I’m back in Edinburgh for the week and its great!!
I got in on Friday night after work and went straight to Aileens house for her Birthday/Flat-warming party. Was a really fun night catching up with everyone. Its wierd though, it totally doesn’t seem like i’ve been gone a whole year, it just felt normal hanging out with everyone. Which I guess is a good thing!
Saturday I left Aileens and came up to my sisters. We got sorted then went down to the cinema. I haven’t been there since I left it 14 months ago. Was pretty weird, but nice to see some familiar faces. We went back to my sisters, had dinner and watched some TV before going back down to the cinema to watch a staff showing of Get Smart. It was pretty funny, but not amazing.
Woops, been a couple of months since I wrote! So what have I been up to you ask? pretty much nothing.
I’ve been studying a couple of nights a week still, and had my last class on Wednesday. I passed my first two exams with 82% and 90% (uber-nerd), and have got one more next Friday. I’m on study leave from work for a few days next week, so I’m gonna be stuck in study hell.
I went to see Kylie at the O2 last weekend, and man she was amazing. She put on a great show, with some amazing sets. She mostly did the tracks from X, but did do a couple of classics (Step back in time, You’re disco needs you, I should be so lucky).
Woke up this morning hungover and decided it would be a good idea to clean , so I cleaned, polished, swept, mopped, the works! Then after recovering from the hangover I’ve had a lazy afternoon with The Sims, Beverly Hills 90210 (season 2) and some movies (Zoolander, Gossip, Thunderbirds and Mystery Men).
Tomorrow I’m going to hang out with Mulder and Scully, HURRAAHHH!
I have been in hangover hell all day today. It was Nicol’s 25th birthday yesterday so we were out and drinking heavily!
Started off for lunch/dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe, where we had to be the only table of just adults in the whole restaurant. After that we did a quick whiz round Hamley’s to look for some Barbie clothes (do they even sell Barbie clothes separately anymore?).
We wanted to go bowling so headed down to Elephant and Castle to brave the bowling rink there. It was actually a pretty decent place and cheap to drink at!
Then we went to The Ship and started to get suitably hammered before heading up town to go dancing.
I got horribly drunk, headed home at 1am and spewed in the car park outside my flat. Woops!
Then today hangover hell began, with first having to wee and spew at the same time (go figure that one out for yourselves!). We had to go meet Katie on the South Bank before she went back to Edinburgh so I had to actually leave my bed, and crawl into the shower. We walked about in the rain for a couple of hours and went to see the Telectroscope installation, which is pretty cool.
We checked out, left our luggage at the hotel and headed out to get in as much as we could in the last day. We started by heading out to some shops that we’d missed near ours, followed by a visit to Parsons, the new school of design (In hope to see Tim Gunn!)
We headed up to Madison Square Gardens and one last stop at Macy’s and a quick stop at Mood fabrics (where they shop in Project Runway) before heading back to the hotel and off to JFK.
It was a damn fantastic time in NYC - completely different to any other experience I’ve had on the West Coast before, but I’d love to go back!
We started off the day by heading up to 30 Rock again to do the NBC studio tour. As we were waiting in line some nice people gave us some free tickets which made it a lot cheaper than it should have been! On the tour we saw some back rooms in NBC studios, like the news room, the SNL set and some make up stuff. It wasn’t a great tour, so I’m glad we got it cheap but it was still cool to do. After that we went for a walk around central park, did some tree climbing, saw some movie locations like the home alone bridge, and the museum of natural history.
On our way through the park we saw some more filming. This time it was Natalie Portman directing a short movie for the new shorts set - New York, I Love You. We sat and watched the filming for a while, and could even hear her speaking which was pretty cool, before continuing our stroll in the sun.
After Central Park we headed back down to town and went to FAO Schwartz to play on the big piano. We then went for Mexican Dinner and for a drink in the Scottish Bar (it had to be done!!) Before we got back to the hotel we stopped in the book shop at Union Square where I eventually found Settlers of Catan (I’d been looking for it all holiday!)
We got up, went for breakfast then went down to Urban Outfitters in the lower east side for a quick shopping trip before going back to the hotel. Delise was leaving this morning so we went to get her case and took her to the subway station so she could go to the airport. It was great to have her there for the weekend, and sad that she had to leave so early, but no money in NYC isn’t a good thing!!
