Eastern USA tour - day 2. NEW YORK! part 1.

woke up all groggy and sooo freaking sleep deprived. pfsh who gives a shit man, today was NEW YORK!
well the morning was and early afternoon

so, NEW YORK!!!!!
we drove for about an hour from new jersey to new york, where we had breakfast at mcdonalds, or as my fobby tour guide says - MCDONO!
in in in TIMES SQUARE! took so many pictures in the bus ahhhhhh. the ginormous bilboards were so cool, lots of them advertising diff things, some of them kind of wrong and funny but c'mon it's new york
the ones that had little videos or adverts playing were my faves :)
arghhhh sorry i'm staying in retarded sheraton, which is supposed to be good but there isn't even intenret in the rooms! have to use some gay computer which seems to hate facebook *sob*
when i get good internet i'll have a separate post on pictures. actually i'll just do that on facebook
anyhows, mcdonalds was awesome. two storeys, might have been 3 storeys, not sure. there sign was big and glittery haha
had a bacon and egg mcmuffin meal - hash brown was disgusting...and then we took pictures inside mcdonalds!!! yes, sounds really touristy but all their walls were painted of new york and famous skyscrapers and places, like times square, and there was a 3D display of new york inside a glass case. yes i took a pic of that and that'll be up as well as the other hundreds of pictures.

oh and new york was absolutely flooded in snow. snow went up to my ankles, and crossing the street was so dangerous, we had to pratically climb over the snow to get to the other side =="
at one point a sewer system seemed to have broken so it smelt like hong kong LOL
after breakfast we took heaps more photos, and luckily right next to mcdonalds was a new york souvenir shop, WHERE ME AND VIV BOUGHT NY T SHIRTS YAAY!!!
i got the classic I <3 NY t shirt, so cheap, only three bucks!!!! compared to other places where it's like 20 bucks pffffsh.
me and viv were the last few to get onto the bus, and our tour guide was like
"SHOPPING ALREADY?!" when he saw the shopping bag rofl

next we got our tickets to visit the "TOP OF THE ROCK", at 30 Rockefeller plaza in MIDTOWN MANHATTEN YEAH which is proudly sponsored by swarvoski i because it houses the largest crystal chandellier IN THE WORLD.
we climbed a staircase for about 2 levels, just staring at the chandellier which is right in the center and is all sparkly and pretty =)
then we took a lift which took us to level...69 i think? anyway it was so cool, the roof was transparent and it played this awesome slideshow - took a vid of lift ride, also up on fb one day
then we spent ages and ages taking pictures of new york city. oh myyy god.
indescribable view okay. so many skyscrapers, all these colourful lights - too bad we didn't go at dusk or night, would've been even better. took pictures of downtown (south), uptown (north), east side, west side, etc etc etc
luckily the skies were nice and blue and not cloudy =)
then we took an escalator to the top of the building, where it was realy really cold so took only a few pictures and then ran back inside lol
we had a professional photo taken inside as well, turns out the package was 30 bucks wtff so expensive
and they sold 22 dollar I <3 NY shirts. rip off much.
photo package had one large photo, 4 wallet size ones and we got "free" magnets and night view of nyc.

then we went outside and took heaps more pictures. at rockefeller center there are heaps of other buildings and tourist attractions. they have the largest christmas tree in the world, and yep took lots more pictures there. also some nice statues and sculptures, more pictures. they also had an ice-skating rink that looked really fun :)

AHH and they had a huge window displaying Harry Potter Theme Park!!!!! took an awesome picture of me next to harry potter, just wait till it's on fb haha. also had window displays of heroes. NBC today show is filmed near there as well.
hmmmmm also saw people breaking up the ice on the street which had been closed...and pretty big trucks scraping off the snow on the roads and dumping them on the edges lol, like a mountain of snow bordering the roads and footpaths.

