New York

Day 0 - we arrived at the airport and took sooooooo long to get through customs that by the time we got to the hotels it was about 10.30pm and too late and knackered to do much, so we just checked and got as much sleep as possible for the next day.

 

Day 1 - met up early and went for a fantastic breakfast at a diner in the centre of Manhatten, which has singing waitresses and the food was superb also.

 

After breakfast we went on a movie style guided tour of the island, where our guide would point out the locations and sights that had been used in hollywood blockbusting movies and also successful tv shows like Seinfeld, Friends and the Cosby Show.

 

Following the tour we went up the Rockerfellar Centre, took a few photos and admired the view. What was very cool is that just when we chose to go they were doing a live outdoor weather forcast and so we loitered around and managed to become part of the crowd scene making this my first ever time to be shown on live tv around the world. Yay, go me.

 

From their we then split up our little band for the day as they were off to watch a baseball game and I chose instead to grab a stage show of Avenue Q, not being the greatest lover of baseball.

 

Day 2 - met up early as we had a stunning helicopter ride all planned, but it was pushed back due to poor visibility in the uncharasteristic morning fog. So instead we grabbed another diner breakfast and went to see Wall Street and ground zero { site of the ill fated twin towers } before going back for the helicopter ride, which was awesome.

 

After the helicopter ride we did some shopping and investigating the city before we all headed off back to out rooms to get changed for the evening. The rest went to see the stage show Mary Poppins but I had already got my sights set on watching the movie Bourne Ultimatum { going to the cinema is something I always try to do in a foreign country }.

 

The film was good, and the cinema itself was plush and well looked after and then we all met back up again for a meal and drinks til we all fell asleep. The rest eventually wanted to go nightclubbing but I had an early start that morning so I took off.

 

Heading off from the meal a little drunk I got a bit turned around and totally lost track of where the underground train station was and once I found by bearing I started walking to where I wanted to go and hoped that I would bump into an entrance soon. However once I got started walking I was like Forest Gump, I just kept on going, and ended up arriving at my hotel room about 3.15am after walking almost the entire length of Manhatten Island.

 

Day 4 - Sadly I had done so much walking the previous night that I totally overslept and missed my tour bus departing for Boston, and as it was a day trip the others already had made other plans and were gone from their hotel room by the time I woke up.

 

So instead of a 12 hour round trip to see the sights of Boston I just did more of the same walking, movies, shopping and sight seing.

 

We had all arranged to meet up at the top of the Empire States Building at 10pm this night, however I had overused my cellphone as a camera and by the time I got there the queues were so long and thick I was unable to find them in the throng, so I just did the top myself, bought a few soveneirs and postcards { that I have still yet to post ... arghhhhh } and then headed back to my room for a good nights rest.

 

The next day the gang were again up before me and already at the port to see the Statue of Liberty when I was calling them to see what the days plans were, so we agreed to meet up later while I made my own leisurely way down to see the famous lady myself.

 

After the river cruise round Ellis Island, I chose to grab a bite to eat in Little Italy and sample China Towns own authentic foot and back rub specialists. The massage was good, but a little too firm for my liking and I very much doubt I will ever ask to be walked on again for as long as I live.

 

Then again more of the same, before I ducked back to my room to grab some rest for the night clubbing. This was all arranged for the last night to keep us all awake in time to catch the 3am bus ride back to the airport as we had a very early flight the next morning and I doubted my chances of normally waking up at 5am if I was not already still awake from the night before.

 

The night clubbing ended up being a Karioke bar called the Black Cat Pussycat Club, which was funky and the only thing that spolied it was that I got too drunk and ended up knocking some poor guys drink all over the floor as I was leaving.

 

Day 5 - met up again with the gang before a very quick ride to the airport where I had grossly overestimated the time needed to arrive in time for the flight and so we all ended up falling asleep, me on the floor as the seats were not as confy as my padded rucksack and bomber jacket.

