New York – Happy new year to all…we are back form New York having taken a bite out of the big apple! We were out there for new years eve and had a few days either side to see the sights and help out the economy by giving them loads of money in exchange for alcohol! We left a very cold London  on 30th December and landed in an even colder New York at around 7.30 pm their time. This was good planning on our part as it meant that we could go out and get extremely drunk first night!! Before all that we got to our hotel, The Roosevelt Hotel, and found that it was very nice, well the lobby area was anyway. So we checked in and dumped our bags in our slightly disappointing room and headed out into the COLD night air. Our hotel was on 45th Street which meant we were very central as it goes. Time Square was only a couple of blocks away, the Chrysler Building was only 2 blocks away and Grand Central Station was just round the corner. With this in mind we headed to Grand Central in order to frequent a place called The Campbell Apartment. This is a nice place in Grand Central to get a good cocktail which is something the FB boys never pass up.

As you can see it’s a nice place that did very nice cocktails that were very strong! The cocktails that were drunk involved all sorts of alcohol incluing Champagne, Whisky, Gin and Brandy…not all in the same glass I must add. The cocktails were suitably stupidly named including a Roaring 20′s and a Highlander. At this point I can’t remember which cocktails contained which alcohol but all of them were nice and all of them were pretty strong which probably explains my lack of memory. From here we stumbled into the nearest pub largely due to the ever dropping temperature. The wind was so cold it actually got ot the point where the tips of your ears burned as they were so cold. This led us into the nearest pub from the first bar which conveniently was just across the street! I have no clue what the name of this placae was but it was pretty basic inside and nothing particualrly special. We drank JD & coke from plastic cups and we also decided that it was about time we had a shot of something which led us to having a enormous shot of Sambuca…

As you can see the shot was rather large but it was needed. It’s been scientifically proven that drinking a skinful can warm you up and protect you from the cold…well this is what I was told by Dr. Science. With this in mind we decided to drink loads in order to help us out! So we stumbled on into the night and drank our way round various bars in NYC. At this point dear reader I must be honest and say that I can’t really remember which bars or where exactly they were. We simply drank our way around Time Square and the surronding areas making sure that we had a skinful in each bar and with each drink we felt the cold a little less! With it being the night before new years eve there were a lot of police around in Time Sqaure and a lot of barriers that were all going to be in heavy use for the big event on the next evening. This prompted Ben to strike a stupid pose in front of loads of cops in the middle of Time Square…check out the images section to see it!! We seemed to end up in a bar called Mean Fiddler, this happened a few times, as this seemed to be the bar that was opened the latest in the city and thus was a big hit with the FB boys. While in here we took a fair few drunken photos and sank quite a few more drinks and shots…apologies for the lack of detail but there was a lot of alcohol consumed by this point. There is a long standing tradition at FB that means the 1st night wherever we go tends to be the one of, if not THE heaviest night on the sauce and NYC was no exception. Little did we know at the time but a running theme was started at the end of this evening…we have no clue how we got back to the hotel. This happened pretty much every night we went out, we would wake up the next day and wonder how on earth we had arrived back at the hotel. We were also left to wonder what we had done and how much noise we had made when getting in and coming through the hotel at 4.30 am and getting up to the 10th floor where the room was. Still it was ultimately a very successful first night out.

