Day 5 - 6-6-2007 New York

Having booked the Hop on Hop off 2 day tour the pevious day, i decided to take the downtown tour first. Before jumping on the bus, i caught breakfast at the local deli. This one was particularly good as it had half of the NYPD in it (you know, they know where to go).

On the bus the first port of call was the Empire State Building. I was fortunate to get there early and there was no ques at all. Fortunatly the visibility was clear. From the top you could see for about 20 miles. I wont bore you with the details the photos will do that for me.

( they'll be downloaded on the flickr next week), but it was an amazing view.

The next port of call was Ground Zero. It's hard to visulalise the size of the building from the footprint that remains. But standing on the Empire State Building which was slightly shorter gives a good impression of the enormity of what happened. (Having thought of that, i decided to leave the E S building quickly)

By this time all of the attention was diverted away from the scenery and toward the bus driver who decided to have a fight with one of the bus organisers at the stop (he wasnt happy he was taking so long in traffic (great street theatre) think the Asian driver wonwith a slap to the back of the head.

By now, the bus was behind schedule and I was in danger of missing the game. Fortunatley, the bus finished at 2.55 pm (7.55PM UK) Unfortunatly for me, the game started at 2.30, and the pub in Times Square wasn't showing it. Fortunatly, i had a back up plan. An Irish Pub, was definatly showing it, as i had asked a couple of days previously. Unfortunatly, i'd had a couple on that day, so could i find the pub, NO. I caught the last 5 minutes and they then turned it off so i didnt even see the goals. the moral of this story is "sod the football, just find a bar" (any bar)