No longer in America

Last night we had a pretty awsome evening in the The Village. The White Horse Tavern was charming and friendly, and I love the atmosphere of the area - it's my favourite part of New York I think. We ate at the Jane Street Tavern and had the most mellow Pinot Noir ever - with fish and chips. Very large fish and chips - there may have been three cod in there.

We walked all the way back. I'm not sure why, but wine may have been involved in the making of that decision. This morning my feet hurt. 

Staten Island was on today's agenda, but the downtown subway wasn't working. We knew this because we had been told there would be engineering works but went down to check after breakfast. There were four fire trucks and a fire car parked around the subway entrance, but we still went down to see if it was running anyway. We encountered a fireman, a strong smell of smoke and a sign that said the line was out of order due to engineering works. We came back up and admired many firemen standing around.

We debated walking, but did I mention that my feet hurt? So we took an alternative line which meant we had to change lines. It was a painless experience and I'm not really sure why we were worried about getting it wrong. We emerged right by the Staten Island ferry terminal and hot-footed it on board.  These ferries look remarkably like bright orange bricks, so taking a lovely picture of one was never going to be terribly attractive.

We only paid the briefest of visits to Staten Island, walking around the block. We saw the island's own memorial to the twin towers. Face silhouettes of Staten Island fatalities along with names, dobs and jobs make it more personal.  Such a shame that the beautiful and clever design is marred by the cheap construction and poor corrective repair. A lot of the harbour area is under construction, but we did identify a couple of grand looking official buildings as well as the Yankee's (Staten Island) stadium.

Seated on the front deck of the ferry on the way back, we were sharing a bench with a couple, when this large young man aimed his very large derrier at the three inch gap between myself and the lady next to me. He squeaked 'scuse me' while on his way down, although we had already moved apart rapidly for fear of being crushed.

He sat quietly until an older lady arrived, spotted him and immediately spoke in a very loud voice: "You did not just squeeze your very large bee-hind between those two nice people, did you? You did, didn't you? Did you at least say thank you?" He stuttered and squeaked: "Thank you."And she continued on. "And there's all that space on the other bench. There's all that space on the other bench and you still squeeze your large self in there?" I could go on... 

Back in Manhatten we searched for a cup of tea. Tea is quite hard to find in Manhatten. There are more variations of coffee than people there, but not tea. Our hunt took us to the seafront, then inland, and we encountered a wooden tugboat, a clipper, a lightboat and a street market selling creams, spiced cider and cakes. In Fulton market we finally located tea, as well as French vanilla coffee which tasted nice at the top, but less nice the further down the cup I got.

We decided to continue walking and passed many landmarks such as the Men In Black building (weren't expecting that were you?), Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Law Courts, Supreme Courts, One Police Plaza, Municipal Building and the - seriously intimidating in an Azkaban way - Criminal Courts. This was not a place to be caught jay-walking.

There was some street entertainment involving some lads that were very enthusiastic and funny, and that we think were going to leap clear over the top of a line of six people. But ten minutes of standing in the cold without them even getting close to doing whatever it was they were going to do, we gave up waiting and so we'll never find out.

I didn't like Chinatown and never need to go there ever again. Heaving crowds, sticky fingers and bong stands were more than enough for me.  We got back to the hotel too early for our cab to the airport, so we diverted into the next door tavern for a final glass to say goodbye to the city that never sleeps.

Still in America

Breakfast was just as large today as it was yesterday in the same diner. Which was a good job, because last night's dinner wasn't all that great. Max's is a charming Italian eatery and the starters were generous and lovely. Unfortunately the pasta, although it tasted good and there was plenty of it - was congealed into a compacted lump - it wasn't freshly made, that's for sure. However, washed down with good wine it filled a hole. Breakfast, however, was much better value.

We wandered further downtown today, paying a visit to the Twin Towers memorial. It's very moving - the two footprints of the towers, combined with the names lost, gave a sense of scale. The water features were an artform, simple and apt, the tears of a nation falling into infinite black holes.

We learned later how some of the remains of the towers have been used to build new structures nearby, as well as other things - some of the steel has been used to build a boat for the fire department memorialising the fire fighters that lost their lives.