 

It was a shame that my flight back was away form the others and also that the Virgin flight attendants seemed to have it in for me, as they would not let me sleep no matter how many times I tried to ignore them and their stupid rules about what I could or could not do during take off and landing.

 

Arriving back in the UK late I had just enough time to say a quick farewell to the others before catching a trian home, arriving around midnight and still jetlagged from an exhaustive week away.

 

All in all, it was a good holiday but it could have been better if we had managed to meet up as a group more, but then it was the first time I have done a group holiday and learned many things through the experience.

New York - day 2 & 3

Well there are some things that are best done as a group, and some things that are best done alone, having spent a only one day with heather and 2 days with the group i needed a day off today.

We did quite a few neat things, but the pace that they walk at, the time it takes them to arrive at any decision and the fact that they dont seem to want to actually take me seriously and are only asking me so as to not try and sound too self absorbed is painfully obvious.

Take Last night... they wanted to get something to eat and then go down to Ludlow Street. I said hey lets to to eat in china town or little italy first and then we can go to ludlow after. At that they all agreed until I showed them on the map where little Italy and china town were, then they suddenly all did a hissy fit and say no way Jose.

But the funny thing is, ludlow street is further away from where we were than either china town or little italy and the only way to get there is to go through both on the subway map.

When I pointed THIS out, all of a sudden it was not such a long way to go after all, though it still took ages and ages for them all to get ready to get through the barriers after heather had 'left' her subway ticket back in her room ... clever or what eh.

Or the theatre ... they went to watch mary poppins while I said that i would go to watch borne ultimatum ... my film finished first by over an hour, so after a quick stop for a drink and a strip dance ( well I AM in New York !?! lol ) so then i waited for them ... and i waited for them ... and i waited for them, and after they were the very last ones out of the audience by a good ten minutes I was just a little exasperated and said that i had been waiting and all sharon could say was "well i was having a shit" - which was her way of saying I don't actually give a shit how long you were waiting for us, I will come out when i am damn good and ready and not before.

That kind of fucking nonsense just pisses me off no end, as it meant that i was waiting in a strange city, alone, with none else to contact, in a suit, in the hot and sticky post twilight hours.

So after the theatre and the final decision to go to ludlow street we all head off, only for sharon to get trapped between the doors of the subway train as she was too slow and semi drunk to get off the EXPRESS train when she had the chance. Not that she would have been alone if she had stayed on and heather and sarah were right behind her, equally slow at standing up and certainly they were all unfit should anything serious happen to them.

It is their kind that get attacked, mugged and raped as they are just too damn slow, stupid and unaware of their situation to handle themselves. they all say that they love new york, but i can't imagine that would last very long if they kept up the way they were as one of them are sure to get done sooner or later.

Lambs or sheep, and though I may be only a 11 stone weakling, I am still a wolf when compared to the majority of folk who are clearly sheep. not that they are bad people, they are not, they are good and god fearing folk, but that's why they are sheep.

New york seems just run down and ready to be demolished and rebuilt at any moment. I would say that the best thing that could happen to it would be to pull it all down and start again. i have yet to see a stretch of road longer than 200 yards where some signs of major construction or renovation is taking place and there must be more steel pipes of scaffolding in New York than in the rest of the known world altogether.

Cairo felt as if it was in the process of being rebuilt, Penang looked like it was past its heyday and was just quietly dwindling back into obscurity but new york looks and feels and if godzilla and king kong have taken a disliking to it and done their best to destroy at least some of just about everything road, street and avenue that is more than 100 yards away from times square.

The people here are friendly enough and I haven't felt threatened anywhere, though admittedly I haven't been through harlem, the bronx or central park after dark, but then again even the meanest of guys would be stupid to walk without friends or protection through what is a largely uninhabited part of a darkened city after nightfall.

I have been having a lot of fun taking sepia photos of small things that look as if new york was 100 years ago, and i am trying to build up a portfolio without people of images that could fool many people into thinking that new york really was stuck in the end of the last 19th century - not the 21st century at all.