After we saw her off we did some shopping on Union Square and then headed up to Bloomingdales. After that we went to serendipity where I ordered a frozen hot chocolate and a chocolate sunday. They came to the table and were HUGE!!! I could have shared just one of them with someone and still been full, but no, greedy Stevie had 2 to himself!
We went to Grand Central Station and hopped on the subway down to Soho. We had a wander around the Bleeker Street area, worked our way (and shopped our way) through Soho, China Town, and stopped for lunch at a cute Italian in little Italy, where he gave us free wine, free coffee and some top chat!
Day 4! We started the day by heading up to Times Square again to Ellens Stardust diner, which is an all american 50s diner where the servers all sing! We ordered breakfast but after waiting half an hour left without it as we had to go on our tour.
So Tour, we had a Movie and TV locations tour booked before we flew out. We went outside the diner to meet the tour and got on the bus. It took us to some really cool locations like the Friends building, the Ghostbusters firestation, the Cosbys house, lois lanes apartment, as well as a boutique rice pudding called Rice to Riches which serves loads of different flavours of rice pudding, with toppings! YUM YUM!
After the tour we did a bit more of times square, had subway for lunch then went off to see Radio City Music hall and the Rockefeller Centre, mainly to see 30 Rock!! Then we went off to Saks 5th Avenue, the Disney store (where I made a beautiful Ariel potato head!) and further on to Trump Tower and Tiffanys. The girls spent a wee it too much money there!, woops!!
We headed back down 5th Ave to Bryant Park and the public library where we saw Clive Owen filming scenes for his new movie Duplicity.
After that Delise we grabbed some dinner at MacD and Delise headed back to the hotel. We went to broadway to see Legally Blonde, which was DAMN FANTASTIC OMIGOD! I hadn’t listened to any of the songs before I went out, but I really enjoyed it, and would recommend it to any musical lover!
So Day 3 we took a walk up to the Flatiron building, which has been the centre piece in many a film and TV show (Spiderman and Veronicas closet to name a few). After that we carried on up the road, stopped at some shops on the way and headed to the Empire State Building - which is bizarre cause you can’t actually see it until you’re right on the street! We went up to the top in what must be the fastest lift ever. Either that or they are lying and its not actually 80 floors up!
The views from the top are damn good, you really can see all of Manhattan, as well as New Jersey! We spied some good sights including a parade down below, parks, our hotel. There were pigeons on the top too, who would have thought they flew up that high.
After the empire state building we went to Macy’s for some shopping, though I didn’t buy anything, then carried on up to Times Square, which is much bigger than I thought it’d be, and soooo bright!! We did some of the shops there, including the Toys-R-Us which has a Ferris wheel and giant Barbie house inside!!
We went for steak at a well recommended restaurant Virgils, where we ate loads of meat, mmmm, before heading back for the night.
Day 2! We got up nice and early (in fact me and the Sarah’s were awake from 5am!!!), we were ready so we left Delise sleeping and went out for a giant breakfast of pancakes, sausage, eggs, hash browns and lotsa syrup!
After breakfast we went for a walk around Union Square while Delise was getting ready then went back to meet her so we could head off on our first day of adventures.
We hopped on the subway and went down to Wall Street to start on our sightseeing. We stopped by the NY stock exchange, the trump building, the bronze bull and some shops on the way to Battery Park City. Down there we took the Statten Island Ferry to get a closer (and free) look at the Statue of Liberty without having to wait in line and pay to go to Liberty Island.
After that we headed up to Century 21 and did some serious shopping, before heading over to pier 17 to check out the water, and grab a beer. Then we went for a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge (well, only a 3rd of the way over, its LONG!) before heading back to the hotel to get ready and go out for dinner.
We wandered the Union Square area for ages trying to find somewhere to eat before settling on a bar/grill type place to get simple dinner. We ordered burgers and when the waiter brought it over we got totally the wrong stuff! I ordered a cheese/avocado burger (which I got), Nicol ordered a Mexican burger and got the same burger as me, Delise ordered a Sliders Sampler and got a plain burger!! It was OK though cause the waiter was HOT (a taster according to Nicol) so we forgave him and went back to staring at him!
