New York Buildings

The organ in St Patrick's Cathedral

Empire State Building

Flatiron Building

The Chrysler Building

Leaving America

After a restful month in Philadelphia, we had to move on. It was a fantastic rest from the silly amount of moving we had been doing. When the day came to leave, it was very sad for Angie and Stephie - as they said, it kept 'raining on their faces'.

Angie on our bus to New York

The last lights of The States we saw as the bus to Canada pulled out of the city - 'Tattoo', 'The World of DVD Female Peep Show Male Peep Show', 'Hot and Crusty'

Happy Birthday America

We were still in Philly for America's birthday party, which is special, because that's where America was born. We put on the colours, ate lots of food that matched our clothes, sang the theme song and watched some in-your-face fireworks. It was quite a bash.

Angie's contribution to the big celebration - marshmallow and strawberry kebabs. Red, white and blue ones, of course.

A couple of days later, the party was still going. We went to watch some more fireworks, but got stuck in traffic. It worked well though, because then it started bucketing down, and we were stuck right in front of the show.

Around Philadelphia

To the Shore! Atlantic City!!

The boardwalk

On the Eastern side of America, when you feel like some time at the beach, you don't go to the coast, you go to the shore. We went to the shore, to Atlantic City. Atlantic City is a beachside mini-Vegas with all the class and sophistication you would expect from a gambling town. The boardwalk is the heart of the city. It runs along the beach and is lined with huge casinos, malls, gaming parlours and an infinite number of souvenir shops selling some really, really nice stuff.

Some of the classier merchandise

Perhaps the most shocking revelation I've had in a while came while we were strolling along the boards. It turns out that the original game of Monopoly was not based on London, but actually based on the Atlantic City boardwalk! Egads! It took me a while to get over that.

Cold water

One mall had beach-themed resting areas set high above the waves

Globe of DEATH!!

We went to a restaurant that gave out free paper hats

Surfer

Philly Loves Rocky

Skip forward to the 1.50 mark to see the important bit

Apparently the Rocky character is based on someone real, and the Rocky tributes refer to both versions

Everyone in Philadelphia loves Rocky. The museum steps that Rocky runs up are probably the most important tourist attraction in the whole city, and this is the city where they signed the Declaration of Independence. At any one time, there is always at least one person skipping up the steps and jumping around at the top.

This is Angie and Stephie doing the famous run, but you'll notice that in the original, Rocky didn't run up the steps holding his best friend's hand.

Around New York

We spent a couple of days in New York, and it's a wonderful city. We ate bagels for breakfast, wandered around, navigated the web-like subway, ate pizza in Little Italy, saw a few sights, ate in Chinatown and spent most of the time gawking at the inhuman enormity of the place.

Angie and a taxi

The Statue of Liberty on Times Square

The real one through the fog

Outside the Rockefeller Center, there is this Meccano-ish model of the building

They're not shy with the flags

A walkway around Ground Zero

Ground Zero

Ray Shinnery, an old bluesman we saw at a club in Greenwich Village