Day 45 Thursday 2nd October, New York City

OK, New York is definitely seriously mad (no offence to any New Yorkers who happen to stumble across this)

Working mice waiting for the Ferry across in New Jersey

First sight of of the lady - Statue of Liberty

Today we braced ourselves for New York City (NYC) and caught the ferry across the Hudson to New York City and walked down to Battery Point.  We had done some research and found the Big Bus Tours route which had a stop here (the same Hop On/ Hop Off company we had used in Washington - and has a 10% reduction for previous business - yay!

New York skyline - panorama from New Jersey ferry slip.

Discovered that tickets for the big bus tours where only available at stop 1 but the conductor let us on as we had our Washington tickets with us, this meant we covered about half the Downtown route and then bought our tickets (10% off).

Traffic in New York apparently worse than normal and the usual 2 hour downtown trip took over three hours!!  The guide was quite over it when we reached Times Square.

The building on the left in Times Square doesn't have anything in the bottom 30 or so floors as they make enough money from the neon advertising signs fixed to the building!

New York traffic madness.

Went passed Penn Station, New York, at one point and discovered we made the right choice by mistake yesterday by getting off in Newark.

8,000 buses a day leave the central bus terminus in Times Square

We then got on the Uptown route it took us into the “quieter” part of the city around Central Park and then through Harlem.  Returning to Times Square we got back on the Downtown route and completed the circle. We had hoped to be back in time to do the River Cruise but were too late, perhaps tomorrow.

We then caught the ferry back to New Jersey for the night.  Had pizza tonight - it was great but it was HUGE! enough for tomorrows dinner.

p.s. Dale is not enjoying this part of the trip.  The masses of people, traffic everywhere it is all over-whelming for him.  I absolutely love it.  There is a "buzz" here that cannot be articulated - it is amazing.  I am walking the streets with the biggest smile on my face.  I have not problem with coming back - not sure about Dale. 

Famous singing naked Cowboy (zoom may be revealing!)

A few odd signs as well

Sachs window, they take the mannequins to the basement every single night so their clothes can't be stolen - they are values at around $10,000 per mannequins depending on the accessories.

Strawberry Fields section of Central Park, named in honour of John Lennon who was shot just adjacent to here.