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...

Bionic sky.

Yesterday was fantastic. We got ourselves together and found our way to the Empire State building. It was a hell of a lot of hassle to get up there (queuing and $12 fee) but I feel that the view just about made it worth the metal detectors, cramped elevators and smart arse staff. Manhattan looks amazing from the 86th floor.
We then called Jeremy about arrangements for watching Macy's 4th of July fireworks. Instead of getting down to the river with the crowds we had got ourselves an invite to a rooftop party over in Brooklyn. Have you ever seen single fireworks that make globes and smiley faces? Neither had I.
Best fireworks, EVER.
On the way back to the hostel we took a cab up Central Park West and talked to the taxi driver about the fireworks.
I said something like "I didn't think fireworks like that were possible."
He said "In New York anything's possible!"

Hark! Tis a Pimp-tramp!

Friday was fun fun fun. The best meal of the trip so far was found on West Broadway and Broome Street. I spaced out a little just thinking about it then... Anyway! We started drinking our way to victory on Bleeker Street at 7PM before being led by those in the know to see a band called Easykiller, that include a barmaid from Brooklyn called Michelle that we'd met that week. A string of bars and drinks ensued in a whirlwind of introductions passport flashing. George sensibly called it a night between 1 and 2 in the morning, leaving me and Gav with our new found friend Jeremy and his long time super best mate Jesse (the girl type Jesse, not the dead cowboy type Jesse). When it was time for Jeremy to leave Gav and I decided it time for more bars. Word of advise: When you leave 110th Street subway station at 6AM on a Saturday, it's gone light, you're drinking beer out of a 40oz bottle in a paper bag and even the drug dealing street pimp-tramps of central park think you're a waste of time - you've had a good night out.
On Saturday we went to an independent cinema at half past midnight (so technically it was Sunday) to watch "Supersize Me!". [Ester - I didn't learn anything astonishingly new watching it, but did find it hard to watch at some points]. We had spent the whole day recovering from last night and got to the cinema as early as possible.