September 2007 was my visit to America and here are all the details as emailed to my friends!We are in NY – had 2 full days here now and its SO AWESOME!! We got delayed in LA (supposed bad weather in NY delaying planes, lies!) for 3 extra hours so we ended up getting to NY at 12:30am. We were starved, so dropped our bags off, and went and found a 24 hour deli. Bee had macaroni and cheese and i had mousaka or something like that and we shared some onion rings! yum! but everything is massive…. it came with a salad that they would serve here as a main and a bunch of bread… so yum though!Then we slept in till 11 the next day and headed out. We got bagels for breakfast, then wandered the streets. turns out our hostel is around the corner from the letterman studio, broadway, times square and practically everything!! so we wandered down broadway, then went to TKTS and got half price tickets to Chicago!! It was so much fun and the theatre was great. After that we walked down fifth avenue, trying to find SAKS (still havent found it!!) but went to FAO Shwartz (biggest toy store in the world apparently. its not that big!!) then we went to the body shop, stocked up on moisturisers and stuff we forgot, then found a drug store to buy all our hairdryers and hair straighteners. that night we went out to a comedy show and it was HILARIOUS! Theyre so much more offensive here. and there was a 2 drink minimum… but each drink has at least 3 shots of alcohol in them. (they actually state that!) so we got a bit drunk… then went to a pool hall and had a few more drinks, then came back to our hostel, but had a stop off at another bar, where we met some NYers who wanted to buy us drinks. fun. but all the bars have no dancing and hardly any music, its weird! Today we had the NY Greeter and he took us on the subway down to NYU, Columbus Park, through China Town, little italy, past the world trade centre, down to battery park, and we saw the statue of liberty, but we have to go back to do the Ferry. Jet lags getting the best of us today though, so we came back at about 3 and had a nap until 8pm, then we went to the Carnegie Deli (famous in NY) and had a sandwhich, more onion rings, Bee had soup and then we had a chocolate cream pie that was soooo huge we barely got through a quarter of it. They have communal tables so we had all these nyers coming up to us and asking us all about australia and they ALL want to know what we think of their city, i guess they like to be flattered!Tonight (its about 10pm) we are going to relax and hopefully be a bit more awake tomorrow. we are either going to do central park, more broadway, letterman… theres so much to do! but we are having a blast and dont want to come back :) Weve done the sex and the city tour and gotten our photos taken on Carrie’s stoop which was fun, weve walked through Bergdorf Goodmans – the most expensive department store ever, we went down to ground zero on Sept 11, done the staten island ferry and saw the statue of liberty, walked through central park which is HUGE. we only got halfway (the things 5 miles long, half a mile wide) but its gorgeous. We walked through the East Village and the Lower east side and ate at Katz Deli (you know, where harry met sally). Leah – didnt find a human tooth down on delancy though. :)  The area is really gorgeous and has lots of cool cafes and vintage shops. we ate a lot of icecream today – from the 2 most famous places around… so yum! Lychee and Panang and then Vanilla choc chip and hazelnut. We have also done China Town but its kinda crazy to walk around… not like little bourke st at all! Funniest part of the trip so far has got to be meeting Jamal – Bretts friend. We met up with him on Weds night after a pitcher of margharitas and burritos (their drinks are SO STRONG here!) and we went to an “exclusive” NY bar – we all walked up to the door (about 10 of us) and they werent going to let us in but the second you do the walk away they let you back in. the place was pretty pretentious and drinks were expensive but it was fun. People dont really dance… they might dance for one song but then theyll go sit down again.By the time we left there it was like 2. so we hopped in a cab to the east village and went to a bar called Barramundi’s and it was fun.. had some more drinks… then that place closed at 4am, and we were only 5 by that stage, so we were walking along and Jamal came across a bar that had its roller gate down most of the way, but he knocked on the door, and they let us in. it was just a weird local pub with 4 locals drinking in there. Straaaaaange experience but very funny. I got hit on my a latino man who wanted me to be his princess and a gay man fell in love with me and wanted to be my penpal based on the fact that I love musicals. so we left there about 5ish, got home at 5:30 in the morning and then slept until 2:30pm! baaaad hangover!! So yeah. tomorrow we are hoping to go to Woodbury Common (a big DFO) and then do the chrysler building and maybe SAKS or Bloomies :)  Saturday we are heading over to Brooklyn, to have bbq at Jamal’s house and to be shown how they do things brooklyn style. heheOur feet are holding up – just, but we are sleeping like 12 hours a night to try and recover! its draining, but so much fun! everything is gorgeous here!so we only have 2 full days left in NY – very depressing! We are going to spend today walking the upper east and west sides, the guggenheim, then at night our NY friends Ben and Jamal are taking us to a walk through of a new musical based on the works of Scott Fitzgerald. Speaking of broadway – we have seen Chicago, A Chorus Line and Rent (I was a little depressed after seeing rent – because i wouldnt be able to see it again!!) and the Fantastiks, as well as that we went to broadway on broadway- a yearly event that every show sings one song from their show (a free event!) Weve also been doing a bit of shopping. We may or may not have both bought a pair of jimmy choos :) but its a different kind of shopping, for things like clothes and shoes you can only really get something good if you can pay for it. if youve got little money, then you have to stick to the basic shops, which really sell a lot of basic black and white kinda clothes. Weve both managed to get a dress or a top each but we havent gone crazy.MAC products, well thats a different story… :)  We still have greenwich village to explore, and want to see more of the east village because those places are so cool – but walking many kms a day is tiring, so were starting out later (10 or 11 instead of 8) in the hopes our feet will last us until dinner time in that neighbourhood. I think my favourite place has got to be the east village area so far… lots of good food, vintage shops, unique people, Id stay down there next time.We havent gone out drinking every night though… in fact only had maybe 3 nights out drinking. the first 2 were messy, but last saturday was more subdued – a bbq in brooklyn at Jamals house, then heading into manhattan to a sports pub, then out for a 2am snack in the east village (we had ukranian!) LA wasn’t as good as I would have thought it would be. We got there on the first night and walked for ages in one direction looking for food, then in the other. We only came across one reallllly expensive restaurant, so we gave up and went to the 711 shop across the road from the hostel and had icecreams and bad sandwiches.The next day we did our LA tour. It was actually pretty fun. We saw everything we wanted to see in LA in that one tour, which was good! We did the walk of fame, hollywood blvd, the hollywood sign, rodeo drive, stars homes, venice beach and santa monica and a bunch of other stuff I can’t quite remember! We had one day where we caught the bus up to hollywood blvd, and watched a movie at the chinese theatre, went to the beverly centre (shopping) and went for dinner at a japanese tapas place (japas!) which was really yum! WE then tried to go out but got denied, which was so funny! They werent letting ANYONE in!We did disneyland which was heaps of fun, then met a bunch of other people (australians, danish and israeli) who we hung out with quite a bit, we had a day down at venice beach, and another at a market and farmers market. We just took it pretty easy because it was way too hard to get around in LA. We went to the viper room, and to some other bar for an 80s rock band which was funny as. Vegas was cool – drank a lot all 3 nights, saw the grand canyon, and just wandered through weird casinos and ate a buffet. Because it was mid week though none of the big super clubs were open which annoyed me because I really wanted to go to one!So that’s my trip!