thennnnn back onto the bus to.....MADAME TUSSAUDS WAX MUSEUM! ahh so so fun and cool.
THEY DIDN'T HAVE HARRY POTTER :( :( :(
but they did have brangelina [zomg brad looked mega hot], george clooney, madonna in this really sexual pose [her legs were wide wide wide wide open], britney spears pole dancing, michael jackson, oprah, jennifer anniston - they stuffed up her face, looks NOTHING like her :(, julia roberts, marilyn monroe, spice girls, serena williams, superman, obama, politicians, musicians, influential people eg einstein, james bond, etc etc etc.
me and viv went into this....scary thing. can't remember what it's called, but you walk in a dark mazed room and you get freaked out like shit. took lots and lots of pics hahaha.

NEXT was a ferry to see statue of liberty!! learnt heaps from that, our tour guide was really really into it, he started giving speeches and preaching, but it was good because you could tell he really loved america.
some facts that i can still remember.....
1. people at manhatten call a park any area with more than 5 trees...he might have been joking, but, manhatten has heaps of parks
2. new york has 468 subways
3. BMV stands for 'brooklyn manhatten vehicle', that ALSO might have been a joke lol
4. no such thing as "zone 0", where the twin towers and 5 other rockefeller skyscrapers fell on september 11th, he started preaching about how americans picked up from where they had fallen and kept on going. so now i think they're building new skyscrapers
5. the family of rockefellers that built the twin towers were pretty smart. since the towers are sooo tall, of course, in turns of science, you need a really strong and sturdy base to support them. and there's a specific type of rock, might have a mix of shale? not sure he was talking really fast lol that is deep deep down in earth's crust. and back at that time, the hudson river was really wide, and the land was pretty narrow. SO, as they dug up the earth and rock, they dumped it into the hudson river, therefore, they created more land!!! geniuses.
6. statue of liberty has heaps and heaps of symbols. the crown has 7 points, representing the 7 seas and 7 continents.
on one of the ankles is a broken shackle, representing something about the french fighting for freedom and breaking the laws I THINK. i defs know that at the time it was being built they were ruled by some evil stadistic man called napoleon.
the two people that built it were also geniuses, one of them built eiffel tower. they knew that since the statue of liberty would be placed in such a location, with the water around it that at some point the statue might change colour. so, it's actually made out of copper, and after thirty years the salt and oxygen changed the colour to green, which now has a protective coating. and they thought that green would look nice against the blue skies lol. and if the statue of liberty loses it's green colour...it's not statue of liberty anymore.
7. one of the two famous bridges was built by two people. first was a man called washington, and then he died after an accident so his wife finished building it. which was apparently a really good sign of women...strength...independence....i should know this but blaaaah =="
and yeah learnt about long island, and how immigrants got in and stuff
oh oh
if an immigrant came in and had a broken limb, or had a limp, the doctor would draw a "L" on the back of their clothes with chalk, meaning "lame" and they were sent to quarantine. people with contagious diseases also had chalk drawn on their back - the initials of the disease and were too sent to quarantine. after a few days if they weren't healed they were sent back to their country, which was about 2% of all.
that place was called two things. "Island of hope", hope for the people that would become americans and "Island of tears", tears fot eh 2% of people that got sent back to their country.

anyway i'm blabbing ..... i bet you skipped all that shit lol.

lol and our tour guide, george, was also really enthusiastic about taking photos of us so yeah took lots =)
it was acutally kind of warm, sun was out, around 3-5 degrees. well, in comparison to in the morning and at night blah

after that we had lunch, had a nice subway thing and soup. then me and viv went to vic secret and bought perfume that was HALF PRICE OKAY. =)
smells nice and vanillery
oh and we wanted this other one, the box was awesome as, when you open it it wolf whistles bahahah

then i got my fave souvenir...a metal plate that says BROADWAY and has outlines of new york skyscrapers and stuff
and underneath broadway and the signature masks it says

Lauraa :)   Ave
                 2009
for anyone that wants to see it just check out my locker next year XD

then, back onto the bus to atlantic city!