Kitsimons

Journal Feed

Tuesday 20th November

Arrived at New York's JFK Airport at around 9pm. Took a cab to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where we'd be staying at Mark's apartment (Hall Street, just off Myrtle Avenue). Stu spotted a chap walking down the road kissing a crow he was carrying on his arm. Welcome to Brooklyn.

Dropped our suitcases off at Mark's place before heading round the corner for a bite to eat at a Thai restaurant on Myrtle Avenue. Yellow curry tasted damn good after airline food. Once done eating we headed a little further down Myrtle Avenue for a couple of drinks in a bar called Rope. Met Jim, his wife Indira and her best friend Karen. Jim and Indira live in an apartment in the same building as Mark. Karen, an ex-New Yorker who now lives in Oslo with her husband, was staying with them while she visited for a couple of weeks.

Chatted away for a while before the time difference caught up with us and we hit the sack.

Wednesday 21st November

Got up relatively early. Mark was working today (last day of work before a few days off over Thanksgiving), so we left with him and grabbed some breakfast at a place called Mike's. Bacon, egg, fries and toast soaked in butter never tasted so good. After breakfast Mark headed off to catch the Subway, whilst Stu and I headed off through Brooklyn towards the Brooklyn Bridge.

Got as far as the Manhattan Bridge when a cop parked up on traffic duty spotted us staring at our map and called us over to offer directions. Ended up chatting with Officer Yuhuei for over 40 minutes, including some time talking with his boss who pulled up during the conversation. Yuhuei drew us a map and recommended walking through Brooklyn Heights, taking in the view of Downtown Manhattan before heading over the Brooklyn Bridge. We said our goodbyes and decided to head straight for the Brooklyn Bridge.

First proper look at Downtown Manhattan, and from the Brooklyn Bridge is a pretty damn good way to do it. Awesome stuff. We head over the bridge and into Manhattan. We stumble across Ground Zero, where there's really nothing to see - it's a fenced off building site. We head North towards Soho to get a bit of shopping under our belts. Stumbled across an Apple store and bagged myself an iPod Touch (which is the nuts, by the way).

After a couple of hours wondering around, we arrange to meet Mark at a bar in Midtown Manhattan to try and catch England's decisive qualifier with Croatia. We jump in a cab, which happened to be a big mistake - it was the day before Thanksgiving and the roads were gridlocked.

40 minutes later we arrive and meet up with Mark. The bar we were going to was charging $20 to watch the game, so we headed elsewhere. Ended up relying on my brother in England for score updates. England lost. Bugger.

We head back to Brooklyn on the Subway, where we then take a cab out to a bar in Williamsburg, the arty/trendy area of Brooklyn. The bar is a bit different - there are 4 large projector screens, one on each wall of a square room. We sit on sofas arranged around the side of the room with food and drinks while they play 2 movies, one each on projector screens opposite each other, with the soundtrack for just one of the movies. The theme is vampire movies, so we're treated to a French vampire flick, including its soundtrack, and a silent David Bowie/Susan Sarandon vampire flick. Odd doesn't come close to describing the experience.

Once the movies are finished, we head to another bar for a couple of drinks before heading back to Mark's place for some shut-eye.

Thursday 22nd November (Thanksgiving)

Jim and Mark are preparing a spectacular Thanksgiving dinner, so Stu and I decide to make ourselves scarce and head out for a walk around Brooklyn Heights.

Brooklyn is relatively quiet. Presumably many people are out of town visiting relatives for Thanksgiving. Stu and I don't complain - the pedestrianised walkway at the edge of Brooklyn Heights is all but deserted when we arrive. We sit for a while taking in the views of Downtown Manhattan, munching on one of the juiciest apples I've ever tasted (picked up at a grocery store a few blocks back). We realise it's bloody warm as the sun emerges. Apparently it hit 20°C that day. Not bad for November in New York.

We get a cab back to Mark's place. Stu is grumbling about his left foot aching by now - I can't blame him as we've already clocked up the miles.

Thanksgiving diner is a real feast. Jim, Indira and Karen are there, as well as Karen's brother Noel and his girlfriend. After dinner Noel and his better half say their goodbyes and head on out to another Thanksgiving dinner. The rest of us head downstairs to Jim and Indira's apartment where Jim whips together some fantastic cocktails. We drink and make merriment for a few hours before heading back upstairs to Mark's apartment to get some sleep.