*****

When in New York, one has to shop, and Century 21 was our store of choice.

I was looking for evening dresses, and there were many, of all sorts of shapes and sizes and colours. There were some beautiful dresses heavily discounted to the $40 range, but none in my size. I did fall in love with one and it was in my size - but after a lot of thought, I decided that the discounted price of $1559 was a little steep for my pocket. I could get my house recarpeted for that price.

It didn't stop me from trying dresses on, however. Left my scarf in the fitting room though. Moo.

One shop spotted was 'Shoegasm' - I really don't have anything else to say about that, it sort of speaks for itself.

We took a boat tour around the downtown area, Brooklyn, Liberty and Ellis Island. The tour guide was knowledgable, entertaining and Jamaican. It was sunny with a cold breeze - perfect for taking pictures.

Probably the most entertaining part was playing musical chairs as we all had differing strategies to try and get a seat, the best view, and be in the sun, which wasn't actually achievable at the same time for most of the tour.

Discovered that my scarf had chosen not to get forgotten and was hanging on for dear life inside the bottom of my coat and hanging out the bottom. This being New York people didn't bat an eye, assuming that I'd simply decided to wear a tail today.

Next to the pier where we docked, we discovered among the steel and concrete a small patch of wild countryside - a memorial to the Irish Hunger, which you can walk through and find the rocks each with a county name on.

A hot drink was essential after the boat tour, and it was then that we discovered that American places such as Starbucks don't offer tea. Mint tea and Earl Grey, yes. But not normal tea. Except McDonalds. Who also put squirty cream and chocolate sauce on their hot chocolates.

To round off our cultural experience, we decided to visit a small museum - the Mmuseumm, which
turned out to be a hole in the wall. Literally. With beautifully assembled and laid out items of, well. rubbish, I suppose. Such as the Cornflake Collection, each flake lovingly enclosed in its very own plastic case. And a range of items removed from, erm, peoples bodyparts - such as small pencils, construction nails and fishooks.

Back at the hotel just now for a pitstop before heading out to The Village for dinner. Considered a quick snack from the mini bar, but at $4 for a small bag, decided that the pure gold crisps that must surely be inside  weren't to our taste.

Coming to America

Why is it that when you allow time for the M25 to screw up your journey, it lets you through with no problem at all? Which is why, for the third time in a row, I arrived at Heathrow ridiculously early.

But, with Virgin Upper Class tickets, this turned out to be a good thing. Our own customs and immigration area which meant zero queuing - even though I did manage to set off all the whistles and bells again. This time just my perfume and lipstick were suspect.

The Virgin Clubhouse I could have spent all day at. Spa, food, drink, enormous sqidgy chaise longe things in lime green and what looked like a 20 foot TV.

Upper Class pod seats on the plane were pretty awsome, too. Apart from the diagonal arrangement made take off and landing interesting. And the best bit? An actual bar to sit at. Except when the seat belt light came on, which was fairly frequently and resulted in a kind of mile-high musical chairs.

We decided to take a yellow cab into Manhatten from Newark airport and were horrified at the really nasty weather, but the hotel Roxy is gorgeous - more about that later. It really was a case of forcing ourselves to stay awake long enough to enjoy a glass of the world's most expensive wine in the hotel bar. Followed by crashing out in the world's most comfortable bed.

We woke up this morning to find the weather was the polar opposite of last night. It was just gorgeous - bright sunshine, pleasant breeze and just one layer of warm coat. 

We've found a little diner near the hotel for breakfast. I ordered one coffee, two scarmbled eggs and a sausage. What was put in front of me was one bottomless coffee, one sausage, two scrambled eggs, a heap of fried potatoes, and two slices of toast with grape jelly (*burp*).

We decided to explore Central Park and started at the Guggenheim, headed into the park towards the reservoir then down to the Belvedere Castle and the zoo before crossing to the Tavern on the Green.

According to Jill's iphone, we walked 12 kilometres in total. My feet's opinion on the matter is closer to 120 kilometres. Central Park, by the way, is quite hilly. There is also something to see around just about every corner - whether it's a statue of William Shakespeare, or a squirrel burying it's nuts. And the wildlife is remarkably tame - especially starlings, sparrows and sqirrels.

