{"id":61,"date":"2006-11-14T06:39:24","date_gmt":"2006-11-14T05:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/?p=61"},"modified":"2006-11-14T06:42:55","modified_gmt":"2006-11-14T05:42:55","slug":"what-else-we-did-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.squage.com\/blog\/?p=61","title":{"rendered":"What Else We Did In New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

Howdy Blog Fans!<\/p>\n

Sorry about the lack of updates over the last few days. The more astute and\/or impatient of you may have noticed that Pat uploaded even more photos<\/a> on Saturday, but aside from that we’ve been avoiding PCs for a bit, which is nice.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we’re now in New Zealand but I’ll come onto that in another blog entry. This one’s a quick (ahem) review of What Else We Did In New York:<\/p>\n

Went on a Bus Tour<\/b>
\nWe decided to give up on the “pretending to not be tourists” thing and go for the Gray Line open-top bus tour of Manhattan. <\/p>\n

It was pretty interesting, plus got a couple of seats to ourselves and the tour guide himself – a jewish guy who’d been in Manhattan for about 40 years and was as stereotypical a New Yoiker as I could imagine – was quite funny.<\/p>\n

Dunno if he’d’ve understood irony, but there didn’t seem time to investigate.<\/p>\n

Here I am soaking up the infotainment (shudder):<\/p>\n

\"Squage<\/a><\/p>\n

Went to the Empire State Building…<\/b>
\n…and were talked into taking the “New York Sky Ride + Empire State Viewing Platform” package, as by the time we’d to there (about 6pm) the queues were over an hour long – but if you went to the sky ride you skipped the queues for only blah blah blah more plus you get blah blah etc, etc.<\/p>\n

Anyway, first stop was the Sky Ri-actually, no, first stop was getting through an airport-style X-Ray machine (over the top security? In America?? What???), then<\/i> onto the Sky Ride, which itself was quite cool.<\/p>\n

It was basically a simulator ride (one of those pneumatic “throws you about in your seat” jobbies), voiced by Kevin Bacon (for some reason) of a helicopter-type ride around New York, starting from and ending at the Empire State and occasionally going into crazy “out of control, passing through crowds of people comedically falling out of the way” mode… quite funny. <\/p>\n

Sadly this was marred a little by the New York City promotional video, which preceded it. I can’t quite put into words how cringeworthy it was for a cynical English person-er, I mean Squag\u00c3\u00a9-to watch a video soundtracked by enthusiastic (and no doubt holding headphones passionately whilst in the studio) Americans, crooning “Iiiii Aaamm New York… Ooooh Yeah… Neeeww York… I Aaaam New Yorrrk…”<\/p>\n

I honestly thought it was a spoof at first. Hey ho, nothing wrong with being proud of where you come from I suppose (an Essex upbringing didn’t provide Pat or I a great deal of experience of this, sadly)…<\/p>\n

Anyway, after all that we skipped the long queues and made our way to the top of the Empire State.<\/p>\n

It’s an odd feeling being in the Empire State lifts. You get in, it all seems normal. It starts to move up, you feel it accellerate quite fast. You watch the floors count up… 1… 2… 3..4..5,6,7,8,9,10….. then after two seconds: 20… then 30… 40… etc. My ears actually popped twice on the way up!<\/p>\n

Once at the top, Pat had to put on his bravest “I’m not crapping myself, really” face to pose for this photo:<\/p>\n

\"Pat<\/a><\/p>\n

It almost worked.<\/p>\n

The views from the top were amazing<\/i>… you could see for miles and miles and New York City lit up at night is a wonderous sight to behold. Amoungst lots of “Scared and Shaking” blurry photos, Pat managed to take one particularly nice one:<\/p>\n

\"NYC<\/a><\/p>\n

Oh and hello to the two guys from Bristol (hope you recovered from The Phear) and the mum and two daughters from the midlands who I met and got chatting to. Was nice to have a chin-wag with some peeps from home!<\/p>\n

Ate Food<\/b>
\nAfter that we wandered into TGI Fridays, which has even less Veggie stuff than TGIs in the UK, but still managed to make Pat so full he could hardly walk.<\/p>\n

He’s going to be SO fit for the Kiwi Experience activities in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

FRIDAY<\/b><\/p>\n

Washed Clothes<\/b>
\nYES! Live the dream! Mainly this is being mentioned due to the lovely Thai lady in the laundret-sorry, Laundromat close to our hostel, because on getting chatting with Pat and finding out he was going to Bangkok on the way back she gave him a big book all about Bangkok city! It really made Pat feel chuffed about the kindness of people, that did.<\/p>\n

Saw the Statue of Liberty<\/b>
\nWent on a boat tour thing, which was good – Pat got lots of photos during it of the Statue herself:<\/p>\n

\"Statue<\/a><\/p>\n

Manhattan Island:<\/p>\n

\"Manhattan<\/a><\/p>\n

Brooklyn Bridge:<\/p>\n

\"Brooklyn<\/a><\/p>\n

And we convinced someone to take a photo of us:<\/p>\n

\"Pat,<\/a><\/p>\n

Met a couple of cool ladies from Dublin, who were over on business. Again it was nice to have a chat with people from closer to home…<\/p>\n

Saw Another<\/i> Film<\/b>
\nThis time it was The Departed<\/i><\/a>. Some great acting, a good plot and overall a big Thumbs Up.<\/p>\n

Went to a Broadway Show<\/b>
\nWell it was technically an off-broadway show, but it’ll do. Pat heard you could get half-price tickets to various shows via some people at Times Square, so he went up to one of them and bought some tickets for the show the particular person was promoting. It was called Altar Boyz. It’s a musical comedy about a religious boy band group.<\/p>\n

I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry! On arrival Pat was relieved that this was clearly<\/i> a very manly thing to be watching, as he was surrounded in the seats by:<\/p>\n