New York

We spent this Easter weekend in New York, figuring that with the US dollar so low, now was our best chance to get (relatively) cheap holiday to the big city.

We started our visit off by taking a walk across the Brooklyn bridge:

That's Padraig on the left and Mark on the right. It was Good Friday, and we ran into a procession that was crossing the Brooklyn bridge heading up to Ground Zero:

So of course we followed them to Ground Zero. There's really not very much interesting to look at there now - it looked like some construction was going on but a lot of it was surrounded by high fencing, making it hard to get a clear view of anything. There was an interesting sign posted up in a nearby window though:

Later that day we couldn't resist the temptation to take a helicopter ride around the city.

For me, the most memorable image of New York would have to be sitting inside a taxi cruising down an avenue that stretches as far as the eye can see. The size of Manhattan is just awe inspiring. This really is the Big City. I've lived in Chicago which has similarly long and straight streets - but I guess because it is so flat, the effect isn't so noticeable as when you are perched at the top of a slight rise in Manhattan looking down a "corridor" of sky scrapers:

A very cool effect was watching all the lights change simultaneously from red to green in the above right picture.

Chicago doesn't really have anything like Times Square. Leicester Square in London doesn't really compare:

You could stand in Times Square all day and not run out of stuff to look at.

On Saturday, we set about shopping in earnest, heedful of the 2-for-1 exchange rate. I bought an IPod, some shoes and some jeans. We went everywhere by taxis, which were abundant.

After crashing back at the hotel in the early evening (trying to get over jet lag), we headed out again. First, we grabbed some food at the "Brooklyn Diner". I have never seen so much steak as was heaped on Padraig's plate. The plate was more a bowl, and the image of how you might feed your dog easily came to mind:

Later that evening we headed down to the "Meatpacking district" where, after many beers we met one guy who was 6'8" and built like a tank. Big guy. Anyway, I started asking if he - of course! - played American football. Turns out he was a lawyer (but did play football) - and he kindly bought us all a beer. That got the conversation rolling and we ended up talking to a lot of people, including his highschool sweetheart (they're "just good friends" now I guess).

I still don't know the name of the girl in this picture - it was taken by her friend Heidi, who I also quite liked:

On Sunday we headed over to the batting cages for some baseball action, and also hit some golf balls at the range there. Also, I helped some unknown person dry their sneakers:

After that, we took a stroll around Central Park. I must say, I was disappointed with Central Park - I think some of the parks in London such as Kensington Gardens are much more impressive. However, to be fair it was still obviously winter... maybe in spring or summer it is nicer:

Finally on Monday, we headed over to MoMA, which was an absolute zoo due to the fact that it was raining. There must have been 10,000 people in that museum. This did detract from the experience somewhat - however there was an incredibly impressive range of artwork there. Van Gogh's "The Starry Night", lots of Picassos, and so on.

We flew back Monday night, arriving in London in time for me to go to work on Tuesday (albeit arriving late)...