New York

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New York has the reputation of hosting the biggest and best St. Patrick's Day parade in the world. With this in mind, I decided this year that I was going to be part of it. So I booked time off work, the cheapest flights I could find on the internet and a reasonable hotel not too far away from all the action.

Read about:

The Drive To The Airport
The Flights To New York
The Taxi-Ride To The Hotel
Friday Night
The Parade
Manhattan Landmarks
Monday

The Drive To The Airport

I set off for Manchester Airport on a cold, wet and very windy Friday morning. It's about a 3 hour drive so the roads were quiet but that's probably for the best. If you've seen the movie Twister, the only thing missing was the Frisian cow hurtling past the car windscreen as I drove along.

The Flights To New York

The American Airlines ( [1], [2] ) flight to Chicago was fantastic although quite a bit of turbulence. There was loads of leg-room and the in-flight movie was Zoolander. The food wasn't anything special but I've been on enough flights to know that it was better than most. The flight from the Windy City to the Big Apple was a lot shorter but also a lot more uncomfortable. Maybe it was because I'd been flying for about 8 hours already.

The Taxi-Ride To The Hotel

It was dark by the time I got out of La Guardia Airport so there really wasn't much to see on the way over to Manhattan. The taxi-ride was mad and a little uncomfortable. He was driving far too fast, having to brake heavily quite a few times. He either knew exactly how wide the taxi was or he didn't have a clue because several times it looked like he was going to side-swipe other cars but somehow managed to avoid them at the last second.

Friday Night

After grabbing a quick shower at the hotel, I was off exploring. I tried to have a look round Madison Square Gardens but Elton John was playing that night and security weren't having any of it. There were loads of ticket-touts around and that was causing them a huge problem. The concert the following night had to be cancelled as Elton had the flu or something.

I had something to eat in a pizzeria just outside the Gardens and then and got drunk in 1 of the Irish bars off 5th Ave. Beer is relatively expensive over there - don't expect much change from $5 for a bottled beer, even an American one.

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