Metropolis: The Big Apple

New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There's nothing you can't do
Now you're in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
Hear it for New York, New York, New York!

View of the city from the plane.

That tune (Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind II) hasn't stopped running through my head since we stepped off the plane at JFK Airport late yesterday afternoon. Standing in Times Square 1 hour later and having it blare down at us at full volume gave the song even more meaning as we stood under the bright lights in the big city and it hit home that we were in New York, the big apple, Metropolis!

Times Square (Tez in green shirt on sidewalk)

New York is fantastic. It's as busy as hell, which is very apt given that we are staying right next to the infamous Hell's Kitchen. After settling into our stunning 'crib' (took us a while to work out the front door - magnetic keys? where are the instructions!) on West 42nd Street - an upgrade from our originally booked Wall Street apartment (flooded) we hit the streets to explore New York for a few hours. Stopping in at a few bars I had my first US beer (hey, I've been drinking a lot of cocktails!) and have to say that I really like American lite beer - it's not lite in terms of alcohol like in Australia, but is less fizzy and doesn't get you bloated. Really easy to drink. So bar hopping it through Hell's Kitchen we stopped it in at a local gay bar which had three young female singers belting out Mariah Carey, Cyndi Lauper and Whitney Houston songs - heaven! They actually had superb voices - not a miming drag queen in sight.

Last stop of the night was a smokey jazz club - a stop that was dictated by the fact that we needed to use the toilet more than wanting to visit the actual club. But what a find. Guy on piano, about 5 other people in the bar and they were all taking turns getting up and singing tunes. It was very cool to sit back and watch these guys take turns singing their favourite songs. Not karaoke. These guys could actually sing! It was a great way to finish off our first few hours in New York and made it feel like we were really experiencing the city.

Crooning at the jazz bar. We didn't know all the tunes, but that really didn't matter.

Stumbling home with a few beers under the belt I had to try one of the infamous New York pizzas. It's only basically a Margarita pizza, but it was sooooo good!! (We've actually been eating really well, I think because of the time difference and the size of the meals we're basically having 2 meals a day and sometimes haven't bothered with dinner. Thought we'd be eating HEAPS of junk food but have been keeping it healthy, aside from this drunken pizza slice of course!).

Pizza. Good. Enough said.

Today we're going to explore New York some more, make some visits to famous spots in the city from the movies (The Daily Planet, diner from Seinfeld and from When Harry Met Sally etc) then maybe hop on a ferry past lady liberty and through to Staten Island, pay respects at Ground Zero, stroll through Central Park... the list goes on.

Tonight we have tickets to see Alicia Keys live in concert - just her, a piano and us smack bang in the middle of row 2. SO SO looking forward to it! I'll have Empire State of Mind II running through my head for the rest of the trip I'm sure.

A local also told us that Beyonce is doing a free concert this Friday morningfor the morning show. Given our luck with morning show concerts (Cyndi) we might have to check that out too. Nothing like a free concert!

MB