My family’s in Cornwall, I’m in New York?

It’s the morning of my second full day in America and I’m pretty exhausted. But in a good way.

The flight was fairly uneventful. I never thought I’d get bored watching films, but I managed it. I chose The Mechanic, The Fighter, and The Eagle because I didn’t want to watch a ‘proper’ film on the tiny screen in front of me with fairly poor sound and visibility. Still, it passed the time. I’m glad I got an aisle seat because my legs started to feel it by the end of the flight.

We arrived in New York a little bit early and I met a couple of people over here for Camp America while we were waiting to go through immigration. They had a booking for this hostel and I’ve bumped into one of them so far. I caught the airport express bus from JFK to Grand Central. You can’t really get away with calling a bus express if it takes forty minutes to tour the terminals before it even leaves for the city, but the grumpy Irish man in front of me was being a bit too much of a dick about it all. I was just enjoying the 29 degree sunshine and feeling glad that I’d arrived. I got talking to a girl called Jenna in the queue who is over here visiting friends and she recommended a couple of places to check out and I may well do that later today.

Everything had been going fairly well up until this point, but once I got to Grand Central they took a slight turn for the worse. I tried to buy a $29 metro pass on one of my pre-paid cards and it wasn’t accepted. Then I bought one with cash, used it, tried to use it again, and it wouldn’t work. I’ve since used the pre-paid card and it’s fine, and someone staying here tells me that there is an 18 minute period after swiping a metrocard until you can use it again, but as I didn’t know this at the time, I decided I would start walking and worrying. I emerged out of the Subway at Times Square. It’s fairly hard to describe the sensation so I’m just going to cop out and say that everything keeps going up. Any ideas I had about New York being a bit ‘big’ didn’t quite prepare me for how vast everything is.

I had a bit of a stroll down Broadway to 34th Street before deciding I should probably get checked in and have some food, and started walking back up Broadway towards my hostel. Over 50 blocks later, I arrived dripping with sweat with very uncomfortable shoulders. I may have brought too much stuff. Why didn’t I get a taxi, you ask? Well, after I’d walked a certain distance, I started reasoning that because I’d already walked this far, I may as well just carry on. Next time I think I’ll just spring for the cab.

At this point I was tired, warm, uncomfortable, and worried about my card and metro ticket. So it didn’t help that the hostel had no record of my reservation. After a few anxious minutes I was told that there had been an error at their end and I was only charged for two days instead of three because of the inconvenience, which I think is known as a result. There was no one else in the room when I arrived so I deposited my belongings and went to get some food. There’s a small takeaway just over the street. I thought the prices seemed a little steep until I saw the size of the portions. It was then that I realised I’d somehow lost my sunglasses. Day 1 – 0 Paul.

When I got back to the hostel were a couple of Argentinians but we didn’t talk for long because only one of them spoke English well enough to converse. They were packing to leave, and he asked me if I thought he’d have trouble getting the tin after tin of fudge he was cramming into his suitcase through customs. If that’s all he was worried about I’m sure he’ll have been fine.

A little later on two more room mates got in. They are a couple of guys from England, Matty and Kieran, who are doing a mini trip round the world. We went down to the hostel’s gathering for our two free beers. Interesting flavour, to say the least. There were a couple of crazy Australians there (which ones aren’t) who were flying around the States and everyone decided to go to a club, but I was so tired I stayed in for an early night. Having been up for over 24 hours. I tried to get online to let everyone know I was here and so on, but sadly I’m having issues with the wifi in the hostel.

When I woke up the next morning, the weather looked a bit disappointing. Overcast and gloomy, but still quite humid. I had breakfast from the hostel cafe and set off to find a phone. A few minutes later, and I was the proud owner of my very own US cell phone. I gave Will a call to let him know I was here and see when we should meet up but he didn’t answer. It was early so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and headed out to see some sights.

I started off downtown and headed for Ground Zero. At the moment it’s basically a very busy construction site to get the memorial ready in time for the 10th anniversary this September. I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but I’m not convinced it’ll be done in time. I may call in at the end of my trip to see how much progress they’ve made. It’s hard to conceptualise the fact that there were two towers almost twice the size of the surrounding skyscrapers, which themselves were slightly hidden by clouds at the top, but at the same time it’s easy to picture the scale of destruction and how utterly terrifying it must have been to have been anywhere near the site when the attacks took place and the towers collapsed.