After the debacle of ludlow street, we stopped for some food on the corner of the place, a small italian off the edge of little italy where the meals, the wines and all the menus were in italian - or at least with italian names. we stayed for a meal that had the thickest and meatiest prawns I have ever tasted, and then they said that they were going clubbing after.

At this stage sharon had had a couple of glasses and was clearly getting tired and irritable as i tried to open up a conversation saying that i wasn't sure if i wanted to queue for ages to get into a club as I had an early night and her reply was a insulting ok, whatever - and just walked away to stand at the end of line.

I can clearly see that she was the worse for wear, and that she was taking her frustration out on me that had been building up after a long day with the others, but still to have it show so clearly that she feels she can say whatever to me and get away with it is not a good sign.

You might say that it is good as it shows that she has enough trust in our friendship that she is ok with taking a few liberties, but right then and there i looked at it like she is prepared to make an effort for everyone else except me, so i just said my goodnights and walked away.

And i walked ... and i walked ... and i walked ... all the way from ludlow street back to my hostel. A journey that took me just over 2 hours, starting at 1am and with the temperature still a muggy 72 degrees making walking breathing stuffy.

After half an hour i questioned my logic of not taking the metro. after an hour I could feel my feet start to sting with each step. after an hour and a half i decided that this was good practice for my epic journey next year but after the 2nd hour all i could then feel was the throb of my inner and outer legs begin to ache with the effort and strain.

It is true that new york never sleeps, and there were rats, cockroaches, invalids, fruit sellers, party revellers, taxis and street sweepers still at large when i got back to my hotel around 3.15am.

I can also say that i must have passed about a dozen hookers, or else it was just a coincidence that there were groups of 3 or 4 coloured girls standing on street corners, making no effort to go anywhere and standing idly by chatting on mobile phones were who i can only guess at their pimps - though looking nothing like puff daddy ... damn MTV, arghhhhh.

The next day I woke up at about 10, too late for a trip to boston, but early enough to go walking around. It was still fun doing it on my own, although there were a lot less photo opportunities to have me in them at the same time. I found a few places that I had wanted to see, walked like a local without really looking at the map and didnt do the souveneir thing until after I had been to the cinema for a second time - rush hour 3 ... another great film.

It is weird that in new york they have entire streets like the korean road or little brazil, where it is a real home from home if you are of that nationality with all the shops, shop owners and even signs are primarily in that language. Nice if you are feeling a little homesick.

What i was a bit surprised about, but only a little, is the dispelling of another myth, that all americans love the british accent.... either than or I have no british accent. As no only do most of the people i have met have no idea where I come from, but even after they learn it they made little or no extra effort to be nice or friendly towards me for being british. In fact, I am still pretty sure that I have been bumped for extra when i have made a few purchases specifically because I am a non New Yorker.

It worries me that in my hostel they made me switch rooms and leave my luggage in the main reception throughout the day while one was being cleaned and the other evacutated.

Worried more when i spotted signs on the inside saying that if you were staying in new york for more than 30 days you could apply to work there ... what a result for someone that is in their final week of working - a whole stack of suitcases left unattended by their owners for most of the day ... and what a headache for anyone trying to claim compensation should anything happen to them - as if you cant claim for loss of money that was left in your own rooms safe, what chance have you got when you have to admit that you left the entire suitcase just seconds away from an always open door where the public could get it!?!

It was funny when i was in the korean internet place writing this up, i had only been here a few minutes when this dark skinned and thickly dreadlocked rasta comes walking in the place and asks why the toilet is all locked up.

No sooner did he get the news that it was always locked up than he got all agro and started going through the motions of,"do you know who i am, i got friends, i got people ... a lot of people, we gonna come down here and rule you ass, we gonna kick out all you imposters and make mo money than you eva dreamed of".

It was quite a mini tyrade but all for nothing, and as the streets name was nicknamed "korean way' I dont expect that the owner was particularly scared or intimidated despite the thick accent and mean disposition.

