86th Floor Highs and Lows

It's funny how Times Square is so noisy, chaotic, flashy, busy yet it really is the place where I feel most at peace in the world. It just feels like it's home.

So even when I've had a reasonably difficult two days (almost three if you're in Australian time), every time I see the lights of Times Square I can't stop breaking into a grin, and feeling so darned happy.

(Taken on the TKTS Steps)

(Note the blog will get positive again shortly!) The reason it's been difficult are the long flights, total chaos in the airports which resulted in our bags not arriving in NYC with us. I've been amazed at how annoying it actually is not to have your stuff. Thankfully we'd packed a spare shirt and underwear in our carry on, but after a long day of flights and literal running around airports, I really wanted my pyjamas when we arrived at midnight.

Aaron's bag arrived today, but mine is still missing. Delta told us (several times) it was arriving with Aaron's and they could "guarantee" it was on the delivery truck but no, 10 minutes later my bag had still never left LA. It's allegedly on a plane to NYC and will be with me tonight, but my breath isn't being held. It's been honestly really annoying, as we've had to buy socks and underwear etc that we wouldn't have had to, plus I've had to do a lot of chasing. We also had to pay our car driver nearly double extra because of waiting time due to how long we were delayed at the airport. All small money things, but I obssess about budgets while I'm away.

Anyway, the flights over (2 hours between Adelaide and Sydney, 13 hours between Sydney and Los Angeles and 5 hours between Los Angeles and New York) weren't that bad actually. We were super lucky and had a seat free in our row of three for the long flight, which made the flight phenomenally more comfortable.

However that flight landed on time, but it arrived at the same time as another international flight and that's where the chaos happened, as immigration couldn't cope with everyone, so there were delays, meaning the three hours we had between flights totally evaporated.

For entertainment, we both watched the new The Three Musketeers film which was unbelievably bad but actually watchable, and I watched Crazy, Stupid Love.Well half of it, as far as I was concerned it should have been called Boring, Depressing Love and I hated it so much, I turned it off.

Anyhoo, as exciting as plane flights are... maybe I should talk more about NYC! As I said, as our car turned into 7th Avenue to our hotel and I squealed at Times Square blinking at me down the street. We ended up grabbing a very late dinner at our hotel's diner - Aaron had a cheeseburger and I had spaghetti and meatballs. After unwinding we went to sleep about 1:30am.

We've made a concerted effort to try and get to a normal timing schedule to try and fend off jetlag. It seems to have worked as well as it could have. So we got up around 7:30am, went to a deli for breakfast (I had a cheese omelette - Aaron a fruit salad), then walked down to Times Square, browsed M and M's World,  Toys R Us' massive store (it has a ferris wheel inside of it!) and then strolled down to Macy's.

After getting ourselves lost in Macy's (about 64 times - it is the largest store in the world) we ended up on 34th Street and decided the freezing weather (about 10 degrees today) may have affected the Empire State Building lines,so decided to go up. It was only a 10 minute line, and most of that was walking between areas.

Last time we were up on the Empire State Building it was a very busy Friday night, and it was hard to take photos, today we were really able to wander around and take some decent shots. Unfortunately as it was misty, we couldn't get a decent shot of the Brooklyn Bridge. But here are some photos, as usual I stared at the Chrysler Building for ages.

After that we grabbed some lunch at another deli (huge grilled cheese sandwiches and fries - $4.95!) we strolled back to the hotel via KMart and Macy's to buy a few essentials in case we have no suitcases for awhile.

After a break at the hotel (and while the suitcase drama ramped up) we went out to dinner at one of our favourite places here - Famous Daves. (I have photos but they're not on the computer yet.) The food there is so huge. I had beef brisket, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and cornbread. We didn't finish it, didn't get close but still needed to be almost rolled back to the hotel!

It's been a nice day. I love this place so much.