Day 1 - Arriving in New York City

We have finally arrived in New York and our holiday has officially started! The first flight leg was Melbourne direct to LA - Troy was rapt with his seat... after researching the A380 online, we paid an extra $30 to secure his seat, 71D, as it is on an aisle and doesn't have a seat in front of it. Check out the leg room in the picture! Suffice to say that Troy had an enjoyable 14 hour flight!

We made our connecting flight in LA with ease (even having time for a coffee!) LAX wasn’t as daunting as we were expecting. Our 4 hour flight to New York was only 1/4 full which was great - plenty of room to spread out. Coming in to land was fantastic - a bird’s eye view of Manhattan!

We arrived at our hotel ‘On the Ave’ (http://www.ontheave-nyc.com) on the Upper West Side about 6.30pm. Our room has been freshly renovated, is clean, modern and has everything we need.

Our new winter jackets that we ordered online before we left we waiting for us when we arrived which was great - it was about 9 C tonight. We are both loving the cold weather already! The prediction is rain and snow tomorrow, so we may need to go shopping for more winter gear!

 

We finished our day with a quick meal at an Italian restaurant next door to our hotel (see pic).

 

A few lessons learnt / observations in the few hours we’ve already been here...

1. Don’t order entrée - ever again - main is more than enough!

2. Don’t ask for a ‘Solo’ drink, no one knows what it is

3. Sophie’s usual first response to questions of “yeah, nah” confuses waiters!

4. Add about 30% to food bills for tax and tip

We’re both looking forward to getting out and about tomorrow (weather permitting) to start exploring.