69 floors..Kind of cool, but also kind of made me feel sick. Once you get up there, there are three different viewing platforms. One indoor, one outdoor with glass, and one outdoor with no glass. The top one is absolutely stunning; panoramic views. New York looks amazing from all the way up there at night, but I definitely would’ve liked to have seen it during the day too. While we were up there we met up with Maxim (also from UMass, also from Germany) and had a look in this random room, where it is allegedly a “game”. We couldn’t quite figure out how one wins the game, but basically the room is filled with motion detectors and it lights up as you walk around, with all sorts of coloured lights. Very cool.

I said goodbye to both Maxim and Florian, and quickly rushed off to “Memphis”. I absolutely loved it! Matt said that he saw it when he was in NY in August (just after I left) and highly recommended it. I think it’s a lot like Hairspray. It’s about a white guy who really loves the music black people are making, and falls in love with a black girl who he is trying to assist in becoming famous. It’s funny, and it’s sad. The music is great, and the dancing is amazing. Great way to end my trip to New York, and even my trip to America.

Now...over to Europe!