Arctic America

It's snowing at the moment in NY. The news promised 12 inches of snow, but at the moment it's not really settling, as it's very wet, but I'm sure by morning they'll be a carpet of white outside. I bet it'll make the snow we got in England look like nothing as well.

It's been pretty chilled here over the last day or so, with tiredness really hitting us after a couple of very busy days. Yesterday, we relaxed in the apartment for most of the day before heading out into the evening to explore further. We soon found ourselves on Broadway once again, it's flipping huge, and before long were at Madison Square Park, home of the greatest burger establishment in the world, the Shake Shack. Trust me, it's incredible! From the park, we had a cracking view of the Empire State Building, which we were hoping to climb tonight, but apparently it's $20 to do so and we're not feeling that! On the way back to the apartment we saw the FDNY out in force as there was a fire in an apartment. Out of pure morbid curiosity, we stayed to watch for a while. A fireman had to climb up a huge ladder and hopefully the person in the apartment was saved.

As for today, I headed to Nevada Smiths, which is a very cool American soccer bar to watch the Carling Cup Final. I expected to be the only person in the bar, or at least the only Englishman there but I couldn't have been more wrong. I couldn't get to the bar until half time and I literally couldn't move for most of the match. There were red shirts everywhere, mainly worn by Americans and a lot of the terrace chants were being shouted at the tops of people's voices. There were a couple of English guys there too, and it was a very cool experience. This afternoon, we walked to 5th avenue to check out the posh shops and visited the Rockefeller centre again (photos to come).

This evening I had a McDonalds for the 1st time since I've been here and I have bad news - it wasn't great. For one, it was cold which I can't blame America for, but the interesting part of it all is that the chicken nuggets are REALLY salty, to the point that I couldn't eat them. Also, a medium chicken nugget meals comes with 10, yes 10, nuggets. Incredible.

Tomorrow, we're meeting Joe Conyers, who was one of my 1st good friends at uni, when he was on a study abroad at Westminster back in my semester, so will good, if not surreal, to meet up. He's taking us to a cool burger bar in Brooklyn and giving us some advice about the possibilities involved with moving to New York. Should be nice. We're also gonna check out central park, as it's our last full day and we want to spend it wisely.

Until then, goodbye. I hope the snow doesn't affect our flight...