New York, New York

This is what my desktop looks like at the mo:

I can't really afford it, but I'm not gonna let that stand in the way of me realising my highest priority post uni/new job ambition - to travel the four corners of planet earth. What WAS stopping me however, was the lack of a similarly minded cohort to accompany me. Enter housemate, JC, who was of a similar disposition, albeit without the same reliance on his VISA card (gulp!).

First stop: The Big Apple. Why? Well, why the hell not? The place is so ingrained in my subconcious due to countless movies, TV shows, miscellaneous media culture and THAT DAY in September 2001, that I just have to go and see it for myself. In many ways, it might as well be the capital of the planet.

So we booked our tickets on lastminute.com on Wednesday. Just under £900 each got us flights, insurance and 7 nights at a 3 star hotel on 34th Street (just down the road from the Empire State Building). You might say - considering that I'm spending my saturday night starting this blog instead of 'having it' on the town as usual - that I'm in full-on excited mode now.

A work collegue got me an up-to-date guidebook from an inter-departmental sale yesterday which I've been furiously scanning most of the day. Currently on the list of things/places I want to do/go are:

• Empire State Building


• Statue of Liberty


• Ground Zero


• Central Park


• Times Square


• Coney Island (maybe via ferry/water taxi?) - Iconic location used in The Warriors, Angel Heart and countless other movies. Check out some more of Brooklyn while we're at it?


• The Flatiron Building (Daily Bugle in Spiderman)


• Locations from Ghostbusters (This is JC's only request so far)


• The Rockefeller Building


• Grand Central Station


• Chinatown


• Little Italy

...which I know is an ambitious amount of stuff to fit into one week, but with some cunning navigation we might just do it. Need to figure out where stuff is geographically and allocate a day to each area... or something.

That's all for now until I need to let out some more excitement. Obviously, all the pictures will be going up here via flickr and I may even do some blogging while I'm out there if we have any downtime at all.

As the song goes: "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere..." :)