Day 12...It's up to youuuuuuu New York, New York! 8th July

Woke up 1pm. We've got a lot to see I know, but I"ve seen it before, Nathan isn't fussed and we've got 6 months worth of shit to see so I'm happy for us to pace ourselves. Plus we have 8 days here so we should be sweeeet.

God last night was funny. Hearing sirens and people shouting and talking and music pumping and horns constantly going off. I love hearing it wafting up into our window. New York baby!

We wandered down to Madison Square Garden. It's hot, so walking (which we're doing a lot of) is quite hard as its humid as well, like the Gold Coast. So your sweat sticks to you, your hair fluffs out and you get covered in a layer of New York goo and you get a bit irate. But its all good.

The only events on in Madison Square Garden was womens national basketball. Not to be prejudice against my own sex or anything but women's sport sux the proverbial donkeys and is way boring. So we then trotted down to the Empire State building but it was getting late in the afternoon and the line was really long so we went to an Internet cafe instead.

As it started to get dark, we headed down to Times Square and by golly it was packed! It was almost like a scrum. It gets busy in summer eh! I'm never really fully mellow in crowds (your senses seem to be more alert, and things are more interesting coz the people there are such a mish mash) so our blood pressure goes up a little bit, especially if someone smacks into you and you feel like smacking them back, or biting their ear or something. I took Nathan into Toys R Us on Times Square which I love, because there is a ferris wheel in the middle of the store!! Cool. My favourite bit though is when you go upstairs to the boys bit and there is a massive T-Rex from Jurassic Park which actually roars and moves its head and neck and eyes and stuff and is really real! I want one! I'd put him right by the front door and never turn him off and use up heaps of electricity. Kewl!

We ate dinner at the Olive Grove, which is right on Times Square, and Mum ate there when she was there last. There was a wait for tables so we drank at the bar and watched the street below which was fabulous and the drinks were quite cheap. The restaurant was not so hot though. It didn't have any windows where we were, so we could have been eating anywhere. Plus the toilet was a bit of a nightmare for me! The cracks were so large between the doors that you could watch the people watching you pee! I almost felt like giving a wave, but ended up pushing my head back against the wall and trying to pretend they weren't there. Ick!

We then wandered around Times Square for a while, trying to get some good shots (photos at that lighting is tricky man!) Then we tried to go to bed early in a feeble attempt to get our body clocks switched around again (as going to bed in the wee hours of the morning in Vegas most mornings didn't help things either). We couldn't sleep for hours, and ended up chuckling together at the cacophony of car horns going off throughout the city. New York baby!

* The level of emotions are interesting with travel. Most of the time I am so normal and mellow and fine and dandy with everything. I get a peace when I travel. It's not an overtly exciting feeling or anything as you can't keep your adrenalin up like that, it's not natural to sustain that. Sometimes you get that full on wondrous happy and excited, and then occasionally the "I'm tired, I can't keep it up today, the Americans can just fuck right off" haha! But that one is rare mind you. Its usually when you're really hungry, or are about to pass out on a bus or something, or need to take a crap really badly.

The best emotion is when you're just doing your thing, and then you get this "hey, I'm somewhere far flung and foreign! And I've got all this weird and exciting travel ahead of me!" and you get so excited and can't believe it. That one happens at the weirdest times, usually when you're half asleep, or just waiting in a check out line, or walking somewhere. Then we just turn to each other (as Nate gets it too) and go 'weeee I'm having fun! I just got that feeling again' and so...yeah!