We dragged ourselves out of bed at some point on new years eve and headed out into NYC to get a look at it in the day light. We managed to do a lot of the “touristy” things such as checking out Time Square which was rammed with people and even more police. There must have been almost 1 copper per person…if you wanted to commit a crime in downtown NYC, now was the time as every cop in a 3 state radius was in Time Sqaure. It was very surreal and at the same time slightly worrying to see so many police officers in 1 location. To be honest the day involved little else other than wondering around NYC taking it all in and trying to not die of hypothermia as the wind was so cold that the polar beers we passed were packing their bags and heading for Mexico! The rest of the day was pretty much wasted as we waited for the evening to come round so we could go out and get pissed again! I should also mention that while walking through Time Sqaure we walked past a bloke setting up to do an interveiw in front of a TV camera, this was something Ben couldn’t pass up and duely walked past in the background and shouted WANKER. We are nothing if not predictable! We went for a power nap prior to going out which ultimately meant we didn’t get out until about 11 pm as we were quite hung over anyway form the night before and the power nap dragged on longer than it probably should have done. Never the less we roused ourselves and headed out again to Pacha with the promise of free drink!! We had purchased our tickets in advance and Pacha were runnning an open bar from about 9 pm to about 1 am. So we were keen to get there and get the free drinking underway! But first here we had to get there. The first obstacle was getting the lift down to the bottom florr from the 10th floor where we were. With it being new years eve there were quite a lot of people around and the lift was pretty busy and was stopping on every floor. We squeezed in and were about the last 2 that could fit in. The lift went down about 2 floors before stopping again. The doors opened and a bloke was stood there with his missus, who was quite fit and Ben quietly said “squeeze in love…” This then set us both off into uncontrolable fits of laughter. This was one of those moments when you simply cannot stop laughing no matter what you try, tears rolling down your face, struggling for breath…all of this is a packed lift that kept stopping on each floor. It proved to be a long ride! We then had to get a cab to the club which was a bit of a mission away and we then got turned back as Ben didn’t have ID. SO back we went again, grabbed Ben’s ID and headed back again in a cab which took ages as most of the city was now closed becasue of the huge crowds heading to Time Sqaure. This meant the cabbie had to go the long way round which involved going round pretty much the entire city!! I will freely admit to seriously struggling at this point due to a chronic hangover…I was struggling to move. We carried on regardless and got on with what we do best…got spectactularly drunk. The new year drew closer as we sank a few G&T’s and then the saddest realization of all hit home…the G&T’s were making us feel better which I’m pretty sure means we should be sat in a church hall somewhere standing up and admitting we have a problem! So the new year was counted down and we shouted out the count down and rejoiced when the new year kicked in and then drank a few more G&T’s…and then a few more and then a few more. The club itself was pretty big, not as big as the one in Ibiza, and split over 3 floors. Once again we downed a few shots as well including the foolish moment when Ben asked the bar maid to recommend something and then pour it out. It was foul and I have no idea what was in it and I’d love to say I’ll never have it again but not knowing what it was in the first place means there is always a chance I’ll drink it again by mistake…and not by choice!!! We carried on drinking until the free bar ran out and then we…drank some more. We ended up downstairs in the bottom part of the club on a tiny little dnace floor next to a tiny little bar. It was quite cool and though I can’t remember all of it, due in part to the huge intake of Gin, I do remember a few things. Firstly the bar maid was very fit, somehting no amount of alcohol will ever stop either of us remembering is a fit bar maid. Secondly we met some South African bloke and took the piss because England were winning in the cricket. Thirdly he ended up buying us a shot after we bought him and his missus a drink and it was an enormous shot of Tequilla! From here on in the memory fails me as we put in a great effort at killing off what few brain cells we had left. To be perfectlly honest the next memory was waking up at the hotel with neither of us knowing how we got there…until I flicked through my camera checking out the photos from last night. I then came across one of Ben in the back of a limo from new years eve and the time stamp was from about 4.30 am. We then both slowly remembered, only vaguely, that we had gotten in a limo!

Here is the proof…which means we got a limo back from Pacha in NYC on New Years Eve!! We live the kind of lives that most people can only dream about…shame we can’t remember most of it! I must admit that when I woke up at about 8.30 am in dire need of the Gents, I was fully clothed and lying on top of my bed with none of the bed sheets even touched! On my return I was sensible enough to get into bed this time and go back to sleep for a long time. New Years Day saw us doing very little at all. We weren’t out of bed until quite late on in the afternoon and very few things in the city were actually open what with it being New Years Day. So we did very little else apart from go to Grand Central and hit up the Michael Jordan Steakhouse. We stumbled on this palce more by luck than judgement and ended up having a massive 16 oz steak each. We also ordered battered onion slices as well and steak cut chips. Both of which turned up and were huge!! The onions were cut really thinnly and were cracking but were also served up in a bucket while the chips were about the same size as my hand and were plentiful!! The mystery of why there are so many fat people in America is slowly unravelling. I don’t think I can stress enough how little else we did that day other than to say that the next thing we did was go and have a nap, woke up and then went back to sleep again until the morning!

