New York

Monday was a long day! I only slept for a couple of hours before the alarm went at 4am. Richard took us to the Heathrow, arriving at 5am. We were on the 7am flight to Frankfurt, an hour and 10 minutes. We had a quick change over for flight to New York. It left from gate 69 - the last one of course!
We flew back over where we had just come from - that is north of London, between Dublin and Belfast and right over the southern end of Lough Erne and Enniskillen - full circle - before heading for New York! Flight was just under 8 hours.

It was 66 degrees (very warm 19) in New York - everyone was in t-shirts! The zig-zag line at passport check was L-O-N-G!!! Customs was just the same after collecting our bags - but it was straight through. We got a shuttle to our hotel - Penn Hotel opposite Penn Station on 7th Ave. We went to bed at 7.30pm NY time which was 12.30am our body time.

The next day was 44 (8) degrees and a VERY cold wind! We did the hop on / hop off bus - Downtown, Midtown, Central Park and Harlem during the day and the Night Lights (Brooklyn) tour at night (FREEZING!!!)

 NY just as busy, noisy, bright as we remembered and more expensive - but LOTS of road work going on as they are putting in a new subway line. Battery Park & Times Square big messes!!! The new Peace Towers (where World Trade Centre Towers were) are quite impressive.

We hadn't seen Harlem before - it's now the 'in' place to be and live - VERY expensive. There is also the Law of Sunshine now where no enormous skyscrapers can be built and not so close together - so Harlem is more open (lots of sunshine!) and hilly. Manhattan was 'levelled' of it's hills in the early days. Central Park autumn tree colours were beautiful. The squirrels just as busy and the skating rink in operation.

Mail sorting NY style in the street, Jen!