New York is a place where the refuse of the world could easily hide out for awhile, but anyone with manners, style and class would most likely stay away from the rural areas as much as possible. It could be a great place with the right group of friends and enough money not to need to work, but other than that I wouldnt come back very often if i had my way.

The subway is pretty good, but then again its got some entrances that are hidden, some that you have to be careful which was you enter it from, as they dont always have underpasses or walkways to the other platfoms and i once found myself having to exit the entire place and walk for a few blocks to give my swipe card a chance to refresh and then try again from the correct side.

There are lots more black, asian and latino people here than I first though, and certainly if i am not mistaked the average white male on the streets are now outnumbered ... though to be honest about it, they would be all at work or at home and equally the native americans were here first so its only right that the whites from europe are outnumbered in at least a few places still in america.

New York, New York

Well day one started as good as night zero finished.

After finally managed to get a hold of my friends hotel telephone number we arranged to meet up just a few minutes after 9am, as they were just a few blocks up.

However a few blocks along and a few blocks up, added with early morning rush hour traffic turned a medium walk into a long walk and i barely managed it in about half an hour - not my best idea ever before a long day.

Also what wasnt my greatest idea ever was wearing jeans as the weather really was about 30 degrees and lacking in any wind or cloud cover. It is also very humid so within minutes the clothes were sticking to my clothes, which made things ten times worse and i could definetly feel a chafffing between my inner thighs by the time i got home.

I met up with the gang and got my first metro 7 day travel card - only it would have been better if i had brought along a detailed manhatten tube map as that would have saved me hours of getting home later on, but thats for later on.

We sped along at a fairly rapid pace until we got to downtown where we then went to find a place for breakfast before the start of the movie tour. it was quite amusing when the girls acted all girlie and screamed when the almost got ran over at the very first traffic intersection, and equally when they went all mushy over some hunky fireman - its the uniform apparently.

Breakfast at ellys diner was super fun, with the singing waiters and waitresses, and I couldnt help but gorge myself on pancakes and strawberry as well as a full continental breakfast, complete with overdone hard toast ... arghhhh

The movie tour was pretty cool, even if it started late and had a few too many friends and seinfeld jokes and on the spot questions. Nick almost won himself a boardgame of scene it, but he forgot which one of the girls did the rounds and dated all of the male leads, thus even though he was first to the punch he gave the wrong answer. Doh

The cosby show location was neato, and the black and white glazed giant donut was just a bit too much for most people to eat in one sitting ( well it was right after breakfast ), but by the time it reached the rice to riches parlour most people had recovered enough to try a few samplers of their famous 50 flavours bonanza.

The trip to the rockerfella museum was very cool and we ended up getting ourselved in the crowd for live primetime 5.20pm nbc weather ... my first time on tv live - yay, another thing of my list of things done, lol.

The views were amazing and we took so many photos that i thought my camera was going to explode .... the only downside was one that i thought we were all going to do sexy poses for and at the last second nick didnt and the girls chilled their poses just a tad so now looking at it I seem to be all pervy staring down her top for no good reason ... it didnt go down too well when they saw them and suddenly i got cast as the bad guy for a few minutes ... arghhhhh

After that we split up for they were off to baseball and i was off to watch avenue Q - via a quick asian rub down to ease the stresses of the day - it was a lot more chilled that I had expected, or wanted !?!

Avenue Q was great, but would have been better if i hadnt let rob and natalie tell me most of the good bits which sort of stopped them being as funny. It also didnt help that the guy next to me seemed overly excited at the jokes and almost preempted them with a loud and semi femenin laugh. It was almost impossible to laugh in time with the show with him forever jumping the punchlines.

The trip back was a mini nightmare and I had no idea where the tube statoins were, taking me almost 2 hours to get back.

New York, New York

The trip to New York was a bit of a long and hectic one.

 

As the flight did not plan to leave until 4pm I chose to leave packing until about 9am in the morning, not that I was not prepared thought - apart from perhaps finding my pair of binoculars ( which I suddenly get that slow dreading feeling that they also got lost in my other luggage and I've only just realised was not on my refund form - doh ) and my ear plugs, I think i got everything in.