Friday 23rd November

Mark is off work today, so he volunteers to play tour guide and show us around some of Manhattan. We jump on the Subway and head towards Midtown.

First up is Grand Central Terminal. The interior is incredibly opulent and ornate, with beautiful marble walls and floors. All, that is, other than the platforms, which revert to the traditional New York grimy industrial, utilitarian aesthetic.

After Grand Central Terminal we head for the Chrysler Building, which is, for my money, the best looking skyscraper in New York. We briefly have a look around the lobby and read the plaques on the wall, before hopping on the Subway back towards Soho. Mark knows the area and promises to show where the good shops are.

Much walking and serious shopping ensues, though we do find time to stop for a damn fine hot dog. Stu bags himself some Camper shoes in the hope they will alleviate his foot pain, while I opt for a mighty fine Brooklyn Industries jacket, just for the hell of it.

All shopped out, we catch the Subway back to Brooklyn. Jim and Indira promised us a night out at Brooklyn's bars this evening, so we head down to their apartment for a few drinks to get us in the mood.

Jim orders up a Town Car which takes us over to a bar called Magnetic Field on Atlantic Avenue. Things get a little hazy from this point, though I seem to remember much fun was had with a photo booth (and Jim's nipple) and an excellent Family Guy pinball machine. At some point we headed over the road to another bar, though I have no recollection of what this was called. Eventually we called it a night and headed back to Mark's.

Saturday 24th November

Feeling surprisingly fresh given the previous night's antics, and Mark suggests we head over to Williamsburg where there are plenty of nice shops to be found. We catch a bus under the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) and make our way to Williamsburg.

It's a beautiful day and the sun is shining as we wonder around the quiet streets. Mark's not wrong about the shops as there are some real gems to be found.

Happy with our haul, we catch the bus back to Mark's place to rest up for a few hours.

Once the sun has set, we hop on the Subway back into Manhattan. First up is the Rockefeller Center and the Top of the Rock Observation Deck. The views, unsurprisingly, are simply stunning. Visiting when dark was definitely the right thing to do, as New York City sparkles beneath us like a million tiny gems (wasn't that poetic?). Remarkably, the observation deck is not particularly busy - this was certainly the right time to come.

Once we'd soaked up the views and had enough of the biting wind, we took the elevator back down to ground level. Times Square was next on the list of places to visit, so off we headed around the corner. Times Square is another site worth seeing once the sun has set, and it really was an assault on the senses. Teeming crowds, comprised mainly of tourists, and the light of a thousand LCD displays bearing down on you from all sides really makes an impact.

Once we'd had our fill of neon we hopped into a cab back over to Brooklyn. We were off to meet up with Jim, Indira and Karen at a restaurant called DuMont in Williamsburg, where purportedly the burgers are second to none. Happily the claims were true. I tucked in to one of the best burgers I've ever tasted, as well as some pretty special macaroni and cheese we ordered to share.

We headed back home in Jim's stunning Ford Galaxie 500, stopping on the way to retrieve an errant hubcap that made a bid for freedom. Once back, Jim served up some excellent brandy for a nightcap, and we sat down to catch 30 minutes or so of Battlestar Galactica Razor that had aired earlier that evening, before heading up to bed.

Sunday 25th November

Come Sunday morning, the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Stu, Mark and I headed out on foot with a view to walking across the Manhattan Bridge this time around. If anything, the views from the Manhattan Bridge are more stunning than the views from the Brooklyn Bridge, mainly because you can also see the beautiful Brooklyn Bridge from the Manhattan Bridge.

The Manhattan side of the Manhattan Bridge drops us smack in the middle of New York's Chinatown. There's a market-like bustle to this place, with crowds of people wondering up and down roads lined with street vendors touting an all manner of wares. A nice touch is the road signs, that are marked in both English and Chinese in this part of town.

We spend hours pottering around, eventually making our way along 5th Avenue to Washington Square, where a break-dancing act performs a remarkable 12ft head-slide, among other feats.

From Washington Square we head South into Greenwich Village, where Mark parts company with us, opting to head back home. Stu and I find a restaurant to rest our weary feet for a while, and we stumble upon what must be the worst waiter in the World. First, he brought my cup of tea but forgot the hot water (an integral part of the drink, some might say). He then proceeded to bring my cheesecake, but neglected to bring Stuart the brownie he'd ordered. Nice going. We left what was probably an insulting tip and bailed out.