After a few minutes’ contemplation, I walked down to the waterfront and along the river bank to see the Statue of Liberty in the distance. I wouldn’t mind going over there, but yesterday there would have been no point. There was so much cloud cover the view wouldn’t really have been worth seeing. Not that the boatloads of people travelling over there were deterred.

Around the ferry port there are lots of street entertainers and I watched a few, including some break dancers/acrobats, one of whom cleared five people bent over in a line with a front flip. Impressive stuff, to say the least. A little further along there was a small stage with a band playing to a few spectators. It was fairly middle of the road radio-friendly rock and I started to leave after a couple of songs until the violinist started busting out an absolute face-melter. I hung around until they started the Michael Jackson cover.

Just a short walk North and I spotted the Native American museum. I didn’t expect the airport-style security measures, and I managed to set off the alarm with my belt. The building which houses the collections, an old customs house, is a work of art in itself. Unlike this photo of it, which is very much off-centre.

There were some very interesting pieces, including an entire section on the development of the horse’s importance to the Native Americans, but the highlight, without a doubt, was the private gallery of glass-blown pieces by an individual whose name escapes me. I had no idea glass-blowing could yield such incredible things. Unfortunately photography wasn’t allowed, but when I have a better internet situation I will find out who it is and let you all know so you can share in the awesome. Or you can use Google and find out for yourself.

A little further up, I saw this guy. Very cool, if you ask me.

It was roughly at this point that it started to rain on and off. It was only a bit of drizzle so I didn’t let it bother me. From there I walked up to Wall Street. That is one big flag.

I’m not going to go through the rest of the afternoon in this much detail, partly because it started to rain more so I took fewer photos, but I do have to mention this:

If a street blocked by a row of black cars with blacked-out windows isn’t stereo-typically American action film, try the FBI/Secret Service types with their ear pieces telling everyone to move on in a fairly abrupt manner, before some woman and a bunch of men decorated with medals cross the pavement and get in to the cars before they wheel-spin off with lights flashing and sirens blaring.

I spent the next hour or two walking down to Brooklyn Bridge (where I got soaked, because it really started to rain) and then went back up to the Empire State Building and the New York Public Library. The ESB is seriously tall.

That’s at 18mm from across the street, and even if the cloud weren’t in the way I’m not convinced the whole thing would have fit in the frame. Again, I’d have liked to go up there, but with the weather as it was it would have been a waste of time and money. There’s always the next couple of days.

Around this time Will and I organised getting together so I caught the train out to Brooklyn. It was a bit surreal seeing him here but it was great to catch up. We’d not long been at his apartment when he told me there was a free gig at the waterfront by some band he hadn’t heard of so we went down to see if we could get in. After a quick frisking, we headed to the beer tent and I was introduced to the fantastic concept of buying a ticket to exchange for a drink. At $6 for a tiny drink I only bought a couple, but when you consider the gig was free, I can’t really argue.

Another of Will’s friends, Myles, was there and we met up with him. The band were his favourite (he’d gone so far as to have their logo tattooed on his arm) and he was seriously hyped. After a little while, they spotted a guy they’d met in a bar the night before by the name of Breno, and he came to watch the show with us as well. They started with a 30 minute acoustic set before playing the entirety of their first album and then a 45 minute encore. Watching a band play a free open air gig and being able to look over your shoulder to see Manhattan at night time is, quite simply, fucking awesome.

By now you’re probably wondering who the band was.

If the hair and guitar didn’t give it away, that’s Claudio from Coheed & Cambria. It was the last date of their tour and they’d decided to play for free in their home city. Support was provided by one Adrian Belew. Fucking. Win.

After that we grabbed a BBQ pork sandwich, which was one of the best sandwiches I have ever eaten, before going back to Will’s to have a beer on the roof and look out across the city. He treated us to a rather endearing version of the classic football anthem ‘ENGERLAND’ and before long we’d joined in. I did not think I would ever be able to say I had sung football related songs on the roof of an apartment block in Brooklyn.

We were supposed to be meeting up with Breno to go to a party but he had already gone on ahead. We managed to get very lost and ended up going to a bar Will knew. I shared a cab back to Manhattan with Myles and got to bed at about 4 this morning.