day one | new york city

Today was pretty quiet.  I spent most of it in bed with a migraine so we didn't get moving until about 3pm.  Quite possibly we were a bit jetlagged as well because neither of us really slept that much last night. 

We walked down to Pier 83 to catch the Circle Line Harbour Lights Tour.  It was an interesting walk. It seems that all that horn beeping you see in movies is actually the way it is.  As soon as the lights turn green, they're on the horn. They don't seem to stay within the lines of the road and they just park wherever and however.  Pedestrians aren't really given the right of way and even if you have the walk light and you're on a crossing, a car will turn right in front and ON TOP of you if it wants to get around the corner.  The pedestrians are obviously used to it because they'll walk out into the street when they're not supposed to and just dodge cars.  

Its amazing how hard it is to get used to not doing things on the left hand side.  We just automatically walked on the left until we got sick of dodging people and realised they do things differently here.  I even started to walk down the left hand side escalator until I realised it was coming up, not going down.  Just little things you don't even think about.

The Harbour Lights tour lasts for two hours and does a semi circle lap around Manhattan towards the Statue of Liberty. The commentary was good but we couldn't hear much because we managed to sit right above the engines!  And, we had read somewhere that sitting one side of the boat was better than the other.  We decided it was the right hand side and raced on to secure a seat. Sadly we now think it was the left.  Oh well.

When we were walking onto the ship a group of staff were being briefed about something.  We're not sure what it was but suspect they were sales staff.  We saw this sign on a door near where they were. Sales Tips. Please take note of number 4.  This sign was in full view of everyone lining up to take the cruise.

When we were leaving the ship, we saw this sign on the inside of the snack bar that was on the ship.  That is, and I need to make this very clear, this was directed at the staff working behind the counter.  I know the quality of the photo isn't great so if you can't read it, it says - smoking and spitting prohibited. SPITTING. Slightly concerning that they need to be told!! 

On the way home we walked through Times Square. It was packed!  And it was very bright.

I was impressed that AT&T were open till 11.30pm and that they gave me a $25 credit on my phone because their website sold me something I can't use in the US.  I know that's what they should have done but it was nice that it happened so easily.  Telcos of Australia, please take note!

Still haven't found a Denny's.  What a shame!

Mechelle