Kate's Last Night in NYC

Sunday 18/9

We started the night with Pizza at Lombardi's in SoHo. According to Kate, I failed at life by not finishing my half of the pizza... It was really good, but seriously WAY TOO MUCH!!

We followed that up with a walk through a street fair down Mulberry St... I'd love to tell you what street fair it was, but I have no idea!!

We then jumped on the subway and headed down to the Staten Island ferry and took in the magical sights of the city at night.

We followed that up with a trip back to McGees. While we were there the first time, the staff told us that every year to celebrate the new season, the writers and cast drink at McGees. So we thought we would do a little stalking, and see if they showed up. (The new season started the next day).

They didn't, but nonetheless we had an awesome night.

Kate ordered a pitcher of beer for herself. The look on the bartenders face was priceless!

I stuck to cocktails. They have this whole "How I Met Your Mother" inspired cocktail list with drinks such as "The Pineapple Incident", "Robin Sparkles" and "The Naked Man".

My favourite was "The Pineapple Incident"

On the way out, I noticed this hanging above the stairs. I just had to take a photo!

I had a fab night out that night!

Kate's Last Friday Night in NYC

Friday (16 Sept)

To celebrate Kate's last weekend in NYC we decided to go out for dinner and drinks. We headed up to McGee's Irish Pub, which is the inspiration behind the bar in one of my favourite shows - How I Met Your Mother.

On our way up to the pub we went through Times Square. While walking past, I saw this sign:

My friends and I have a bit of an inside joke regarding "goodtimes". So when I saw this, I just had to take a photo and send it to them!!

Kate and I ate dinner and had a few drinks at the bar, before heading off. We were planning to head down and catch the Staten Island Ferry so that we could could see the Statue of Liberty at night. But, we ended up at a comedy show instead. I'll be honest, the first one we went to was WAY better than this one. But it was still fun, nonetheless.

After that we thought we'd head down and jump on the ferry, but once we got on the Subway Kate decided she was tired and so we decided to pass on the ferry.

I had been planning all day to stay up all night and hang out for 3.45am when the Australian bar in NYC was showing the Broncos v Dragons game live. It was about 1am when Kate called it a night, so I decided to head to the bar and wait it out...

Luckily, very early into the wait my beautiful friend Siany back home in Aus texted me and said she was home if I wanted to call! So 2 hours of conversation later, I headed back into the bar with only 45mins to wait until kickoff!!

More to come...

Thursday Tennis

On Thursday (8/9) I trekked out to the tennis again... It was still overcast when I woke up that morning, but the clouds quickly cleared and play resumed (finally!!).

I managed to grab myself a front row seat to the John Isner v Gilles Simon match on Crt 17! It was seriously a fantastic match!!

I was tweeting with another mad keen tennis fan friend of mine, and although he was in Australia, he was up watching the Fox Sports coverage... I posted the above photo on twitter and he replied saying "oh you finally get to watch - good commitment!" So I replied to him with this photo, showing him the awesome view from my awesome seat!!

To which he replied - "are you sitting right behind the baseline line person?" - Which I was, to which his response was "no, i'm pretty sure you've been on TV twice now!! :P" The first set went to a tie-break and as the players changed ends I was apparently in the background for quite a while! So yes, basically - I'm famous! Baha, OK not quite - but I have been on TV!! haha.

I had hoped to see Sam Stosur play as well - she was the second match on another court. Unfortunately, I was relying on Andy Murray and Donald Young to keep their match going for a long time... Which didn't happen...

Team that with the quality and length of the Isner/Simon match and Sam Stosur had taken to the court and finished her match (6-3, 6-3 over Zvonereva) before the Isner/Simon match had finished!

Either way, I am glad I was there to watch that match as it was fantastic... And as it turns out, I got to see Sam play a couple of days later... But I'll save that for another entry!!

US Open!

So as part of my new "tourist" mentality - I decided to do something I love - GO AND WATCH THE TENNIS!! So on Tuesday (6th Sept.) I braved the cloudy sky and lightly falling rain and headed out to Flushing Meadows to watch the US Open.

My favourite player was even playing, so despite the weather, I decided I couldn't possibly miss his match!!

So I caught a cab to Grand Central, jumped on the 7 train and headed out to Mets-Willet Point Station - aka home of the Billie Jean King Tennis Centre and the US Open.

I arrived just before 11, when play was expected to commence... Unfortunately the weather did not improve... at all!! And by 2pm play had been cancelled for the entire day and night - so I headed home...

Here is a photo of just how wet it was on Tuesday:

I decided to risk it again on the Wednesday, for the same reason, I couldn't possibly miss out on his match (because lets be honest, I wasn't sure if he'd win or not...). So this time, I navigated the subway to Grand Central, then caught the 7 train again. Got out there, bought a ticket went inside and was greeted by equally as mediocre weather:

So, on Wednesday, not only was my favourite player playing, but Sammy Stosur was also supposed to play her quarter-final against Vera Zvonereva. By 4pm, after countless times of almost having the courts dry, ready to play just for the rain to start again, they had cancelled all mens matches for the day.

The number of times the sucking-up-water-machines and blower machines (I don't know what they're really called - but they suck the water up and blow excess water away) came out, was ridiculous! So often they got to this point (below) just for the rain to tumble again!!

After cancelling the mens day matches, they were still hoping to play all four women's quarter-finals at the same time starting at 7.30pm... So having been there since 10.30, I stayed thinking at least I could see Sammy Stosur play... The courts were dry, and they were just about ready to go when - the rain started to fall again!! They finally cancelled it at 8.30pm, so I headed home - again without seeing any tennis action!!

It was definitely disappointing - but my trips to the tennis weren't over yet! More to come soon!