NEW YORK NEW YORK

Hi Everyone

I spent my last day at Copper Mountain, Colorado (Thursday) skiing in the sunshine. Can't beat that!

That night I went to a nearby town called Dillon to have dinner with Ben, Mel and Copper Mountain Veteran Bryn. We went to a chain restaurant called "Ruby Tuesday's" which is really cool: good food and cheap drinks. The special was $3.50 Long Island Iced Teas that night, which was great. If I had any more than 2 it could have gotten messy (great drink, order one some time if you are unfamiliar with it. It was the first time I dared to try one and I was impressed).

Ben (my friend from Melbourne) and I then went to another nearby town called Frisco to rent a car. We had booked a small Ford but were upgraded to a brand new (about 200 miles on the clock) Chevrolet that
looked very similar to a PT Cruiser. We then drove this very American car to Denver to catch an overnight flight to New York City, departing at 1:00am Denver Time.

Four hours and little sleep later, we arrived in New York City (JFK Airport) at 7:00am (Friday) New York Time. It was a great day to arrive in New York city as it was St Patrick's Day. New York takes their St Patrick's Day very seriously and we enjoyed the parade for a few hours on the famous 5th Ave (a fashion
part of town).

We then followed up by going to numerous Irish bars (of which there are A LOT in Manhattan) and drinking beers. Unfortunately we were so tired that we went to bed at pathetic St Patrick's day 10:00pm.

We checked in to our Hostel which was conveniently located near the Corner of 55th and 8th, which if you know Manhattan is a really great spot, near Times Square/Broadway, and Central Park.

I woke up the next afternoon at 1:30pm wondering how I managed to sleep in that late, until I eventually figured out by talking to the room-mates in the Hostel that it was in fact 1:30am and that I had plenty more sleeping to do. I have come to realise that I act strangely when I am mega-tired and somewhat drunk (I acted equally stupid in LA after my 14 hour flight from Melbourne followed by a big night out).

That day (Saturday) we explored New York some more, including Central Park, Broadway, Wall Street, Soho, Battery Park and Ground Zero. After seeing Ground Zero, the rest of the New York trip was often spent reflecting on the events of "9/11" and how terrible it must have been that day to all that were in New York City. Walking around the busy city made me appreciate what absolute chaos it must have been that day in 2001.

On a lighter note, that night we went bar hopping in Greenwich Village with some cool French girls from our hostel and had a lot of fun. Overall a rather big night out, which is very easy to do in lively Manhattan.

The Next Day (Sunday) we slept in, did some shopping, and went to the Empire State Building. We followed up with another big night on the town, this time in Upper East Side.

On our last day in N.Y. (Monday) were woken up in our dorm room by tradesmen unexpectedly barging in and literally ripping the windows and window frames from the walls of the dorm and replacing them very loudly with new windows as we tried to sleep in the shivering cold they had just let in from outside (it was very very very cold in New York). Ah, the luxurious life of a backpacker. Later, we took a free ferry to Staten Island right past the Statue of Liberty. After exploring Staten Island briefly we headed back to Manhattan only to catch the subway away to Brooklyn so that we could walk back to Manhattan again along the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a really nice walk [thanks for the tip, Natacha and Carine].

Again we hit a few bars that night (after not managing to get any cheap tickets for Broadway shows for that night as was the plan) and followed in the footsteps of Harold and Kumar to try to find a White Castle hamburger store [we succeeded...those little burgers are nice] before going to bed nice and early (1:30am) as the next day we had to get up really early.

We were up at 5:00am today (Tuesday) and made our way to JFK Airport where Ben returned to Colorado and I flew up to Boston. Boston is my last stop in the USA before I head on to the UK.

I was greeted at the airport by a friend and welcomed in her beautiful home. It is a pleasant rest from the backpackers hostels that have been my home over the last few weeks (although they have been heaps of
fun!). I met up with some friends of my family from when I lived in Austria (1986) and it was great to catch up with them although my memory of them was rather poor (my mind must have been elsewhere when I was 5 years old). One of them took me to Harvard University today and I had fun getting photos taken at the Law School. It was a really nice campus and it had squirrels running around it! How cool! We should get some of those at Deakin Uni in Melbourne.

Boston is very nice and of all the American cities the closest I have come across to reminding me of  Melbourne. The sights along the river remind me of the Yarra at home. Suburban Boston reminds me of what I imaged Salem to look like in the book/movie "The Crucible" in the witch hunting days (but without the witch hunting of course), but downtown appears to be quite contemporary...I'm yet to check it out.

On Friday morning I am flying from Boston to London, and I expect my next email will be from there.

I hope everyone travelling around is having a great time too and everyone at home is going well. In particular, I hope everyone in Melbourne has managed to survive the Commonwealth Games.