Ferretworld in the Big Apple

I just returned from a Fab weekend in New York with my mother and sister. Gill had never been to the city before (maybe) so we mixed some of the classic tourist haunts with some hanging out.

A picture is worth a thousand words so...

We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott in South Times Square, the hotel worked out perfectly for us and we were delighted with our view...

Being near Times Square was convenient for transport and nice and lively at night.

We had a real mix of weather - snow, rain, and sunshine. However it was pretty cold (for a Californian) and we needed our scarves, hats, gloves etc. Our first day we visited both the Museum of Modern Art and the excellent Tenement Museum. The restored tenements were shocking really - that living conditions were so bad in such recent history - the web site also shows a virtual tour of one of the tenements.

We spent the next day walking - south through the fashion district, the East Village, Greenwich Village, and Soho.

We pretended to be characters from Sex and the City - although my mother was not too thrilled at having to be Samantha (well Gill is Carrie and I of course had to be Miranda!).

We wrapped up our long day walking with the Empire State Building. I have been to the observation deck every time I've visited New York and dont think you could get tired of the views.

We also managed to get a peek inside some of the wonderful art deco buildings - the Empire State of course:

and the inside of the Chrysler Building:

On one of the lovely sunny days we took the Staten Island Ferry for the round trip and visited Ground Zero on our return. It was still very strange to see the skyline without the two towers.

The English contingent wanted to take advantage of the pound:dollar exchange rate and do some shopping - so I obligingly went along with that plan...

and although there was not nearly enough of it for my liking...there were cocktails. This photograph taken at the Rainbow Room...

We did have plans to get dressed up to go out - but were overwhelmed with the desire for drinks after all that shopping!

Finally - on Sunday evening we happened to be walking through Times Square at 10pm...

for non-Americans the New York Giants (a signifigant underdog) won the Superbowl! I understand that 3 million people attended the Ticker Tape parade in their honour on Tuesday morning. I was pretty surprised that they still hold ticker tape parades at all - this one in Canyon of the Heroes near Wall St.