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Because of the time difference, the 5 hour flight from LA to New York seemed to take up my entire day. After touching down in JFK at about 17:30, I didn’t reach my hostel until nearly 21:00. It’s a great hostel though there are 10 people in my room and it ain’t that big! Plus, the lockers in the room seem to be bust. After dumping my stuff, I headed straight for the subway and went to Times Square.

A real feast for the eyes, and wallet, I nipped into TGI Friday’s for a cheese steak thing. Fattening but tasty. Didn’t leave much of a tip though as the service was awful and the place was more than a bit grubby. By now I was knackered so I went back to the hostel, checked my email, and headed for bed.

Next morning I headed to Battery Park to get a ticket for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It was the hottest day of the year in NYC - reaching 40C - and I was feeling it. Before getting on the ferry we all had to pass through security - the type of security you would expect at an airport with x-ray machines and metal detectors - a visible reminder of 9/11.

The boat across was pretty nice. I could see the Narrows bridge, Brooklyn Bridge and Jersey City as we made our way to Liberty Island. I was beginning to feel like I was a cow being herded such was the way we got off the boat and along the jetty! I had bought an audio ticket so I could learn some more about the island so I grabbed the headphones and followed the little voice in my ear…

The Statue of Liberty is mighty impressive. Plenty of photo ops and the audio tour was very enlightening. Did you know the insides were designed by Eiffel and that it nearly ran out of funding? After leaving Liberty Island it was a short trip to Ellis Island - the sorting office for the immigrants in days of yore! The air conditioning was very much welcome!

After returning to Manhattan, I made my way to Ground Zero. A great big hole in the ground and a very humbling experience. From here it was a short subway ride to Wall Street and the JP Morgan building and the NYSE. My Downtown Manhattan tour continued after a McD lunch to see the Woolworth Building and City Hall from “Spin City”. Walking past the start of the Brooklyn Bridge I ended up at the courts, then Chinatown then I just wanted to sit down! I gave up the sight seeing and headed back to the hostel. In my room I met Lewis and Kate from somewhere English who had taken career breaks and gone travelling for their honeymoon and planning their next stop - Las Vegas.

Next day, after my free bagel and tea breakfast, I headed north to Columbia Heights and the University of Columbia. As I made my way up Broadway, I passed Tom’s Restaurant from Seinfeld! As I walked through College Walk, I was reminded of Columbia’s place in Hollywood - Spider-Man, Ghostbusters and The Sopranos all sprung to mind. Someone stopped me and asked me if I knew where the Law School was as he was on his way for an interview - I must not look very touristy!

Enough of education, I want to climb to the skies! I headed to the Rockefeller Center and the “Top of the Rock” - a better view than the Empire State some say. The views were incredible. It was another scorcher of a day so the visibility was a bit hazy but I could still see for miles around. You get a real sense of the sheer size of New York when you look down at it! I got lunch in a sandwich shop at the Rockefeller Center on 6th Avenue before checking out the outside of the Radio City Music Hall then going shopping.

You can’t come to Manhattan and not want to shop. Due to the heat, I was sweating profusely so I made for Macy’s - the world’s largest department store - to buy some wristbands. Continuing my quickstop tour, I made for Madison Square for a view of the Flatiron building - another symbol of New York and the home of the “Daily Bugle”!

From there, a short stop at Carnegie Hall, before Grand Central Terminal. Possibly the grandest and shiniest train station I’ve ever seen! More name-dropping coming: saw the Met-Life building, Citigroup Center and the Waldorf Astoria Hotel before heading to Lexington Avenue and 59th Street - home of Bloomingdale’s.

Eager for a brown bag of my own, I headed to the menswear department and purchased a Ralph Lauren polo-shirt in the sales for only $50. A walk past many other buildings and shops brought me back to 5th Avenue - the world’s most famous shopping street. I had managed to break my earphones so I went into the Apple store on 5th. Accessed through a glass box with the apple logo at street level, this underground store was full of gadgets - mostly in that Apple white colour. After finding the earphones and surfing for free on the iMacs and MacBooks, I joined the checkout queue where I was approached by a salesman who took my credit card and charged me there and then with my receipt emailed to me - genius!

Continuing my walk down 5th, I nipped into NikeTown where Celtic tops were again in prominence - excellent. Passed Tiffany’s and Trump Tower on my way to the flagship Abercrombie & Fitch store. The four storey store with blinded windows is staffed by only the most beautiful retail workers! The day finished by getting the shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square then home before heading North for Canada the next day.

Me again,
just realised I’d missed out a week!

The diving course in Cairns was excellent. It was all going really well until we started our open water dives. I must have strained myself at some point before my first OW dive because once I got in the water and down to depths where the pressure is much greater than the diving school pool I began to feel a pain in the groin!! At first we established it as a new wet suit and an air pocket had developed. But then we transfered to the overnight boat and not-so-new wet suits. On the first dive the next day the pain intensified and got so sore I had to ascend and be towed back to the boat. But I pushed on and decided to go for the final dive, the one that would make me a certified Open Water diver.

However, once I began my descent I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish so had to go back to the boat. I was gutted! The poor Japanese diving master on the boat must think I have the worst vocabulary in the world because I was not pleased. I was just 30 minutes and 2 underwater skill tests short of my certification. I have a year to complete just one OW dive so you never know, I might do it somewhere else - probably not as warm as the Coral Sea was though!

That was the last dive of my course so we transfered back to the cat to take us back to dry land. The sea was real choppy, so much so that I brought my lunch back up! Once on dry land we waited and waited and waited some more for our DVD of the dives. Once I got my DVD I checked back in to the hostel only to be told that they had fuc**d up and only booked me in for one night when I’d paid for two and there were no more beds. Fantastic. They were keen to blame STA Travel for the screw up and so after getting my refund for that 2nd night, I went to examine some places to stay for the next night before the hostel phone them for me. While doing that I give STA a call back in Glasgow who trace the error down to the hostel itself - damn cheek of the place! They did manage to get me a room, 15 minutes from the city centre. I wasn’t happy but I had a room for that night. After that I went to see Pirates for the 2nd time with 2 guys from Merseyside and a German!

I got up the next day determined to get a room closer to the city centre so I got the girl at reception to try places closer and to some success as a hostel just round the corner had a spare bed. Silly me however took down the wrong address and made for their sister property 2 miles down the road! Only when I got that place’s free shuttle into the town that I realised I’d booked in to the wrong hostel!!! I did manage to get it swapped over though! After that nothing much happened as the heavens opened over Cairns.

On my last day I had wanted to go to Kuranda(?) but the tour left at 10am and by the time I had checked out of one hostel, gone to the other, done a washing to get some clean clothes, I didnt have the time nor the inclination to go up to the rainforest. Maybe next time!