I want to be a part of it: New York, New York.

So after a lovely few weeks back home in England I returned somewhat prematurely to the U.S.A. with a quick stop off in New York. To be honest, I don’t really know where to begin as it has been an absolute whirlwind stay in the big apple. Therefore, I shall begin from the beginning…

The airport

The sheer surrealism of the trip was probably first realised at Heathrow airport when we arrived at the wonderful terminal 5, home of the equally fantastic British Airways. Despite the heighted security things ran pretty smoothly and we were soon in the air. Sarah and I tucked into as many free glasses of wine as we could manage without appearing drunk and had a nice chicken tikka for lunch and a sarnie for dinner!

Anyway, enough about how much I love British Airways and terminal 5…now onto the gritty stuff!

1^st Night

The bizarre nature of our stay in New York doesn’t end with BA. We arrived at The Williamsburg Hostel on Bedford Ave, Brooklyn at about 3pm and were greeted by an English man who was looking after it while his friend was at the dentist! The place was actually more like an apartment with sublet rooms but it had such a cosy feel to it and all the staff were lovely. I especially fell in love with the cat, Frank!

Christian

The English guy proceeded to make us fancy tea (apparently the best in N.Y.C.) and tell us about his absolutely ridiculous (and in my opinion highly unreal) story of how he came to live in New York. Basically, he used to work at the Financial Times in London but ended up suing the company when he found out some sort of under cover corruption going on. He obviously couldn’t stay and had alienated himself so he flew over to New York where he fell in love with an extremely wealthy girl and married her in 6 weeks! The family didn’t’ like him and hired investigators to follow the couple. Eventually her sister drugged her and sent her to a rehab center. The family then got the two of them divorced in Idaho and he is an illegal immigrant (which he has been since he came out here!). He has now been living in New York illegally for around 15 years. Having kept us sitting in the lounge longing to see our room, shower and eat, we finally (3hrs later) got to our room! We didn’t see him too much after that because he went on a Buddhist meditation camp the next day. How he manages to do all of these things when he is an illegal immigrant baffles me completely!

Sarah and I grabbed a quick shower and headed out to find some food. We ended up going to a lovely Italian place called Fornio where I had my first legal drink (although they didn’t ask me for I.D. boo). We then went to a very English looking pub and drank some strawberry beer before retiring very early on in the evening. We were both lightweights!

Day 1

Words truly cannot describe how incredible our first day in Manhattan was. We got up early in order to catch the subway over and stopped off at a cute little coffee shop called ‘New York Muffin’ for a bagel and a smoothie which would become a daily occurrence in our vacation. Having queued for about half an hour in the TKTS line (a cheap box office in the center of Time Square) we decided to just splash out the cash and buy tickets to see the Lion King that lunch time. The show was amazing and from the beginning call and response shouts I had tears streaming down my face. Afterwards we walked to the Rockerfeller Center and went up to the Observatory as the sun was setting over Manhattan. I have to say that it was the most beautiful view of the skyline and I couldn’t help thinking that if anyone ever proposes to me they had better do it there!

Being so close to 5^th Ave we had a wander and took pictures of all the amazing shop displays and swooned over the Abercrombie and Fitch models (mmmmmm). A short hop onto the subway saw us in Grand Central Terminal so we thought that we might as well get off and have a look. As we walked up the steps the brassiest and roughest groove I’ve heard in a long time came bellowing down. When we reached the top there was a band called ‘Underground Horns’ made up of a beaten up alto saxophone and trumpet, valve trombone, tuba, conga & whistle and snare/bass drum set up. Everyone was enthralled by their sound, blocking most entrances and exits to platforms. After listening to a couple of their songs (and buying a cd) we headed up to Grand Central for a brief photo opportunity and then headed further downtown on the subway to the Blue Note Jazz Club where Joe Sample, from the Jazz Crusaders TX, was playing. Although it looked nostaligic and ultra cool inside, the prices were too expensive to stay so we headed next door to a bar called Groove where an amazing funk band were playing. They did two 45 minute nonstop segued sets of the dirtiest funk I’ve ever heard. After a massive burger and 2 or 3 cocktails (finally I got asked for I.D.!) we jumped back on the subway, once again exhausted, and headed back to Brooklyn for bed.

Day 2

Having miraculously fumbled our way round Manhattan and having literally one of the best days of my life, day two was met with silly sleepy errors from the previous night before! Sarah and I headed to the Statue of Liberty in the morning without any real hassle. The boat trip wasn’t too bad although I felt a little bit ill and they had a female voiceover who was trying to evoke emotion out of people at 11am in the morning by telling us to ‘imagine’ and ‘feel’! We queued to go up the Statue of Liberty and took some snaps of some of the views but if I’m being honest, I think both of us were a little bit disappointed/bored by the whole thing. The constant queuing for things meant that by the time we got back on the boat when just went straight back to shore rather than visiting Staten Island.

The next stop was The Museum of Sex on 5^th Ave. The night before we’d checked prices and times but had failed to write down where on 5^th Ave it was. Anyone who has been or indeed looked at a map will realise the great error that we made as 5^th Ave runs for miles and miles. The obvious choice was clearly to head to ‘Museum Mile’ and although I took lots of pictures of Central Park and the Guggenheim Museum, we still couldn’t find it. Eventually, I rang Jesse in Denton and asked him for directions. It turned out that we were at 96^th Street and the Museum was on 26^th! However, a bus journey later saw us right outside the Museum. Having paid entry (I love having an American student card – money off!) we headed into what was perhaps the strangest thing I have seen in a long time. Having trawled through the picture of famous people in the porn business we ended up in a room dedicated to the history of sex, looking at early vibrators to real life latex dolls! It was interesting but I think we both felt a little uncomfortable, especially when we got to the sex and film room (no more information required!).

After 30mins of complete silence and contemplation we walked to Stardust café for our final night in New York. I had already been told what it was like but Sarah had never heard of it so we were both very excited! Again, we didn’t check the address and only knew that it was on Broadway but having asked a dishy police officer and then a lady at a ticket booth we arrived there (f.y.i. it’s on the corner of 50^th and Broadway!). The food was great and we sipped Sex and the City cocktails while our waitress (incidentally the best out of all of them) sang songs from Wicked and Grease. It was such a fantastic experience and I’d definitely recommend going back there.

Stripped of most of our money we headed back to the hostel, annoyed that we had been silly enough to not check where places were, but extremely happy that we’d had such a fantastic time in New York.

Day 3

Having had a nice (and welcomed) lie in we searched google for things to do a little closer to the hostel in Brooklyn. Walking the Brooklyn Bridge would be too long and a lot of walking for our already tired, and in Sarah’s case, bleeding feet. In the end we decided just to get on the subway and go to the Museum of Natural History. It was such a lovely chilled end to the trip and I have to say that the dinosaurs were fascinating! I’ve never been to anything like that so for me I was amazed and definitely took far too many photos.

When we got back we dropped off our keys called for a cab and that was it…goodbye New York. I literally can’t get over how amazing the experience was and I’m so glad that Sarah and I did it together. I have a funny feeling that there will be a lot of ‘in jokes’ that only her and I get like the true freakiness of Christian, the platform sweeper on the subway and the true beauty of the Abercrombie and Fitch models! My only wish is that we could have stayed longer which is why, money permitting, we’re hoping to go back at the end of the semester to experience New York in warmer climates!

Back to Texas and the hard graft that comes with it…

xXx Diane xXx