Escape from New York

With ten New York days under our belts we packed our stuff and said hello to Mr. A Train again. I've decided to make a random list (in no real order, sorry if I accidently leave anyone out) of cool things/people in or about NY:
Jeremy- the guy is excellent. He writes a 'zine called 'Fear Not!' which I shall be distributing when I get home. I've never had anything better to read on a long journey. For the moment, my favorite part is "The Worst Letter I Have Ever received'. Genius.
Alex - A Welsh connoisseur of Gay Pride (let me know how Cardiff compares to NYC!) who's into shopping, Broadway musicals and the like. We miss you dude.
Michelle- Gibson SG toting barmaid with excellent conversation. "A Mecca for musicians". (According to Bob). Also she bought me beer, and therefore is an fantastic human being.
Jesse - Jeremy's best mate since they were tiny people. Her building threw the rooftop party. Thanks for the hospitality, the fireworks were the best I've ever seen. (That was your apartment, right?)
James and Duane - Can't wait to get the Thrift on in Liverpool, and thanks again for the lift to the club where you got us in for free and bought us drinks. I swear if anyone tells me they don't like New Yorkers because they think they're rude - then they can get to fuck.
Bob - The NYC counterpart of a cheeky scouse bastard. Gave us the inside track of things to do in NYC and drew a fantastic map of the world in my notebook. Then he had the cheek to draw Manhattan on my page, in the middle of the Pacific ocean, right after telling me I couldn't draw on 'his' page. You have to admire his moxy.
Vinny - Worked in our hostel. He's a very camp Brazilian. How camp? He adores Lisa Stansfield - who can often be heard playing from his office.
Air conditioned subway trains - Catch up London!
24 hour anything - for that 'I need to buy a book at 5AM' urge you never knew you had.
Macy's fireworks - Ooooh, ahhh!

Now I know we live in a time of 'known unknowns' and 'invisible threat' but the security at JFK was fucking tight. If you've got an American passport, you don't even get your check in luggage X-Rayed on internal flights. I had to take my shoes off and get waved at with the wand thing, walk through metal detector doorways and generally be very intimidated. Obviously everyone with an American passport is totally okay, packed their bags themselves and asks God to bless The Land of The Free(TM) at every available moment. 'Cause, y'know, it's not as if fundamentalist terror organizations ever fly on an American carrier. Oh hang on...