After another 30 minutes or so wondering around Greenwich Village we decided to grab a cab and make our way back to Brooklyn. It was at this point we realised we were at dead-cab time. Apparently, it is impossible to get a cab between 4:30 and 5:30 in certain parts of New York due to a shift change (or some such). After 20 minutes of trying and failing to hail a cab, we resigned ourselves to taking the Subway back to Brooklyn, much to Stu's, and his aching left foot's, discontent.

Once back at Mark's apartment we make our way over to what Mark describes as the only decent pizza place in this area of Brooklyn for a bite to eat. It doesn't disappoint. Stuffed full of pepperoni, it's back home to bed.

Monday 26th November

Our last full day in New York. Mark is back at work today, so Stu and I make our way back to the Subway with the intention of heading to Downtown Manhattan and the Staten Island Ferry.

Much to Stu's consternation, my inept Subway map reading abilities lead us to the end of the line somewhere, at a station that would take us to Coney Island. In my defence, there were line works going on at the time that messed up the trains a bit.

We managed to get a train heading to Manhattan, and once we arrived we grabbed a cab over to the Staten Island Ferry terminal. The weather was grey and misty today, so the views of the Statue of Liberty from the ferry weren't as spectacular as they could have been. Still, the view was good enough and the round ferry trip was well worth taking.

Once back at the Manhattan terminal, we hopped on the Subway back up to Soho for one last bit of shopping. We stopped for a beer, and what turned out to be a fantastic plate of nachos, in a nice little bar showing a Premier League game, before heading out and catching a cab back to Brooklyn for the last time.

I had a taste for the beer at this point, so we stopped for a pint at Maggie Brown on Myrtle. One beer was enough for Stu, who found his way back to Mark's apartment for a nap. I made my way down the road to Rope, where I pleasantly stumbled across a $2 happy hour. I sat at Rope until Mark and Stuart arrived, and we made our way over to a Mexican restaurant for something to eat.

Full of burrito, it was time to get back to Mark's place for a good night's sleep.

Tuesday 27th November

Our flight back to Heathrow wasn't until 9:25pm, so Stu and I had a well deserved lie-in. Unfortunately that meant we missed Mark, who headed off to work early. When Stu and I finally arose from our slumber, we headed out towards a restaurant called Junior's not far from the Manhattan Bridge, where, we were told, we could find some of the finest fried meat and cheesecake in the city.

I can't attest to the health benefits of anything served in Junior's, but the fried steak and mashed potato with spinach I tucked into was delicious.

Gorged on fried food, we meandered back through Brooklyn, past Fort Greene Park and back to Mark's apartment to pack our gear together. We spent the afternoon watching the excellent Warriors (I want to be in the dungarees gang), before hiring a Town Car to take us to JFK at around 6pm.

We arrived at JFK where Stu discovered he didn't have his passport anywhere on him. Many thorough searches of his suitcase turned up nothing. Fortuitously, according to the boards, our flight was delayed by 2 hours until 11:25pm, so Stu called Mark who made a mad dash from work to search his apartment for the missing passport.

Unfortunately, Mark's search proved fruitless. It appeared that Stu had lost his passport somewhere along the line. Thankfully, a very helpful member of the Virgin staff called ahead to Heathrow, where immigration said they would allow Stu back into the country without a passport.

We were escorted through security, where we sat in the departure lounge for 3 hours before the plane was finally ready for boarding. Once on the plane, we sat for another hour while the captain inspected the cargo hold door, which a cretinous baggage handler had managed to ding when reversing his truck away from the plane.

We finally got airborne at around 1:30am.

Wednesday 28th November

We touch down at Heathrow at around 12:30pm local time, a full 4 hours late, and having managed to snatch a few hours sleep on the flight. Stuart's lack of passport delays us at immigration (the officer who cleared his entry had knocked off by the time we arrived), but eventually we make it through.

The Heathrow Express takes us across to Paddington Station, where we catch the Underground to St Pancras, and a train back up to Leicester. We finally get home at around 5:00pm.

Exhausted, with not a particularly pleasant end to the trip, but lots of good memories, an awful lot of photos, and real desire to see New York again sometime. To end on a cliché: I love New York. And I have the mug to prove it.