Strawberry Fields Forever

After the excitement of the day before, not to mention the gig, I spent a lot of the early part of Sunday taking a very relaxing stroll in central park. The weather was better than the day before but there were only occasional glimmers of sunshine. There are so many iconic images associated with the place it’s hard to list them all. Suffice it to say I saw basically everything I expected aside from drug-dealers and muggers, who, I’m informed, appear at the witching hour. The relaxed pace of the park is a welcome change from the hectic streets just moments away.

I took a quick stroll through Strawberry Fields. It was a lot more interesting than the area by the Dakota.

A little later on, I stumbled across my second wedding photography session. (I forgot to mention the people near the Brooklyn Bridge in the rain a last time). Another thing I forgot to mention was the amazing bouncy seat underneath the driver on the bus from the airport. I was a little concerned that had he had to brake suddenly after going over a bump his legs would have been too far away.

I also saw 5th Avenue closed off by the Police for the Puerto Rican day parade which was fairly disappointing all in all. Having said that, they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. After a little more time back in Central Park, I took a brief stroll into the outskirts of Harlem before heading back to the hostel to meet Matty and Kieran for the evening.

When I got there, there was a new face in the room. I introduced myself and I’d just met Max, an Australian gap student who was taking a break from his school in Scotland to work at Camp America for the summer. As the others hadn’t yet arrived back we chatted for a while and I invited him to come along with us. When they came back, Kieran in particular was vocal about his appreciation for the Hooters bar they had just been to. After a short while exploring parts of Manhattan, we ended up there for our evening meal. The photograph of him grinning whilst sandwiched between two twins wearing very little had nothing to do with it.

Walking into the bar was like an assault on the senses. Aside from the obvious scantily clad girls, there were TVs everywhere. In England, it often seems like you have to struggle to see a screen depending on where you’re sitting. In this bar, it is impossible to look anywhere else. Apart from at the waitresses. With a combination of the waitress’ hilarious look of horror when Max requested a side salad, large frosted glasses of flavourless Guinness, and the NBA finals on the TV, along with miscellaneous whoops and cheers from all corners of the bar when points were scored, we all agreed we were very much ‘in America’. As an aside, if you’re too young to drink over here, under no circumstances should you listen to the waitress when she tells you that root beer tastes like ginger beer and order this in lieu of a nice cold coke. If you don’t believe me, just ask Max.

When we were fed and watered we decided to show Max Times Square at night. When we arrived, we were a little surprised to see it full of people until we realised they were broadcasting the Tony awards live on one of the screens. I would like an explanation as to why anyone needs a Footlocker to remain open at half ten on a Sunday night.

After spending a little while longer here and hunting in vain for a bar which looked like fun we went back to the Hostel, talked for a few minutes, agreed we were all tired and went to bed.

The next day, Matty and Kieran were due to fly to New Zealand and I also had to check out and move to my second hostel. We all got up at eight for breakfast, and those of us who were leaving packed and had a quick look on the internet before stashing our bags and heading out for some more fun. At this point, the guys discovered that their flight to NZ was cancelled because of the ash cloud in Chile. Strangely, the last time we’d spoken at the time of writing they’d been told they could fly to LA as planned, then to Australia and on to New Zealand, which seems ludicrous to me.

When they’d got over the shock, we went to Midtown Comics. Superman #2 for $2300, anyone? (No flash, for obvious reasons, so the picture’s a bit dark) Sadly no one was up for my suggestion of all chipping in and sharing the issue Simpsons style.

After a while agonising over purchases (some as presents and some for ourselves), we decided we were hungry and went for food. Two slices of pizza may not sound like a lot, but when the slices are roughly the size of a small pizza, it’s sure to fill you up. It helps that it was some of the best pizza I’ve ever tasted, and sitting in the middle of Times Square can’t have hurt.

By now time was pressing so we returned to the hostel to prepare to leave. Not knowing how the internet would be where I was going I booked accommodation for my next few nights and the relevant transport to my next stop. A little while after that it was time to say goodbye to Matty & Kieran and wish them good luck with the rest of their trip. I think we were all a bit disappointed that we wouldn’t be able to spend more time together on our travels and hopefully we’ll all follow through on our plans to meet up in the UK. The sun came out just before they left so Max and I stayed out in the street talking.

All of a sudden he was distracted by something behind me and calling out ‘Miranda’. At first I thought maybe he’d contracted some sort of tropical disease until I remembered he’d mentioned meeting a girl at the US embassy when they were getting their visas. She’d somehow stalked him through the CCU organisers and they’d been e-mailing for a while. Sure enough, there she was, accompanied by her friend Megan. They had tickets for the Yankees game that night and wanted to explore some of Harlem beforehand. As we had nothing else planned for the immediate future Max and I went along. Within five minutes we were reminded why women should never be allowed near maps.

On the topic of stereotypes, Harlem. That is to say, a gentleman in a wheelchair broadcasting hip-hop on a ghetto-blaster, watermelon stands on the side of the road, more fried chicken joints on one street than I’d seen in the whole of Manhattan, and, although I missed this particular nugget, a young man with a comb embedded in his afro.

I need a haircut.

Miranda and Megan hadn’t eaten so they treated themselves to a wonderful pay-per-lb selection of questionable looking dishes including plantation banana (sweet) and candied yam (very sweet). Not long after that they realised their summer clothes wouldn’t be warm enough for the evening and, having brought nothing warm, decided to go shopping. That didn’t really take our fancy, so Max and I caught the subway and said our goodbyes as I headed to my new hostel in Brooklyn.

After walking a block from the station I started to wonder about the neighbourhood, but in all honesty I think that was more a case of pre-conceptions based on things I’d heard rather than what I was actually seeing. Inside the hostel everything was fine, and they recognised my reservation immediately which scores them points right off the bat. As I entered my room I was struck by the contrast with the last one. Both were clean and well kept, but this one was massive in comparison. Added to that, I was soon to discover that I had a single bed rather than a bunk.

I was soon talking to another Paul who had arrived just a little while before I had. He lives in (and loves) London, and was over for his cousin’s communion in Detroit and had then spent a while in Canada getting eaten alive by mosquitos and chopping wood with a blunt axe. Having had no transfer planned from JFK to the main city he was lucky enough to be offered a lift by the man sat next to him on the plane. A little while later he was a passenger in a DB9 which pulled into a very expensive looking car park in Greenwich Village. It was about 7pm when I arrived, and as there was a gym over the street we went to see how much it would be for a single session before finding some food, but $15 was a little too much so we went on to Little Italy for a fantastic meal. As we wandered the streets and thought of things to do for the evening, we stumbled across the thought that New York probably looks pretty cool from the top of the Empire State Building. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Because it looks like this:

And ‘pretty cool’ is clearly a country mile away from doing that any kind of justice at all. It’s just a shame the building itself is a little large me to take with me, because it played the role of a fairly effective tripod. So, having just ‘nipped to the gym’, we made our way home about five hours later, meeting a very entertaining individual on the subway on the way. He claimed to:

• be a producer
• date a super model
• routinely pay $1000+ dollars to get into clubs
• develop property.

A Google search on his advice has so far showed up nothing, although I admit it was fairly rushed.

I’d like to take this opportunity to state that in my experience, the NY subway felt very safe even after midnight. There were still buskers, and the volume of people wasn’t much less than some trains during the day. As for a few hours later? I can’t say, because we got to bed at about 1am and set an alarm for 6.30 to get up in time for the first ferry to the Liberty and Ellis Islands in the morning.