Day 6

I woke up today with the thought in my mind that if I had played by the rules I would now be at work. Now that thought is an instant way to get yourself into a good mood. It was time to face today's challenge. It was Saturday and we wanted to find a cheap place to stay in Manhattan. We rang several hostels and received the same answer. "Nope sorry we are full, but here is another number to try" and the cheapest hotel we could find was 400 bucks. As things were getting pretty desperate this place said that they had room for two, but in separate dorms. He had not finished the sentence and I said O.K. The deal was he would hold it until 1:00pm. It was now 11:45. Time to hightail it to the big smoke.

It was 1:00 and we just arrived at Grand Central station, so back on the phone to tell him we were still coming. Now it was time to have the experience and get in a New York taxi. We knew we were in New York when we saw some irate commuter going totally ballistic. We arrived at the hostel, which ended up being 150 meters from Times Square and the dude had put us in a Quad room. " The things I do for Aussie's" he said. All that for 30 bucks a night each, what a bargain : ) The place was called the Big Apple Hostel if anyone wants to know. Highly recommended. On a previous trek I have payed twice as much to share a room that you could not swing a mouse in, let alone a cat.

After sorting that out it was time to do some city hiking. Basically we walked down to Times Square and then up to Central Park. As if the wonderful colours of the trees were not telling us that winter is well on the way the ice rink was full of ice and ice skaters. Thought about having a go but did not want to break anything, namely bones. We walked back down 5th Ave with about a million other people back to Times Square. As it was now nighttime the square was at it grandest. Bright neon signs in every direction and to say it was crowded is a major understatement.

We dropped our daypacks off at the hostel and were going over to Queens to introduce me to a bit of Czech culture in a Czech Pub. I sampled some of the Czech brew. It was very nice and some yummy soup that I had never seen before. We caught the Subway back into the city and wanted to go up the Empire State Building. Unfortunately we did not make it in time. They were just closing. Maybe we should have thrown in the excuse they used in Sleepless in Seattle. We walked back to the hostel via the square, still as busy as midday!