 

In fact i did an even better job that I first thought as there was plenty of extra space for new clothes on the way back, I managed to squeeze in my pool cue and the towel I brought came in handy when i got to the hostel and found it didn't have any without an extra surcharge.

 

The trip to the airport was extremely uneventful, apart from the fact that I had not paranoidly rechecked a dozen times that we were actually flying from Heather airport and not one of the other airports in the city, and also it was a disappointment that shaz and co had decided to take the car without me to save space, thus it was a long few train journeys.

 

Checking in was a lot easier than I expected and I managed to get through with my backpack as hand luggage without even a cursory inspection at the main check in desk. After a game of text tennis with shaz i managed to get a call through and find out that we had after all got seats next to each other, though sarah and nick were seating on the other wing side.

 

Things took a mini nose dive for a bit as i couldn't see any signpost and we had agreed to meet up at TGI's.

 

the buffalo wings were horrid but the coke was ok and the gang let me liberate a few chips in the name of starvation which was a help.

 

I then flew around the airport to pick up my friend at works perfume and then it was off to the departure gate. with typical group timing we re-met at the departure lounge at different times and it was only one of us who almost went to the wrong gate as there were two flights both leaving at 4pm and despite staying in new york we were actually heading to newark.

 

The flight with virgin was without entertainment for the first hour of the flight, and the food was nothing to write home about, but it was all free as were the vodka and orange that we had to toast the flight, i wont complaining too much.

 

Arriving in newark was an experience though, and it wasn't quite what we wanted - having to wait at immigrations for almost 2 hours, just for a 2 minute check of 2 finger prints, an eye scan and an electronic passport check, it was just an opportunity to share a few minutes of un-quality time with shaz and an middle ages indian guy who talked as if he flew every other day - what a crappy amount of his life he would have lost in terminals that would be!

 

The pickup car to the city was an event in itself and the spanish van driver who picked us up certainly had a few choice words for expedia ... seeing as they took a small slice of action for setting it all up, and being a hater or arriving at airports and being ripped off totally by local taxi drivers it was a feeling i found impossible to sympathise with.

 

it was amusing though when he said that to walk through central park at night, you had better bring along your webley - and no one in the bus knew it was a handgun except me ( what a colourful childhood I must have had ... or was it just that i paid more attention to hollywood movies, ha ha ).

 

the trip to an all time low when i arrived at my hostel and a group of 4 spanish students were checking in ahead of me. One group of 4 students ... 45 minutes later they finally left the reception. the fecking annoying girl who was leading the group wanted to check, re check and then recheck the bill time and time again. first asking for the price per person per night, then what each person would pay, then to verify that the deposit had been knocked off, then back to how many nights were being staying in which rooms.

 

for a person who normally considers himself patient after about 20 minutes i gave up being polite and started getting exasperated ... huffing, puffing and giving any of their group extremely dirty looks when one was foolish enough to look over as if to say "were not with her, honest". - but they were and being kept waiting that long just because someone is overly anal about splitting the bill is not the best was to put a big beaming smile on my face at almost 11pm ( local time ) at night after being up since 6am ( UK time ) .

 

the rest of the gang were staying in a semi-posh hotel around the corner and on the drive in we had made plans to meet up after an hour to go and stretch our legs in the city. the girls wanted to hit the town and paint it red, but wanting to wake up in the morning and not in the evening, meant that i said that i would prefer a short stroll.

 

however after waiting up for an additional 2 hours and even leaving messages at reception should anyone arrive for me ( as the hostel rooms did not ahve telephones ) i finally gave up the ghost and went to bed a bit miffed that noone had come a calling.

 

i would have tried to kill time by surfing the Internet, but even at 1am the hostel Internet room was chock as was the rooftop veranda that overlooked the darkened city streets.

 

first thing in the morning it was a lot better, and 8am was the time when i finally managed to check emails and view my facebook notifications.

 

Ah, New York, New York ... what fun and excitement do you have in store for me today?