new york, New York, NEW YORK !!! oh yeah it rocks .... we only went for 3 nights, but you definitely need at least a week there to see it all and shop, shop, shop and shop some more. We flew over on Continental £160 incl taxes baby, love being in the travel business some days .... and they are pretty good to fly on. We got in about 2pm and caught a YELLOW CAB from EWR to the city - was $57 incl the tolls. Kelly had booked us into the wicked place although Paul and I did start to worry when we walked into reception and saw it was a hostel, my backpacking days are numbered and I was not wanting to do that in NYC, but trust me she said and trust her we did and she sure came through http://www.1291.com/gallery/index.html check out the one with the spiral staircase. The room has a massive king size bed that the 3 of us could have slept in comfortably, a big plasma screen, kitchen and my room had a double bed and a deck off it. So much cheaper than a hotel and you got loads more for it. Kelly had booked us to see the Knicks play that night and boy was it cool - only prob was it was at 7.30pm US time but 1.30am UK time and after the first quarter I could not hold my eyes open and slept through the rest of it. Paul and Kelly had a great giggle over that and of course at taking pictures of me asleep oh and they said that I had gotten on the big screen "asleep" and of course I believed them for 2 days doh. NYC is so alive, so many people, so many yellow cabs, so many bright lights, so much noise, the freaky steam coming up from the man holes, the constant beeping of horns, the noise and vibration of the subway as it goes under you, the buildings are enormous and actually so are the people - but in height too haaha. Its very easy to get around and being a grid system there is no way you'd get lost. On the Saturday night we went up the Empire States building at night, this was my favourite part of the trip. It was so quiet up there and had an eeiry but peacefulness to it. Was only $18 to get up to the top and we all took loads of pictures, luckily we went up that night as it was really clear the next 2 days were really foggy and you wouldn't have seen a thing. We went and looked at the World Trade Centre site, there is a lot of construction on for the new freedom tower which is due for completion in 2012. They have massive pictures up and a time scale of the hours/minutes leading up to the event. The area is absolutely massive and it really does leave you with sadness to know that so many people died in that very spot. On our last day we caught the ferry over to Statton Island which goes straight past the Statue of Liberty, its a free ferry and runs every 25 minutes .. bargain. It was still really foggy that day and when the ferry came back into the city it had gotten foggier. On TV the statue looked so big, not saying it isn't but I thought it would be bigger, still was a wicked site to see though. The city too looked incredible with the fog hanging low over the buildings made for some great pictures. It was such a fun trip and cant wait to go back again.