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New York! Take two! Got onto the bus with Jess at night no dramas, said a sad goodbye to Toronto and endured 10 hours of leg cramps and interrupted sleep only to wake up in the city that never sleeps! Unfortunately it wasn’t snowing or covered in a dusting of ice like I’d hoped, but it’s still New York.

I didn’t rate it that much when I first came, but I was super excited to be back. We taxied to the hostel then set out to Soho to start the reason we’d come (shopping). Spent a good few hours (and dollars) there, saw Union Square then caught the subway back to Columbus Circle, did some more shopping then trekked to Times Square and (surprise surprise) shopped some more, then headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for an early dinner – were told that it would be an hour and a half wait – so crossed to Planet Hollywood (essentially the same thing), got greeting by another mile long line, told the staff that we were only going to the bar for a drink, skipped the line and ended up sea-gulling a table and ordering food. Winning!

We then headed back to the hostel for an early night – we were unfortunately in different rooms which made making plans to get up at the same time difficult.

Day 2:

We rose early and bumped into each other on the staircase (our body clocks are obviously synced), had a cheap brekky at the hostel then caught the subway to Soho again where we got a psychic reading done. I really wanted to do it even though I don’t usually believe in that stuff. The psychic was pretty right on with everything though and said some crazy stuff. Was a worthwhile experience. Then we headed to Tiffany’s to meet Lauren from exchange. We waited for a good half hour for her to show up, got too cold and so went inside to browse. I ended up buying a ring, which I love.

We tried street meat (me a yiros, Jess a falafel), it actually wasn’t bad. Then we trekked for ages trying to find a Starbucks (surprisingly difficult) for the free wifi. We finally found one and tried to Facebook Lauren to find out where she was, but had problems, so we arranged to meet her a little later at a Starbucks in Times Square. By this time it was starting to get dark so we hiked ot the Rockerfeller Centre to see the ice skating and big Christmas tree. It wasn’t as spectacular as I thought it would be, but it was very shiny and colourful. I bought a ticket to go to the top of the Rock, and couldn’t go up for another two and a half hours so we headed to Times Square to try and meet Lauren. We ended up getting confused again and so I left Jess to go to the Rock and she went off to find Lauren. The top of the Rock was pretty cool, but cold. It was awesome seeing New York at night and the Empire State was visible which was pretty.

After another saga we FINALLY met Lauren (by about 9ish) and trekked for ages ending up at a Japanese place where the food was quite good and we got free wine.

Day 3:

Got up early again to quickly pack and then check out. Met another girl from exchange in the bathrooms, seems everyone’s coming here for New Years! Then once we’d checked out we subwayed to Columbia University, which was amazing...kind of looked like ancient Rome. And then walked through Harlem. Harlem wasn’t as ghetto as I thought it’d be but it was still pretty intimidating for two young white girls. There were people dancing in the street and music playing everywhere – definitely different out there.

We then caught the subway to the Upper East side to meet Lauren again, and we all went for the ‘best pizza’ in New York. It basically tasted like other pizzas I’ve had over here but was still tasty.

Needing to burn that off we trekked to Central Park planning on ice skating. We ended up walking along the road from one side to the other because we couldn’t find the entrance. Fun times. We finally found it though and were all excited...until we saw the line. It was HUUUUUUUGE and by this time I needed to do a few things before leaving so we unfortunately didn’t get a chance to ice skate there. Devo.

So we walked to Times Square and I bought a new bag because my suitcase was overweight, and purchased a few souvies along with it. Said a quick goodbye to Lauren and headed to the Hostel to grab my things (did a quick shop before), hauled my stuff down the subway steps got told the subway was delayed (by this stage I was pushing for time) so lugged my stuff back up the stairs and hailed a taxi.

Got to see Zach at the bus station and said a goodbye to him and then boarded. I didn’t have time/forgot to pay for my extra baggage but luckily my naive acting paid off and the bus driver let me go without paying for it. Phew. The bus was chockers on the way to Syracuse then most people got off so I had two seats to spread out on.

Got into Toronto in the wee hours of the morning and was lucky enough to wait in the freezing cold (-2) for the airport transfer, and then was off to the airport ready to head to Vancouver!