New York, New York

I made Kevin a top 10 list of sites I wanted to see in New York and we managed to cover off 7 in the first day: Ground Zero, the Statue of Liberty, the Stock Exchange building, Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center, Times Square and a Broadway show. Other items we saw along the way included Battery Park, the South Street Seaport, Radio City Music Hall, the Ed Sullivan Theatre and Columbus Circle.

Halfway through the day we met up with Kevin's former co-worker Mike and his girlfriend Melinda for lunch. Gerry joined us too. We went to Essex, which had an awesome brunch special for $16 that included 3 mimosas. Kevin and I actually showed up early for lunch so we pre-drank 2 mimosas as well. We had a good view of the bar and they were using real champagne!

I think my favourite part of the day was seeing Times Square at night and the Broadway show. We bought half price tickets to Avenue Q, which I've been wanting to see for years now. It won the Tony for Best Musical in 2004 and is basically like real-life, dirty Sesame Street for adults. Songs include It Sucks To Be Me, If You Were Gay and The Internet is for Porn, to give you an idea.

We obviously were exhausted at the end of the day and finished off with dinner at Il Violino.

It was weird to finally see all the larger than life New York landmarks in person. Surreal. The subway and people were also much more normal and friendly than as depicted on tv. Law & Order has been lying to me! Donk donk. (That's the Law & Order sound bite.) Zero shootings and stabbings witnessed as of yet.