The 2nd of January actually involved us doing some things during the day, thanks to going to sleep early enough to get up at a reasonable time in the morning. So we headed out and grabbed some breakfast at a place down the road. The breakfast was cracking but again huge! I ordered up a sausage and mozzerella omlette which looked as though it had been cooked with a whole battery of hens worth of eggs! It did taste excellent but it was massive, while Ben enjoyed a rather large portion of eggs benedict which was not as sizeable as the omlette but was still on the larger side of eggs benedict! We moved off and made our way to the subway as the plan was to head down to Ground Zero. We foolishly walked down to Time Square to get the train from down there, this was a massive error on our part as it was absolutley freezing outside and we should have just gotten on the subway somewhere else…anywhere…as long as it meant not being outside anymore. We eventaually made it down to the subway in time to miss a train and then stand on the paltform waiting for another one for ages. The underground in the UK might not be the best but at least it tells you roughly when the next train is turning up whereas in NYC it doesn’t, which is brilliantly annoying! Still we got on and rattled down there. When we arrived we headed into the little church on one of the corners of the square, which is where all the memrobelia has been put as well as tributes from around the world. It’s a very somber experience and helps to bring home the human aspect of what happened on September 11th. Everyone has seen the pictures and heard of the loss and suffering but seeing it all up close with photos of family members lost and messages from their loved ones brings it all home and makes it all the more tangible. There are photos and cards showing various people that were lost in the attacks and one that stood out said that the person in question was missing 11/09/01 and found 06/03/02. After this we went into the buildings surronding the area which are open to the public to walk through so you get a better view of Ground Zero as it is now. As it is now it is basically an enormous building site with masses of craines hauling huge pieces of metal all over the place. We listened in on a woman give a talk about what happened and it turns out she was a survivor from the 110th floor! She said that when the 1st plane hit the people on her side of the floor in her tower had no idea what was going on. She was in the 2nd tower and they had no clue what was going on. To empahise how high up she used to work she said that when she saw snow going past her window, she took an umbrella with her when she went out because by the time she got to the bottom it was rain and not snow! That shows how high she was and how incedible it was that she made it out.

After that we moved on and got back on the subway and headed back to Grand Central again, this was only after a massive amount of walking to get to the right platform to get a train heading in the right direction. I only mention this due to the Artic conditions outside which made any sort of walking a chore. Upon arriving at Grand Central we made our way up to Bloomingdales as it’s another NYC tourist spot that simply has to be visited in order to get a “brown bag.” The only problem however is that we couldn’t afford anything in there until we found that Lacoste were having a massive sale and we quickly snapped up a couple of T-Shirts (mine being the cheapest and best bargin!!). After looking around in there for a bit we headed for home again to prepare for another night on the sauce. We got changed and hit the bars for a bit more bar hopping. I’ll admit the bar hopping wasn’t as frequent as it often is on these holidays given the rather cold wind outside forcing temperatures down to about -20. This often led to us setting up camp in a bar of choice and then making sure that by the time we leave the wind didn’t feel quite as chilly. The bars in quaetion were invariably “Irish” bars. Which basically means they were long, narrow rooms where everyone sits at the bar, which is a good thing as it encourages more drink to be partaken of! So we sank a few winter warmers in one of the many Irish bars dotted around and moved off. Somehow we came across a place called Hawaiin Tropic Zone and soon found ourselves sat at the bar in there. This place was pretty nice and we were soon looking down the cocktail menu for what to enjoy next. This place also had the added bonus of haivng another really fit bar maid! My memory is a bit fuzzy at this point but I have a horrible feeling we both drunkenlly tried it on with her once we had ordered up some Mango Martini’s!! Smooth! After this palce we moved onto a place called Larry Flint’s Hustler Club, which as luck would have it was a strip joint…I don’t know how we keep coming across these places when we are on holiday. Anyway we strolled into take a look at what was going on and enjoy another drink or 5.  It might sound a bit creepy to say so but I’ve been to better strip clubs than this but it wasn’t bad and ultimately I must have gone home very pissed as once again neither myself or Ben can remember the journey back to the hotel.

