New York, New York

G’day all,

Well this past week or so has been a real rippa full of non-stop action. Our first stop out of Toronto was Niagara Falls. The 4 or 5 hours we planned to spend at Niagara Falls ended up turning into a quick run to the falls for 20 minutes before running back to catch the next bus. Niagara Falls was amazing and even though I had been there before it still impressed me as much as it did on my first visit. I was a bit worried as we headed to the US boarder because I know how tough the US immigration is, and my passport probably makes me look like a terrorist with all the countries I’ve been visiting. Luckily I ended up getting in without any cavity checks or strip searches and we continued on our overnight bus to New York City. We arrived first thing in the morning but within 2 hours we met up with Christine who lives here and were on another bus heading up to Boston. Our plan was to try and get tickets to the NBA Finals to watch the Boston Celtics and the LA Lakers play later on that night. Once we arrived in Boston we relaxed for a bit then headed straight down to the Celtics stadium to try and buy scalped tickets for the game. Unfortunately the scalpers all wanted at least $350 a ticket and we couldn’t justify paying that. For the first half of the game we tried our best to get tickets but even at half time they still wanted $300 a ticket so we just went home heads down and empty handed. Dan was a bit sick with his wisdom teeth coming through so the following day Christine and I walked around Boston by ourselves for a look. We ended up finding a big NBA set up in the middle of the city where I got to have a shoot off with one of the Celtics players and see the championship trophy. The following day we headed back to New York where we went up to stay with Christine’s family in a town called Irvington about 40 minutes north of Manhattan. Christine’s parents have been awesome having us and making us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a real American experience. We even spent a few days at their holiday home on the beach on Long Island. We have been in New York for just over a week now and have been flat out sightseeing each day because there are a billion things you can do here. The weather has been so hot and humid all week that we have been sweating like pigs each day. On our first full day in the ‘Big Apple’ we went to Times Square, Madison Sq Garden (to watch a WNBA game), Ground Zero, Wall Street, and Chinatown. We were pooped after seeing all that in one day in the 35 degree heat but it was a great day. The following day we went to the famous Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and watched the Yankees play, and then we tried to see David Letterman being filmed but couldn’t get a ticket. We ended up being in the audience for another popular show here instead called the ‘Colbert Report’. It was pretty amazing to see this show being filmed live and it was so professional but I didn’t really understand all the American jokes. When the audience clapped and cheered I yelled out a big ‘yewwwwww’ each time as loud as I could and I heard my voice on the show when we watched it later on. This was my 2^nd time on TV that day as earlier on I was interviewed on the news for eating McDonalds. They were doing a story on how bad McDonalds is for you and asked me about it and I replied with ‘Nah I love it mate, it’s me favourite food, I eat if every day’ so I think they might have cut me from the news. On Tuesday we went to Christine’s holiday house on Long Island for 4 days and we loved it. Long Island is so beautiful and even the drive to the house was really nice. The houses are all really nice 2 story wooden homes with huge green lawns everywhere and US flags on each house. Christine’s place was a little wooden cottage on the beach just meters from the waters edge and it had so much character. We originally planned to stay 1 or 2 nights but in the end we loved it there so much we had to force ourselves to leave after 4 days of relaxing. Each day we went swimming down at the beach and enjoyed the nice hot weather. On our second day on Long Island we had a huge shopping day at the local factory outlet stores. There were so many shops to look at and I had to replace almost all of my clothes and shoes which were in tatters. I couldn’t believe how cheap everything was so I spoilt myself and replaced most of my mangy traveled clothes for $100 all up. On Friday we sadly had to leave Long Island and head back to NYC again. On the drive home we dropped past the infamous ‘Amityville’ horror house which was haunted and the horror movie was based on. The night before we watched the movie to get worked up for it and when we got there it really did send shivers down our spines knowing what went on there. The freaky thing was that we didn’t realize that it was actually Friday the 13^th and while we were there we got on TV for the 3^rd time for the week being interviewed on the news. They were doing a story on Friday the 13^th and all the scariest places on Long Island so they interviewed Christine as we took photos in the background. Later on in the day we went back to New York City and ended up doing a tour of Ground Zero and went to the museum they had there, which was really shocking and sad. It was amazing to see the size of the space the buildings left behind and to imagine what it would have been like to see the Twin Towers fall down. After Ground Zero we walked up to the Rockefeller Centre and up to Central Park for a gander. We will be here in New York for a few more days before heading down to Philadelphia and Washington DC later this week. Update ya soon,

Woodsy