No sleep, no worries!

We were a novelty on the train this morning for my friends Mum.. She was so excited to take the train to Manhattan from Long Island with us!
She had bagels with cream cheese and coffee ready for us and got us to call her mate (who was a red head) and explain that we call em rangas (gingers) in Oz! Funnily enough she was a ranga and so was Gem so they had a great old ranga chat!
She also knew the conductor of the train so he came over to meet us and gush over us, then the people in the seating booths wanted to chat to us - was hilarious.

Decided to check out the Empire State Building, luckily my old boss works there so we got up to the top at no cost with no lines. Beautiful, sweeping views of the city from the 86th floor.

We then met a friend of mine for lunch and met his lovely new wife. His work was right by Grand Central Station which we ended up in by accident and glad we did coz it was beautiful.

After that it was time to head to Times Square to purchase our Broadway Theater tickets. I wanted to see Jersey Boys and Gemma wanted to see Stomp. Who knows how but we ended up at Mary Poppins!

Mary Poppins was cool, I was more awed by the stage props and effects then the performance itself but it was another item checked off our list.
During the show I took off my shoes as my feet were so sore from pounding the pathways. Come the interval, I had lost one! At the end of the show there were 4 of us crawling around looking for my sandal haha.

We decided we would only stay out until 1am as we had to head to JFK airport to fly out to Miami at 6am...
..We got home at 5am.

We started off at the Australian and probably too many shots later we were on our way! I have no idea where we went but there were many bars, many drinks and many people.
I do know we went to Coyote Ugly and danced on the bar. I know this coz there are photos and when I sobered up a bit at the airport I realized I was wearing one of their singlets!!

Come 6am the Cadillac was waiting outside to take us away and we were exhausted.

Best way to end our stay in New York!!

Brooklyn Heights

Massive day today.

Was so happy to have avocado on toast for breakfast. Anyway!

Headed to Brooklyn on the subway and walked the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan, beautiful weather again and wicked views.

Checked out some street performers then headed into Wall street to see what all the fuss was about. It was just a long street haha so went to Soho to check out a cute little cafe right by the subway. Delish lunch over, we jumped back on the subway and headed to Macy's. Dayumm that place is huge!

Caught the train to Long Island to meet Vincent, who I worked with at the Lions, and to head to the Mets v Washington Baseball game.

We got completely lost trying to get into Citi Field (the stadium) for about 40mins.. Finally got in there for the start of the third inning.
How cool in American Baseball?! The atmosphere was awesome.

Was soo disappointed to find out that Popper Jacks are really just caramel popcorn and nuts. I thought it was some exciting new food I hadn't tried. Was still yummy though!

After that we went back to Long Island to Northport where Victor lives to make smors. Except all the shops were shut so that ended that idea pretty fast!

One more day left in New York then Miami! Yeewwwww

Jet Lagged motions

We had intended to get up at 9... But with hangovers as bad as ours, coupled with jet lag, we ended up sleeping until 11am.

Gemma then decided to spew, and wouldn't even get out of the bed to do it. I nearly gagged haha, so yuck. I hate people spewing in beds, beds are for sleeping.

Being the anniversary of 9/11 we headed to the World Trade Center to pay our respects. The place was packed and had quite an eerie feel. I was covered in goose bumps.
The memorial centre was closed to the public, open only to family who had lost their loved ones.

We caught the subway to the Staten Island Ferry to check out the Statue of Liberty, as it was another sunny & warm day. We didn't last long on the Island, after a delish turkey sandwich we were on our way back again.

When we arrived back at the hotel we thought we would have a nap before we made our way to watch a Broadway show. Long story short we never made the show! Instead we napped for a few hours and then went to Union Square for dinner, drinks and dessert. I think the jet lag may have finally caught up on us!

New York, we've arrived

We found our hotel and checked in at 2am. An awesome little place in West Village called The Larchmont Hotel - a great location.

Managed to get next to no sleep but got up early and went to find all the crap we needed due to loss of luggage!

Made our way to Union Square and then to Central Park.
The place is huge and surrounded by incredible apartments all occupied the the extremely wealthy and famous.
Did the mandatory pretzel, hot dog and Starbucks in the park while people watching. Pretzel tasted like sh!t.

From there we somehow decided it would be a good idea to walk to Times Square... It was a lot further away than we thought!!

Went shopping and bought new clothes for that night and the next day. Spent up large at MAC too!

Having no luggage was super frustrating. I think the hotel probably thought I was super frustrating when I called every half hour looking for it too!

Met up with my old CEO from Baseball Australia for dinner and drinks and in true John style he showed us NY!

Meeting at the Liberty bar on 35th at 7, we arrived and he was late. Luckily he had put our names on the door so we headed in, only to find we were in the middle of a cocktail competition for Appleton Rum.
Free cocktails of every kind lined the room and there were 'celebrity' judges with cameras everywhere. The only one I recognized was the chick from Hangover 2. Anyway John finally arrived with some friends and 4 hours later at midnight, while drinking at The Australian, we realized we hadn't made it to dinner yet and we should get some. Immediately.

I wanted Japanese (obviously) so we found a restaurant that was open and settled in. No idea what it was called or where it was but it was delicious and everyone should definitely go there!

After enough sashimi, edamame and saki we headed to John's apartment to see what all the fuss was about. Looking straight out to the Empire State Building, the views were incredible. We drank champagne and decided to go dance on the bar at Coyote Ugly.

Somehow instead we ended up at some little bar drinking again. Anyway fast forward to 5am and a street kebab later, we made it back to the hotel to find our luggage patiently waiting for us! That happy.