New York and Washington DC

9^th June

Wake up and really tired, get a taxi to the airport for our flight. Check-in is really easy but they make you carry your luggage through customs and check-in. Never had this before and it is really annoying. Anyway get rid of our bags finally and board our plane to New York. Only about an hour and a half flight and we get to have a scenic flight over Manhattan before landing in Laguardia airport. No customs on this side as we had gone through it in Toronto so out of the airport fairly quickly and then get a a taxi to our hotel in Manhattan. It takes a while to get there and the fare is about $35. I am really tired and tempted to sleep but decide to try and stay awake. We find a little café on the corner of our street and head there for some food J There is currently a heatwave in New York and the temperature is well into the high 30’s if not more so we take the subway to downtown 14^th street. Decide to walk back to our hotel which is on 57^th so a fair hike but interesting because we pass all the different shops and sites. Walked past the empire state building but decide not to do it yet, Sandy does a bit of retail therapy before we get to times square. Walk around trying to decide what to do before deciding that it is too hot outside and head to the movies to watch Zohan. Cheaper movies in the afternoon and not many people either J After the movie we make our way back to the hotel. For some much needed sleep!

10^th June

Hop-on hop-off bus and boat ride to ellis island and statue of liberty

Ground zero, Brooklyn bridge

Kung-fu panda

Laundry and thai food ?

11^th June

B&H Photography store

Post office

Empire state building

Manhattan

Lion King broadway musical

Downpour of rain and wind while waiting for chinese

12^th June

Taxi to penn station

Train to Washington DC – 4 hours

Cab to hotel.

Lunch/dinner at nearby pub

13^th June

cab to union station

breakfast in station

Hop-on hop-off bus – 2hours long

Capitol building, national mall, Washington monument, white house, franklin memorial, Arlington cemetery, Georgetown, white house, Smithsonian museums

Space and air museum walked national mall to reflections pool and ww2 memorial.

Lunch on way back to hotel.

Picked up by Mary just after 6pm. Dinner with Sarkus and Mary from Amazon trip.

Late night back to hotel all monuments lit up.

14^th June

Ashu was only going to pick us up around 11am so we had a bit of a late morning before receiving a call from him that he would be there in about 30 minutes.

Once he arrived we walked down to the spy museum but the entrance was $20 a person so decided to flag that idea and went to a greek restaurant for brunch J Really good food and lots of different plates of food to choose from. After lunch we walked to the national mall and decided to go to the natural history museum. The Smithsonian museums have free entry so much more pocket friendly J Went and saw the hope diamond – really not impressive at all. Did a quick walk around before getting bored and heading back out. Thought we would try go to the national archives but the line wrapped around the street to get in, so we gave that a miss and headed for the native American museum which is new. This also seemed to have a really long line so after all of this we decided to find a cab and head for the Georgetown waterfront. Had a few beers by the riverside at a restaurant and bar called the Sequoia. Weather started changing and it began to rain so we headed inside to finish off our beers before heading to Ashu’s flat. His flat is close to the waterfront and the main street of Georgetown so quite convenient for most things. Caught up on all sorts of stuff before heading out to a thai restaurant to catch up with one of his friends. After a really good thai meal we headed back to his flat for a few drinks and more of a catch up. Decided to call it a night at midnight and his friend offered us a lift back to the hotel. Packed our bags and burn’t a DVD before going to bed at about 2am L So much for an early night.

15^th June

Woke up this morning at about 9:30am and got ready, packed the final bits and pieces into our bags and checked out of the hotel. Caught a taxi to union station, no one around so it is a fairly quick trip. Join the ticket line and hope that we can exchange our tickets for an earlier train. Yesterday we worked out that we had three hours to get from Penn station in Manhattan to JFK airport and check-in. Definitely not enough time especially if we get held up anywhere. After a bit of a wait in-line we managed to get on the next express train to New York. Ran to our train which was leaving in 10 minutes. Boarded the train and bought a couple of drinks and some chicken wings to settle the stomach until we get to New York. Train ride is going to be about three hours instead of 4, and combined with leaving an hour earlier will give us plenty of time. Arrive in NY around 2:30 and grab a cab. Flat rate of $45 to JFK, so no stress. Traffic is crap and it takes us an hour and a half to get there and this was good as our cab driver was speaking with friends so changed our route to avoid a blocked freeway. We are thankful we decided to get here earlier! Check in was a bit chaotic as we find out that NY had a very severe storm last night causing a number of flights to be cancelled. There were people everywhere and many were confused and getting frustrated. Our flight is set to leave at 7pm so had plenty of time to wait for the check in to get sorted and then wait in the business lounge – a surprise to us as most people we had spoken to in the past said the USA only let their members in, rather than anyone in business class. Not complaining, Sandy even got a 15minute complimentary back massage! Our flight was called so wandered down to the gate – people were everywhere! We were up in the bubble of the plane which is really, really nice! Plenty of room etc, anyway enough bragging – it is still a plane. We didn’t have seats together so asked a guy to switch, he didn’t seem to keen even though he had an identical seat 1 row back. Too bad, he agreed. We were at least 30mins late leaving the gate due to a back log of planes. Even after we taxied out, Chris counted at one point 15 planes ahead of us, and by the time we left, at least 30 behind us. One complete runway was a parking lot with planes waiting to take off, even though one was leaving every 30 sec or so! Watched a movie – Chris - National Treasure, Sandy – a couple of others.