New York part 2

Hooray, it was Australia Day!

We spent the day walking around New York just taking in all the sights and seeing a few things I never thought I'd see.

Esther and I met up with the other guys and went to the WTC site again. This time we looked into the church across the road from the site. Even though it was right next to the buildings, it didn't get damaged when they fell. Here they helped look after the workers who cleaned up the site by feeding them, giving them somewhere to sleep, having someone to talk to and just simply helping them recuperate.
Next we walked to a street called 'Canal Street'. Basically what the street is is a place where, to put it bluntly, you can buy anything and almost all of it is "hot" (i.e. stolen) goods. When you first enter the street, you're acosted by tall black men trying to sell you Rolex watches, while other people try and sell you stolen Louis Vuitton Bags. Its also PACKED with people. There was even a guy selling "half price gold and silver jewellery". As you walk down the street, all you can hear are guys going "rolex rolex rolex" softly under their breath to try and get people to buy them off them, while other people try and push you into their shop. It was amazing to watch/see/hear. I even pulled out my audio recorder to record the sound of this place. Part the way through recording one of the guys in the street yelled out "watch out" to his pals because he saw my recorder and what they're doing, while very blazen, is highly illegal. I got out of there quick smart.
Jon decided to see where they got these watches from, so when one guy asked Jon to come and have a look at some of the watches, I went for a walk with him. The guy took us around the corner to the back alley where some other guys were sitting on boxes. After the first guy gave his signal, they pulled out a small box with different watches in it for Jon to look at. At this moment we left, but the guy hassled Jon because he didn't buy anything. In the end, it was really scary, but really weird/interesting.
On the way out of there there were guys standing on the street with blankets with clothes and things they'd obviously stolen from peoples houses and they were trying to sell them. So crazy.
We then set out to go to find dinner as it was getting pretty late. Because it was Australia Day, we went to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner. The food was pretty good and I even got to have a Coopers.
After dinner we went to the Rockefeller Center to see that, which was alright because it looked nice at night and reminded me of the Home Alone movies. They had an ice skating rink set up in the middle and everything. It was pretty cool.
Next was to FAO Swartz which was shut, so we went to the Apple Store instead to surf the web and warm up.
At the end of the night we had to say goodbye to Sarah because she was going home early in the morning. That was sad but the end we had a good night because of all th fun times we all had.

Today Esther and I stood outside Cold Stone for 1 hour in the cold while the others showed up. We proceeded to have ice cream (so tasty), but then it was time to say goodbye to Kevin too! More hugs and goodbyes were had at the bus station. Bye Kevin!
Jon, his girlfriend Marion, Esther and I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Here we saw any more paintings my Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet and many other artists. Ther was a whole bunch of design stuff that Esther enjoyed too.
For dinner we at pizza and had the biggest slices of pizza EVER! They were huge! They were also very tasty. Good call Jon!
After dinner it was goodbye Jon and Marion time, where we made them promise to come to Australia. More hugs and goodbyes were had, and then it was just me and Esther again. We decided to just catch the train back to the hostel to sleep. A good call.