I want to be a part of it........

We have finally left Peru to start our US leg. After a quick stop in Washington DC to say hello to Jenna and Jay, we caught the bus out to New York. We had been warned off catching commuter buses in the US, but at the less than half the price of the train we thought we would take a punt. Strangely after having ridden public buses in Peru it didn't phase us at all. The bus and fellow passengers were actually quite pleasant, the only problem being the we didn't get to sit together because we got on at the second stop and there were no adjacent seats left.

Almost as soon as we arrived in NY Matthew was able to tick off one of his life goals. We had investigated getting tickets to one of Matt's favourite shows, The Late Show with David Letterman, before we left Australia. You had to put in your details online, what time you would be in New York and just hope for the best. It looked like your chances would be slim so we didn't bother. Little did we know that on any given day, apparently they need to fill up some empty seats, and they give those out on the street! We just happened upon someone giving them out on our way to the hotel. We couldn't believe it, but two hours later we were watching the show. The set looks a lot bigger on the TV, but i think that is true for all TV shows. The show is filmed at 3.30pm so isn't shown live, but is certainly taped live. They do everything to the minute including all ad breaks, and is shown as is without editing. The guests on that day were Danny Divito, Larry David and Avril Lavign (Danny and Avril are very small in real life).

Almost right after that we went down to get tickets to a Broadway show. We just can't help ourselves when it comes to musicals after all. After a bit of debate we decided to see Wicked, which is based on the book about the secret lives of the Witches of Oz. Matt quite liked it, but Meredith had her critics hat on that night and could only give it three stars.

The next day we climbed the Empire State building, which is well worth it because from there you can see the entirety of Manhatten island. We grabbed the audio tour which is quite handy for identifying all of the neighbourhoods which just melt into one another. From up there the city looks quite compact like you could walk from one end to the other without much difficulty. Hmm, not true. We discovered this after making the brilliant decision to take a quick walk down to china town to get Yum Cha for lunch. 8 hours later (seemed like) , 4 sore feet and 2 moody diners later we were sitting down to chicken's feet and beef balls. Let's just say the selection in Haymarket is far superior.

Needless to say we caught the subway the rest of the way down to the dock area. From there we caught the Ellis island ferry out to the statue of Liberty and Ellis island, but we were so stuffed we took the obligatory tourist shots and slunk back in the stalls and just enjoyed the breeze in our hair.

The 'Pod Hotel' where we had checked in the previous night had well and truly lived up to its namesake (funky, but no room to swing a cat here people) so that evening we decided to grab tickets to another show. This time it was a production called 'Avenue Q' which has an ensemble cast of actors and puppets. It started as an off-broadway number a few years ago and has gone on to win a Tony award for best musical and a spot on the main boulevard. It was very tongue in cheek and was poking fun at all the Seasame St truisms that we learnt as little people in the 80's. Think Big Bird meets the cast of Rent. It was a good laugh and we slid into our 'Pod' that night buggered, but toe-tapping at the same time.

The next day we had a long stroll through central park before the bus home. It is quite amazing how bushy it feels considering it is packed into the middle of one of the densest cities on earth. While we were there we saw some people with official amazing race clues running by. We asked what they were doing. They said it was just a game, but we think they were secretly trying out for the show.