James Flores

Day 1
Sophie, Vicki and I woke up at 3am this morning to catch the stupid Skyride to Denver International Airport. The funny thing was is that we got ready in less time than it would when we have classes. I had a sausage and egg McMuffin for breakfast because I don't do bagels. So I'm kinda annoyed and tired right now because I had one full hour of sleep, only to be interrupted by my friends yapping away in Spanish.

PS. Sophie only likes the "tops" of muffins.
PPS. Vicki brought the travel Cluedo.

Sophie having Starbucks in Chicago, Michigan...I mean Illinois...

After several hours on the plane and a stop over in Chicago, which we thought was in Michigan, we finally arrived at LaGuardia airport. We got a shuttle back to the hostel where we dumped all our bags and proceeded to explore our surrounding area.

Nothing beats walking down Times Square!

That night we walked into as many shops as we could, with the M&M store being the highlight. They had an entire wall made out of varying colors of M&M's.

Day 2
We woke up pretty early because we wanted to get a lot of the touristy things done today. We started walking over to the Empire State building, seeing as though it was clearly visible and close to where we stayed. Before we went in though, we had some breakfast just across the road. Afterwards, Vicki asked us "Are we walking to the Empire State?". Utterly confused, I looked up and outside the window, and Sophie and I laughed... The Empire State Building was great, it started snowing up there and we had some decent views still.

Very cold!

After that visit, we took the subway all the way to the financial district of Manhattan and onto the Staten Island Ferry. It was unbelievably cold but it was well worth the views of the skyline and the Statue of Liberty of course!

She is beautiful

We walked to Wall St. after arriving back from Staten Island. We then proceeded to Ground Zero where Vicki decided to present herself as a stripper with Ground Zero as the backdrop (actually she was just putting on more clothes).

I took it as fast as I could

Later that day we also went to Carnegie Deli to have pudding - as we were too stuffed and couldn't be bothered to wait any longer at the Thai place we went for dinner. We had a strawberry cheesecake, lemon cream pie and a chocolate mousse.We stuffed ourselves fit to bursting and then made stupid poses of stuffing the remainder of the cakes into our mouth's.

Thai Green Curry...mmm

Cartier's...the place where Sophie lost herself

The famous Carnegie Deli and my strawberry cheesecake

Day 3
We planned to be ready this morning by 9:15am. I was ready at 9:30 thinking I was late. Sophie lost her phone and I think we ended up leaving at 10. Carnegie deli was for the first meal of the day. I had a corned beef sandwich...22 slices of corned beef pumped into my body. Shortly after this saw Vicki running to the Disney Store. On a side note, Vicki, whilst browsing the Disney merchandise, was asked "Do you have children?".

Corned beef is great

This was so touristy

Later that afternoon, an old man approximately 70 years old, tramp like appearance, walked up to Vicki and asked "Are you Cindy?", "I used to know someone a very long time ago, you remind me of her". [Note: Vicki has aged 20 years in the last two days].

Sophie and I went skating that night at Rockefeller Center. It was so hard to put skates on again and there was too many families! I'm fine skating on my own until I look at someone else. Then at one moment, I topple over and I see Sophie still standing. So I hold onto her for support and she goes arse up onto my leg! Also, a kid slammed into the barrier shortly after...

Day 4
This morning the plan was to see Little Italy and Chinatown. We expected for it to not take the entire day but we got a little sidetracked with a few things. We had the early morning pitstop at the "Charmin" restrooms before deciding to visit Grand Central Station.

Cha cha cha...Charmin!!!

We also then visited the Chrysler Building (it reminds me of Batman/Spiderman building). It was pretty boring actually. We finally got onto the subway after buying some chocolate dipped strawberries at Godiva. The train dropped us at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, which naturally, we had to walk. After enjoying the strawberries, I reminded Sophie of her spectacular fall at Rockefeller Center.

We still stuck to the Manhattan side of the bridge...

We hung around in Chinatown for a bit, spent too much time looking at pashminas and clothing stores. Our dinner was at the Marco Polo Chinese Restaurant with some roast duck for the girls.

Sophie looks a bit concerned

Our wander through Little Italy was brief because I got a 10 minute massage only for Sophie to copy me and got one also. Dessert was at an Italian Cake Shop. I had gelato and Vicki had tiramisu. The rest of the night concluded with painful Macy's shopping where I sat and laid down at Starbucks until they shopped their hearts out...well this was until the store actually CLOSED.

It was painfully cold

Day 5
Today we visited the Museum of Modern Art and Central Park. To get to the good bits, I'm going to skip a lot of the arty details and only talk about the funny ones. There was the piece with 7 photo frames, one with one dot in it and one with 2 dots, the rest blank. This was apparently exploring the juxtaposition between space and dots or something just as pompous.

This was just hilarious...no offense

We wandered around in the gallery before we ran into Todor!!! This just shows you how small the world is, we hadn't contacted him prior but knew he was coming to New York. As usual, we have the happy snap.

I am the expert at self shots!

In the evening I had dinner at Subway and we also wandered around 5th Avenue for a bit. We ran into the unveiling of the Sak's Christmas windows. The end to this long day was going to Top of the Rocks, looking out over Manhattan at night and the very snazzy Empire State Building.

Pretty lights

Last Day
Today I was forced to get up early because of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We got breakfast to go from our usual spot and then header to 23rd Street Station to head to Columbus Circle. I randomly saw my hostel roommate on the train which was weird because he was still sleeping when I left the room. At 34th Street and Penn. Station, a plethora of people were waiting at the platform. Like a can of sardines, they crammed on.

After arriving at Columbus Street Station, we couldn't get out of the subway because police had blocked the main exit. The crowd was so big that people were almost falling off onto the platform. We finally got out after 20 minutes of hell. The parade was pretty average, just too many people for me to be around. After the crowd dispersed, we had lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon bumming around Times Square, the Charmin' restrooms and Hard Rock Cafe for Thanksgiving Dinner!

This is how interesting the parade was

Wooooo....

Yummy cocktails to celebrate Thanksgiving!

Flight Home
It's too painful to write about it. A shuttle, two planes and a bus. Plus waiting time in between. We stopped in Dallas, Texas! Good views from the plane though...

We all got a window seat on the flight from LaGuardia to Dallas, Fort Worth