The next day began at a more narmal hour in the afternoon. We got up and went to an American diner we had spotted on the way to Bloomingdales the day before. We pitched up in there in the hopes of getting a massive breakfast but instead had to settle for big greasy burgers to help with the recovery process. While the burgers didn’t help that much and ultimatley ended up hurting, the milkshakes were very good and helped out a lot towards trying to feel human again. We held up in there for a bit because it started snowing not long after we got in there and it now looked as though we were eating lunch inside a snow globe and franklly neither of us fancied going outside in the snow, wind and the extreme cold. The kind of cold that would have Ranolf Fiennes running for warmer climes. When we eventually made it out of there we haeded back to the hotel to have a lie down, get changed and then made our way to The Empire State Building to check out the view at night. After a lot of escalators, queueing and walking we made it up onto the 86th floor of the building to check out NYC by night. The view was incredible and you could see for miles. All of a sudden the city looked pretty small but somehow even more spectacular as it was all lit up against the dark night sky. You could see everything, the Chrysler building, the MET Life building, the Rocafeller Centre and a stadium that we failed miserably to identify. The only downside to this was when we ventured outside to get a better look of the view and funnily enough the rather cold weather was rather colder when you are outside and 86 floors up! We took a photo outside of Ben with the backgournd and as you can plainly see from the photo Ben is battling the early stages of hypothermia…I can announce that he made it, which depending on your point of view is either good or bad news. We came out of here and went drinking around Time Sqaure again. We ended up in another “Irish” bar where the barman had set a challenge to 2 girls sat at the bar. The challenge was to make 4 boxes out of 5 by only moving 2 lines and everything must still be connected. He laid it out with straws and the women failed to get it, so the FB boys gave it a go and I am very pleased to announce that despite my massively elevated blood/alcohol level I managed to get it right!! From this point on the evening descended into the usual efforts to pickle our livers by trawling round various bars in and around Time Square. At some point on this evening we ended up at another “Irish” bar next to a load of Aussies (they get everywhere) and they we’re kind enough to tell us the FA Cup scores. This was the point when they announced that Man Utd (ben’s team) had lost to Leeds Utd at home. It made the holiday all the better from my point of view!! I’m not sure that Ben enjoyed the endless ribbing that ensued following this joyous news! To be honest, dear reader, I can remember virtually nothing from this point onwards as the alcohol kicked in and more brain cells died. I’m sure it was probably a great evening but I’m struggling to remmeber anything else that happened as there were many JD & coke being drank in an effort to get drunk and keep warm!

Our last full day in NYC started at anothe rather late hour in the afternoon and once we had actually risen we headed up to Central Park to check out what was going on there. The park is probably not as nice as some of the ones in London but it is incredibly big and always worth a look becasue once you are stood in the middle of it you can look back and see the skyline against the park and it is a great view. We checked out the ice rink that was in there and stood there secretly laughing at everyone that fell over despite the fact that neither of us were brave enough to get on there  and try. But we are mean people in our own way and enjoy watching people stack it on the rink. I also managed to take a nice photo of the rink, the park and the skyline. Showing once again the all these FB holidays haven’t quite killed off all my brain cells…yet. After spending some time wondering round the park we headed back down 5th Avenue which is one of the nicest in NYC particularly up by the park. We walked all the way down it past many many shops that we could barley afford to walk past let alone go in! Still it was another great way to see the city. We stopped at a little cafe/deli further down and grabbed a coffee and piece of cake…for our first meal of the day! We were grateful to move on because some woman sat down on the table next to us with some sort of mystery meat in gravy. It smelt and looked horrid and I have no idea what it was and nor do I ever wish to know, all I knew was that I wanted to be where that thing wasn’t! We went and had a look round the Foot Locker in Time Square but were left unimpressed as neither of us are basketball players so were left with little or no choice! As our flight the next day was not until 9pm we decided to go out again and get horrifically pissed once again. First we went and had a big Mexican meal which saw Ben go for the Mexican version of a mixed grill and I had steak fajitas. Needless to say there was loads of food on offer a lot of which we failed eat. We then moved into a bar called the Long Room which was a really nice place and was virtually empty so we got served good and quickly. The bar man also gave us a shot of chilled black Sambuca with lemon. It was actually quite nice even though it was a shot that was once again massive. The American mentality shines through even in the drinks they serve! The bar also had a handsome array of beers on tap. most of them brewed locally and sounded horrible but I was brave enough to try a pint of the blueberry ale. It did’t look any different and the taste wasn’t actually that different. The big difference was the smell, everytime you got the pint near your mouth you got a smack of blueberry which was a little off putting to be honest. Still, I saw off the lot of it, we paid up and headed off into the night for a load more beers, JD, G&T, shots and all sorts. We found ourselves at one point in a karoke bar called Tonic. The singing was mostly awful but we did sit at the bar and have another shot of something or other. It was a shot but I have no memory what was in it or if it tasted nice or not. I remember there was one on the menu called Washington Apple but I’m not sure if that is the one that we ended up going for or not! So we carried on merrily getting more and more merry on the way. I think we ended up in Mean Fiddler again but the details are not clear in my mind so I can’t be certain on this. The next day we headed home and both felt like complete and utter shit…we vowed not to go out on the last night ever again but I have a feeling that was a hollow promise that will come crashing down to earth when we next decide to go away and attempt to drink more than the average family drinks in a month. The flight home was painful and the drive back from Heathrow in the puring snow was even more painful.

All in all it was a cracking holiday that was thouroughly enjoyed by us both. We drank an enormouse amount of drink, saw all the sites and spent a huge amount of money each. NYC is an expensive city, especially when you get taken by “the thirst.” Great trip with some great memories despite the pictur the blog paints! I think we both now “heart” NY!!