~* Trip to New York City day 1, 2, 3 *~

Day 2
After a great flight from Wien to Vienna Int'l Airport ;) with Brussels Air (the aircraft couldn't retract the undercarriage and had to land again after a short flip) British Airways brought Isa, Tanja, Chris J., Chris A., Max, me and most of the others to the JFK safely.

After some discussion we took a taxi (a 400 horesepower Ford minivan) downtown, which made me happy because we would see more of the surroundings than going by metro. The driver was a funny guy who explained the New York traffic situation to us: "All the Japanese people come to NY and make a lot of accidents because there in Japan they just learn how to ride bycicles!" Oh yes ;)

Day 3

Next morning Chris², Max, Thomas, Rooky and me went out for a walk in the Big Apple. Just a few streets further we went by the famous Madison Square Garden, checked some 2$ shop and arrived at the Empire State Building, Chris A. and me decided to go up, even though the weather was a bit foggy.

There were several security checks but because of the weather there were hardly any people so we were fast... going up to the open-air promenade on the 86^th floor, 320 meters above ground level. It was great! It was great! Downtown Manhatten came out of the fog and we were up there, beneath us a thousand different shades of grey, covered with white snow accompanied by police sirens which seemed to never stop. A group a young pretty American girls was also up there, very young and lots of makeup.

Chris and me took a long cold happy walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was so cold and windy that Chris' lip god a bit bloody as we were watching the beautiful skyline. The bridge led us right to the center, which did _not_ look like in all the movies. I expected it to be huge and so crowded that the masses would just take you with them if you try to stop in the middle of the pavement.

Well it was much smaller and there were not nearly as many people as I had imagined. Trying to save my crumbling away image of Manhatten we had to check out something else that is as American as can be... namely fast food, Burgerking! But... again my image was corrected by reality, to be honest that burger king was a joke!! Tiny overprized portions from somehow huffy personal.

After walking the streets of Manhatten we ended up in Cinatown, eating meat-soup and enjoying endless-refill hot tea. Later that evening we met the others again and took a bath in the sea of lights at Times-Square.