My NY.

Since returning from New York to a very dreary London last Wednesday, my friends, family and colleagues have all been asking me what the best part of my trip was. And every time I'm asked, my mind goes blank - not because I'm struggling to remember the good parts, but because I can't actually decide what the best bit was.

After the initial couple of seconds where I must look, to the questioner, like I've never even heard of New York, I usually stumble out with some generic list of the obvious attractions that Jenn and I visited, such as the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, but in truth, I loved it all. Every single minute. Except perhaps when the radiator in our hotel room would turn on at stupid o'clock in the morning, waking me up with it's freaky impersonation of some sort of woodland creature, and then keeping me awake with it's ability to melt lead. But that, to be truthful, hardly registered a blip on the radar of what was an excellent holiday.

The hotel was, in fact, excellent. Our room, whilst not the biggest I've ever stayed in, was more than ample for our requirements and in superb condition. The staff were nothing but friendly, and the location was fantastic. On our first evening, despite having a vague idea we were relatively close to the theatre district, we were pleasantly taken aback when a brief stroll to get our bearings unwittingly landed us in the middle of the bustle of Times Square. It was perhaps the best possible start we could've hoped for.

To summarise (because there's no other way I could describe the trip without sitting at this computer for nine hours), some of the highlights were: crossing the Brooklyn Bridge in the rain; drinking at The Peculier Pub; exploring the Museum of Modern Art; witnessing a Saturday Night Live rehearsal; being deemed pretty enough to be allowed entry into Duvet; the views from a blustery 86th floor of the Empire State Building; staying awake past 2:00am every night; Spamalot; drinking tea from a different Starbucks nearly everyday; counting the number of Irish pubs within walking distance of our hotel; taking millions of pictures at the Statue of Liberty; taking millions of pictures in general; the shower in our bathroom; having a barman give us free shots of vodka on a particularly drunken evening; riding the subway; ice skating in Central Park (I didn't fall over, unlike someone); juggling in Central Park; eating cheesecake for breakfast (which Jenn described as "better than sex"); walking miles and miles and miles...

I could go on.

A word of warning if you've never been to New York and are contemplating going - have an idea of which attractions you want to see before you go, and make sure that either you or your travel partner (should you be lucky enough to share the experience) can make decisions (I can't, it transpired). There is simply so much going on in the city, that even after five days there were things that we had wanted to see - such as the Guggenheim and Met museums and a large portion of Central Park - that we were forced to miss out on. That wasn't a result of poor planning or bad decision-making on our part (despite my attempts to be at my indecisive best), there just simply weren't enough hours in the day - even less so on the Saturday night the clocks went forward, which resulted in us finally settling down to sleep at a staggering (and chilly) 5.00am.

The (quite possibly drunk) lady that sat next to us on the flight back to London, who had just spent six weeks in Guyana, said she had hated New York when she had previously visited. She had already had a rant about airport security taking her bottle of rum before boarding the plane, so I kept quiet, but I couldn't have had a more differing opinion than if I personified New York and married it. I think - and don't think of this as anything more than a throwaway remark in the heat of the moment (although I'm sure I said it more than once whilst there) - I could quite possibly even live in Manhattan, should the opportunity arise.

Of course, living there would be an entirely different kettle of fish. The experience would, I imagine, be dampened by the monotony of having to go to work five days a week, and visiting the same places - beit a major attraction, a bar, or one of the hundreds of Starbucks - wouldn't be half as exciting on my own as it was with Jenn.

Y'know, I think that's it. The best part of visiting New York is, actually, being able to share it with someone. It's all well and good saying you've seen the lights, the sights and the, uh, Museum of Sex - but I'm so much more grateful for having someone else there with me, someone to share a laugh with when I handed out incorrect directions to fellow tourists, someone to actually make me stop, look up and savour the moment whilst another photo was being taken. One thing's for sure, however busy New York's roads got with the endless streams of yellow cabs, it would've been a much quieter holiday for me had I gone on my own.

Without Jenn, I doubt I'd have done a lot of the things I did whilst there. Without Jenn, I wouldn't have anyone to be nostalgic with after the event. And without Jenn, I wouldn't now have countless new photos of myself queueing up to be my new profile picture on Facebook. So here's to that random conversation the two of us had whilst making tea at work one day in December, when the ball first got rolling.

God bless America? Perhaps. God bless tea? Definitely.