The BIG Apple!

So we made it to New York just fine, after removing all our liquids and gels and seeing a lot of good expensive make-up being thrown away (no, not mine, I can' afford that stuff!)
We got delayed though and so the ultimate happened, our hammock got lost on the way and we only got it back the next day...at least we got it back, just imagine if we were leaving the states staight away!

Anyways...on with the story...We arrived late to Enca's appartment (my mum's friend that was very nice to put us up for the weekend) and we had absolutely no idea where to go eat seeing as it was so late...well, I have to say I'm not proud, but damn it, I misssed it...we went to McDonald's where we ordered the chicken nuggets with honey mustard sauce (mind you, I have searched and searched and I have ony found this amazing sauce at McDee's in NYC) and they were great!! I swear we never did it again :) We decided to call it an early night seeing as we had sooo much to do in such a short time (it was Jo's first trip to New York!)

Day 2:

The next day we started out in Battery Park to look at the Statue of Liberty and I showed Jo the site of the World Trade Center where they now have a huge history of how it happened and now instead of having tons of flowers and banners for the deceased they have a plaque (like in Washington D.C. for the Vietnam Memorial) with everyone's names on it. All the other stuff was moved to a church right nest to it where a lot of people gathered and prayed and were rescued to after the planes came down on the towers, very beautiful and emotional...

We make our way uptown, passing Chinatown's busy Canal street where I got a cheap Gucci knock-off bag (yeah I know its wrong but the prices say differently!) Jo was looking for a good fake watch but didnt find anything he liked...
We continued on up into Little Italy (I have to be honest and say I had actually never walked through Little Italy!) and it was really nice, well, the day was great and hot and the city is always full of people and things to look at...Through Washington Square Park where the chess players were trying to con some poor guys who just wanted to beat "the masters" and we passed City Hall (where the Al Pacino movie was made) oh, and also where good ol' Giuliani "ruled" his town, well, now he might be going up for the next elections...we'll see how that goes.
I showed him the East village and the West village and on up to Union Square where NYU (New York University) has its headquarters and also a very nice area to go out at night, which we did, but that comes later :)
Then we came to the masterpiece...well, it's not my favorite building, that would be the Chrysler, which we also saw, but I showed him the Flatiron Building which is a magnificent work of architecture so we stuck around for a little bit to take pictures...That was pretty much it for the first day...at night we went out with my friend Stephanie from highschool and her boyfriend (whose work we are not allowed to say...hint hint...its for the government :) We went out for sushi (cmon, after a month in Central America you didnt expect us to go out for fajitas I hope) hehehe and then we went out to check out the bars in the Weast/East village...they ended up taking us to a Belgium Beer Bar, well, we couldnt complain but let's just say the beers back home in Belgium are a bit cheaper seeing as they are not imported! But it was a great day all in all, even if we were exhausted andwe knew that we would have to get up early again! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, we also did some shopping...I got to go to my favorite store: Old Navy and Jo got a couple of things from Banana Republic and also Old Navy - yep, we spoiled ourselves ;)

Day 3:

Got up and made our way to the Moma (Museum of Modern Art), which was really great, we spent quite a big part of the morning there...I got the catalogue if anyone is interested :)
Then we continued on up (it seems this is all we did - go up!) and made it the Central Park...but not before stopping at the new Abercrombie and Fitch Store on 5th Avenue...of course we went to 5th Ave! And we saw the Plaza, which unfortunately was under renovation so the outside was not very nice but at least Jo got to see it. They ahve now made right in front of the Plaza a huge Apple-MAC store with a huge crystal cube leading down to the store, that is about a block long. Let's just say Jo got a little lost in there with all the toys, he almost conviced me into getting an ipod! So we got out of there before our budget collapsed :)

We went through Central Park, where we passed the Walmon Rink which had been turned into a children's fair for the summer and I also wanted to show him the Bethesda Fountain but some idiot had thrown something in it so there were cops everywhere blocking us from getting near it, so we had to go around and then I showed him where the memorail to John Lennon was put, almost in front of his building where he was shot...

Then we hopped back on the metro (yes, we did quite a few rides down there) and made our way to Broadway, but it the day time so it wasnt all lit up like you should see it but Jo got an idea of it...We met my friend Tatiana (my first friend in the States...we've been friends since 1993, talk about friendship!!) for drinks, unfortunaly too short as we had to meet yet another one of my friends for dinner that night....well, I dont go back often so I need to get as many reunions as I can!

We hurried our way home after saying goodbye to Tat...we were hurriyng everywhere in New York, after a whole month of no stress no worry vacation it was really hard to get back in the game! And we were late, of course, to meet Jean-Marie (my great friend from New York...she's a Queens native and yes she's got the accent :) and had a great Chinese dinner before going back to her place in Queens for dessert... All in all, another great day

Day 4: Our last day

There was still a very important thing to see in this trip and we knew we didnt have much time as we had to get to the airport by four, and its not like the airport in Belgium where it would only take you max 15min to get there form any point in Brussels (okay, from our house, but that's all that is important right!) So we needed to plan our day well...

We first had a priority: Jo's priority of getting a high-intensive super indestructible can be used for defence flashlight and the only store that sold it in NYC was downtonw and only oppened at 10 so let's just say I was seeing our plane leave with us if our day was to continue this way...but we got the flashlight ans his smile was worth it :)

We rushed to the Empire State Building where we had to wait in line for an hour in order to go up and see the great view - unless of course you wanted to pay the exorbitant 40 dollars each and the you could do the Express line (I prefered the Twin Towers but oh well, there is nothing that can be done about that now). We got the usual picture taken with the viwn of Manhattan behind us and then we went up...it was too crowded and you had to wait for people to move in order to take good pictures but we saw it and Jo got to see it and experience it and that's all taht matters...

Then we rushed to Duane Reade (a pharmaceutical everyday store where you can get just about everything) in order to stock up on medicine that I cant buy in Europe ...damn all the legistlations! hehehe and then we rushed to a luggage store we had seen while making our way downtown in the morning on a taxi (we needed another bag to fit all the things we had bought on this trip) and after the purchase made...I have to say it came in handy and I still use it constantly to visit Jo in Madrid and go to Strasbourg every other month...so money well spent :) we rushed to go see the United Nations - Jo's dream job location :)

Then we rushed again where we quickly ate something, made our bags, rushed to ICEP, Enca's job on 5th Ave in order to return her keys and then make it to the airport.... I'm getting tired just writing about all this rushing we did!

But it was great and worth it and we had a great time throughout the entire vacation...it's something we will enver forget and hopefully we'll get a chance to go back and show it all again to our kids...oneday :)

Thanks for travelling with us, hope you've had an enjoyable journey and we look forward to travelling again with you in the future...Don't forget to buckle up :)

Bye bye for now
Love
Jo and Fil