The zoo was kind of different. It's small, but the animals all look healthy enough if a little hyped up - the snow leopards were wrestling, the red pandas patrolling, and the sea lions jumping. It was, perhaps, all due to feeding time being imminent. Apart from the bears who were both snoring. The highlight of the tropical area was the mandarin duck who had bonded with one of the keepers and followed her around.

The subway was just like in the movies - I can totally imagine foot-chases or runaway subway trains, or underground civilisations existing there. It's dark and slightly grimy, with lots of pillars seperating four tracks.

The roads are interesting. When the little green man appears for the pedestrians, it doesn't mean that cars aren't coming through, it just means that pedestrians have priority. Which is a little scary stepping out when a car is coming round the corner at you.

We came back to the hotel for a couple of hours chilling before heading out to dinner. It's a mark of how tired we both are that we spent half an hour trying to find out the scores for Strictly, before working out that today is in fact Friday, and not Saturday.

Also, having ambulances and a fire pump attending an emergency in the building opposite us was surprisingly distracting and possibly an aesthetic bonus.

Losing your head in London

Last week's magical mystery tour involved the Tower of London. I haven't been there since sometime last century when I was a very little adventurer. It's smaller than I remember but no less magnificent for that.

I was there for business reasons and spent most of the time in the Middle Gate, on top of which Prince William and his Duchess recently stood and waved to the crowd below with the backdrop of the ceramic poppies. 

There's something quite medieval about conducting a business meeting around a board room table in a small room decorated with maces, axes and ancient swords. I didn't have time to see the whole of the Tower - in all honesty I'm not interested in history. But I do love buildings so old, or alien that one wonders how people live(d) in them.

I had lunch in the Arabica restaurant in Borough Market. Built under the arches, it's very atmospheric and produces some incredible Lebanese food. I thoroughly enjoyed tasting lots of different dishes. But, there are very few things I dislike when it comes to food - cheese, humus, olives, lychees, pickle, and based on just a single experience, Labanese food appears to incorporate almost all of them as central pieces - I did enjoy the lamb very much though.

Marshalling wise, I'm entering a new phase. I've recieved my Trainee Rescue licence and will join the crew for the first real time this coming weekend. 

Last weekend was Truck racing, something I've never really had any interest in. But when you hear those boys and girls coming at you for the first time, the power of it goes right through you. And even by racing driver standards they are completely bonkers. They managed to destroy half the Armco around Druids on Sunday. 

Coffee, by the way, is a marshalling essential.

This week's magical mystery tour isn't so much of a mystery. Glasgow as most of you know by now, is a semi-regular trip. This time I'm going by train and Virgin is looking after us there and back. So far so good. There's a gentleman occupying the seat in front of us who is talking to the chap next to him. Another stranger who keeps rustling his paper loudly - presumably because he'd rather be reading it that being talked at by the first chap.

I can, straight from the horses mouth, tell you that the first chap has taken this train about five or six times a year for the last 25 years. He can tell whether its running to time or not by the timeit reaches Crewe because it should get into Crewe at 1 o'clock, so if the train arrives here late he knows it's going to be late into Glasgow, and it's never early of course. This chap gets quite a lot of spam in hs email and he's managed to identify mot of t he thinks but of course these spam people get cleverer every day, don't they? Anyway he kows that if he gets an email asking for bank details then that' sdefiniteky spam because is own bank said so. And those talking about a booty call must be spam because he dosn't know anyone who talks like that. He knows those emails from Nigeria asking for help transferring large amounts of money are spam because well, Nigerian - but he's not sure about the similar ones that come from more respectable countries, because most of them are probably spam, but what if he missed one that wasn'? It wouldnt be right to leave someone stranded there, or miss an opportunity like that. now would it? And email isn't going to last much longer now is it? Because with the way the world's going we're going to run out of electricity soon, at least that's what all the papers are saying so it must be true and where will all these youngsters be then? He knows for a fact from his grandson that childen aren't taught  how to use a library these days, or do mathematics without a computer... 

At this point I decided to watch a movie on my ipad.