New York

As you can see from the photos we had a unique entry to the apple. Instead of the JFK landing we had a dusk arrival by bus from Boston. This is the best view of Manhattan i have ever seen. The side on view of this the most amazing metropolitan I have ever visited was awesome from the bus seat as we peaked over several bridges on the highway in. We disembarked in the middle of noodletown (Chinatown) and headed all the way up to just north of central park at 116st. We settled into a fairly cool apartment complete with full kitchen which we took advantage of by cooking in it all 4 nights, sharing the duties with Rhi and Timmy who I shared the room with. The first couple of days we showed Rhi times square and 5th avenue effectively showing her the way to the shops so she could visit later in the week. We also did plenty of christmas organising with several visit to Wholefoods securing in the end what would be an awesome chrissy lunch spread for the 8 of us staying in mid town. On the 22nd we moved into our midtown apartment on 38th st. Turned out we were living on the top (20th) story of a corporate building. The fella we rented it off is running a photoshoot / music studio but has decided he needs to rent the apartment out so that he can afford it. So on the weekend and public holidays we had 20 stories of Manhattan to our selves. We settled into this very cool place complete with views of the hudson and empire state building, 50" plasma and espresso machine. We spilt up during the first couple days doing various things. The girls did the avenue, Benny and I drooled through several guitar shops and the other guys did the tourism gigs. Our best night out was the 23rd as we walked up to the Rockefeller, through the crowds of awaiting ice skaters and tree viewers to a place Craig had heard of for its bucking bull. In we went and began drinking. Tim and i were the only game ones to sign the disclaimers and jump on the bull. We both performed well and showed the yanks how to ride the rough one! Having said that it was well humorous watching largish black women and one shameless white girl (who's skirt was rendered useless during her attempt and whose g-string we had full view of) get shaken about on the poor bull. Unfortunately Tim realised at midnight that the clocks had turned over to the 24th (Rob's Birthday) and the celebratory drinks flowed thick and fast making the night very special indeed. Taxi, pizza and bed is how the nights end in NYC! A slow hunger 24th it was and before we new it chrissy was upon us after a perfect round table little italy dinner made even more special by watching the B'bay boy attempt to eat his cupcake in a single chomp. The next day we hardly left our loft! We all donned our 'I love NYC' shirts that the girls grabbed for a steal in Chinatown (speaking of which the dumplings down there are awesome and cheap) and our santa hats. We then prepared the lunch table and handed out the long awaited, much discussed, not so secret secret santa gifts to each other. It turned out everyone at random got someone they knew except one (Ben from London got the new traveller Tim after meeting him only days earlier) which was in no doubt the best gift of them all. You can imagine the calibre of presents were low with a $10 budget and Ben got a gem! Lets just say it was the most horrible DVD you could ever imagine (some of the more sheltered readers will not be able to reach the level I'm talking about). This did not stop us all crowding around the plasma and sharing several laughs and the odd dry reach. The ice and alcohol filled bath became more empty as the hours and drinking games passed.