Thanksgiving-weekend in Manhattan

Equipped with the address and phone number of my couchsurfing-hosts (check out www.couchsurfing.com) and some google-maps, I headed off to the big city on Wednesday and hoped to survive until the other exchange students arrived the day later ;-)
"New York, what a city! I thought London was big but Manhatten beats it all." I totally agree with Stef's statement about the city that never sleeps.
I arrived on Wednesday evening at Stephen and Bill's house west of central park and spent the first evening there with a french couchsurfing couple eating italian dinner (Stephen is a great cook), drinking wine, listening to music (that's brother Bill's business) and chatting about various things.
For Thursday morning, they had organized tickets for the macy's parade, a huge commercial event that is supposed to start off and boost the christmas shopping season. In the afternoon, they invited us to their family's thanksgiving dinner with a huge turkey, which was delicious and a great experience.
After coming back to Manhattan, Albert from Spain and I met the other exchange students (who stayed in an expensive hotel (elitist students from bocconi ;-) ) at times square.
The next two days, we explored Manhattan: Central park, top of Rockefeller center with spectacular view, Brooklyn Bridge, Financial District, the United Nation, Ground zero, Chinatown and the staten island ferry to see the statue of liberty were just some highlights to mention here.
On the last evening we've seen the Broadway Musical show Mary Poppins.
You just must have been to New York! I highly recommend Stephen and Bill's place to stay: When they were younger (they're more than 50 now), they've been travelling to a lot of countries (all over Europe and Latin America) mostly by hitchhiking, which why they still like being couchsurfing hosts and having international people around.
So, this was my last city-trip during my stay in Minneapolis and the 3 last weeks will be less exciting: final projects and exams are approaching, which will keep me busy. It's anyway better to stay inside and study at the moment because it got quite cold here ;-)
P.S.: Well, Raphaello, hope you are pleased by this report, hope you will set up your own blog about your exchange semester in spring to keep us updated..
P.P.S.: I've heard that the Music Windband Oberurnen had a good concert, hope you found someone being the latest going home, I'll be the one next year again ;-)

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