So we got up early on Sunday to get admission tickets for the 9/11 memorial, but it was closed so we ate breakfast. That sentence ended far less poignantly than it began... We then took a boat cruise around the island of Manhattan. This lasted for almost three hours, and allowed us to see the Statue of Liberty up close, as well as the Brooklyn bridge, Staten Island and the UN buildings on the bank of the Charles river. Afterwards we thought we'd check out Wall Street, but it was so disinteresting I won't elaborate further.
Our evening was less successful for three reasons: we accidentally stood up an Italian guy we met earlier in the week for drinks; we went to see an improvised comedy evening, which was worse than terrible; and finally, when we got back to our room, we discovered that we were horribly burnt from our 'day at sea'. We were on the water for three hours. It wasn't sunny. It paints a pathetically English picture.
Luckily today was great, and was probably my favourite day in New York. We started with the 9/11 memorial, which was as it should be - tasteful, and not over the top. It was strange to see such an iconic location of the 21st century up close, but certainly worthwhile.
We used out last city passes to get to the Top of the Rock - the Rockefeller centre, which dominates a large part of the manhattan skyline and is also where NBC is based. The views of New York in the day differ to those we saw from the Empire State Building during the night, and if anything they were even more impressive, seeing Central Park as an island in the middle of a true metropolis.
The most exciting of the days events came at NBC studios. Firstly we spent the best part of an hour in the NBC store, where I behaved (again) like a child by decreeing I wanted to buy one of everything in the store (and threatening to have a tantrum when told otherwise...). I did purchase a 'Lil Sebastian' t-shirt, from the show 'Parks and Rec', which has practically made my trip; apparently jack has 'never seen me smile as much in my life', as I put it on (and danced with glee...).
I then took a tour of NBC studios, and got to see sets for 'Saturday Night Live' and 'The Late Show'. I also got to see the control and transmission rooms, which were probably more impressive due to the sheer amount of work and equipment that go into editing and broadcasting a network of shows.
This evening we were invited out by some people from the hostel, but seeing as we are getting up at 6am (6am!) for an 8 hour (8 hour!) journey to Niagara Falls, we figured it wouldn't be such a wise move.
However, my next post could be from Canada, so silver lining...?
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