Hey all,

Zac & Mark here live from New York City!!

We woke up at 5am Israel time in Zac's Aunty Joan's apartment overlooking the Knesset, a nice final symbolic view of Israel. After waiting in queues and dealing with insane security (obviously with Israelis shamelessly pushing in line the whole time), we breathed a sigh of relief as we sat on the plane for a short, 11 hour plane ride.

17 hours later after insane US queues, we made it to Manhattan! We were both blown away by the NYC vibe that hit us straight away- the cool little building entrances, fire stairs on all the buildings and extremely long avenues.

We got out of the cab at Mark's family friends who live more or less on the Hudson River in a really central location. After a much needed shower and 3 minute power-nap, we were out the door again going for dinner with them. They took us to an awesome, awesome, awesome place which was kosher, vegetarian & organic. It didn't have the feel of a typical kosher place like Katzy's (the Sydney one, not NY) or Danelli's though- it was a really nice restaurant with Jews & non-Jews alike. It was more a restaurant that happened to be kosher than a kosher restaurant.

Mark wolfed down a soy bacon cheeseburger and sweet potato fries with a rasperry green tea organic soda (yes, you are missing out), and Zac had a spicy tofu burger (super spicy). Apparently the bacon cheeseburger tasted like the real thing, according to our family friends.

After that, we went again to another place-that-happened-to-be-kosher (rather than a kosher place) to get ice cream & froyo. Also really cool after having a cheeseburger. In love with the food scene here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today we are off to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) for the morning after eating breakfast at Tiffany's, going to the Village (area with cool shops and cafes), doing a walking tour of the Lower East Side to see the history of immigrants, Jewish and others, and then tonight we might go to a Broadway show.

We booked to see a show tomorrow night called Old Jews Telling Jokes which is the theatre version of the online video series, see below (clear your afternoon, you'll be spending it on YouTube)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIK1zVPjNGQ&feature=fvwrel

We head up to camp on Wednesday which we're really excited about too!

Missing Israel, missing Australia, missing everyone (but having an alright time here too),
Mark & Zac