Young World Travellers: Day Twenty-One and Twenty-Two

Yesterday we had our flight from San Francisco to New York and as it was a domestic flight, it was all plain sailing. We had a very turbulent flight over the US but otherwise it was a good journey with no hassle. We landed safely at around 10pm local time (now 5hrs behind the UK) quickly disembarked and then went to collect our baggage. After a quick toilet break on the way ,we arrived at the carousel to pick up our bags. We waited and waited but they never came. After half an hour we decided to go and ask a few questions and it was at this point that we saw our bags locked behind a glass door in the 'Virgin America Baggage Service' room. There was no one around and despite asking for help from several different people, no one came to unlock the door. There were two phone numbers on the door; one there was no answer, the other an automated voice said they were experiencing technical difficulties and they couldn't take our call. By this point we were both extremely tired and agitated and after an hour and a half of trying to find someone to open the door, finally the most ignorant and rude employee you'll ever encounter finally showed up out of nowhere. He opened the door and we asked why our bags had been locked away and why we had been waiting a total of nearly two hours. All he seemed capable of saying was 'you guys were too slow.' No apology, no real explanation and he even had the cheek to ask us for ID to take our baggage which was pointless anyway because he didn't even check the tags on the bag. After the late and tiring flight, it was the last thing we needed and we won't be using Virgin again.

We finally got to bed at around 2am which meant a lie in this morning. Our first job was to catch up on our washing so we found a local laundrette and got that done whilst we had brunch. We then went to the Empire State Building and ascended all the way to the top of the 1250ft skyscraper. We got some nice pictures from the lower outdoor observation deck on the 86th floor before heading right up to the 103rd floor at the base of the tower. The views were incredible as you would expect. Once we were back at ground level we walked up Fifth Avenue and into Times Square just as it got dark. It was an electric atmosphere with bright lights, the noises of the traffic and people enjoying themselves as well as the smells of the street food. We had a quick look around Macy's - the largest store in the world before heading back for our hotel at about 9pm.

Tomorrow we'll head south to visit the 9/11 memorial and Freedom Tower and we also have a few other things in mind before watching a Broadway show tomorrow evening.

Day Twenty-Two Highlight - Views from the Empire State Building