New York

On 11th September 2001, I sat on an aeroplane with seven other friends, tired and exhausted after a week’s hedonism in the Greek party resort of Malia. Little were we aware of, at the time, of more significant events happening elsewhere in the world.

Indeed, we had been given, at least in hindsight a couple of clues, pilot warning of turbulence ahead, seat belt signs showing, but nothing was felt. Added to this, the hour circling around the skies at Gatwick whilst all air traffic was grounded and parking spaces for planes became more limited.

Once landed, those of us with mobiles switched them on. I wasn’t one at the time, choosing instead to leave mine at home (how times change). But those that did were faced with a barrage of voicemail and text messages to ensure that they had landed safely. Word began to filter around that something was happening in New York, a terrorist attack of some kind, but the full horror of that day’s events where still to be fully understood.

As it was, I arrived back home, quick to catch up with Stephanie for a conjugal lock-in but instead spent the entire evening in front of the television and witnessing an event which even now is almost impossible to comprehend.

How ironic is it then that I find myself marrying on that very date nine years later, and with a one in eight possibility of spending a week in the very city that will always share with us our anniversary?

New York City, a place that I have read so much about in novels, watched on the small and silver screens, listened about in lyrics of songs and have iconic imagery infused within the mind. But where to begin as a tourist in exploring a city that has so much to offer?

The Statue of Liberty, the Empire States Building, Times Square, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, Staten Island, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Central Park, Wall Street, Broadway, China Town, Little Italy, the UN, the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Centre, Bronx Zoo, the New York Yankee’s, Grand Central Station, Coney Island and these are only the ones I can remember!

Being a romantic at heart, the first place I would almost certainly visit is the Empire States building and recreate the scene from Sleepless in Seattle, with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, or as the taxi driver said to Jonah, “There it is. What are you gonna do when you get up there? Spit off the top?”.

That’s the challenge we will have with New York, we have already got so many memories of it from the movies that we could easily spend the whole week recreating scenes instead of making new ones. Although personally, I don’t think Stephanie would quite appreciate me running into a library acting out a scene from Ghostbusters or doing a John McClane and driving a hijacked yellow taxi through central park!

With so much to see and so much to do, it’ll be any wonder that people manage to stop and eat. Stephanie and I being, not “healthy” eaters, but eaters of healthy appetites, are likely to balance out the excess of walking the avenues and streets of Manhattan with the culinary extravagance of a New York dining experience. We should probably kill two birds with one stone and take the foods of New York Tour which attempts to encapsulate the history, architecture and the ethnic variation of food on offer in and around the city.

As much as there is to see and to do, place’s that we have heard of time and time again, more often than not it’s the surprises that are the most satisfying. Like Budapest and the hidden bar on top of a shopping centre that was only accessible via a dingy, decrepit looking stairwell that you wouldn’t have dared entering unless shown the way. Our challenge, along with all of our honeymoon destinations is to browse the web for websites like UrbanDaddy, evaluating and listing things of interest and that sound unique, like the “My Little Secret” an Italian speakeasy, hoping after the big reveal we are fully prepared and able to make the most of the week’s stay, wherever it may be.

Yellow taxis, fire hydrants, cherry blue lights, steam rising from the pavements. Bagels, overland trains, fire escapes, brownstone row houses, hot dog vendors, pretzels, bagels, Carrie Bradshaw and the gang from Friends. So many contemporary visions that need to witnessed in the first person rather than through the TV screen.

Like ground-zero, the area in which those twin towers stood nine years ago. Visions that are still fresh today as the day that unimaginable pictures were beamed directly into our living rooms. Stephanie and I will visit, not for macabre reasons, but to pay our respects and try and see for ourselves the scale of what happened that day. We'll witness the rebuilding programme as the new "One World Trade Centre" starts to take shape and the memorial for those that lost there lives is formed.

From that vantage point it will be a lesson for both of us, particularly on our honeymoon and the infancy of marriage to see how people overcome adversity, to rebuild, reinvent and remember. Lessons that sometimes we need a practical example, however strong that message is.

But before I get carried away and build a replica proton pack to take with me to the New York library, there is the small matter of one final destination. Back into Europe, another city, from another time, with a historical significance to match no other - and meatballs, far, far better than momma makes!