My last day in New York - Friday. Had to pack my stuff up, get organised, check out, pay the lovely bill. New York is proper expensive. I wanted to take the boat to the Statue of Liberty, but the weather wasn't really behaving. It was beautiful and sunny - totally clear - but a touch brisk and pretty windy. Several locals had said that if it’s windy in the city, don’t bother with the islands…….anyhow I thought I’d go see for myself. Thankfully I could leave my bag at the hotel, and my flight wasn’t till the evening. So I [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday and Thursday The temperature had jumped dramatically overnight. It was much much warmer when I emerged on Wednesday. So warm in fact that, but for the torrential rain, you wouldn’t even need a jacket. If you’ve read all my entries to date then you’ll realise that I’m a bit of a walker. I don’t think there’s any better way to get your bearings and thoughts on a place, than to simply wander about. Sometimes without any real heading, sometimes with a clear destination in mind, either way you get the sounds, the sights, the smells…… [View Full Entry]

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Monday again was a bit slow getting started. The corner shop outside the hotel is my morning stroll for coffees. We wandered north up Lexington and headed for a look at Central Station, which is a very impressive building. I tried to get all arty with the shutter speed. Then it was onwards north up Madison Avenue, breakfast at Café Metro (very good) and it wasn’t long till we got to the south east corner of Central Park. The park looks great, autumn leaves all over the place, but Will had it in his head to get to Harlem so we [View Full Entry]

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As planned, Friday night was a couple of beers in a hotel with Alex and one of the other guys, and he dropped me back at the station. By then it was getting seriously cold. I stood on the platform shivering and swearing under my breath. The train was easy enough but it took me an hour to get to Penn Station, thankfully the hotel Wolcott wasn’t far from there so I walked. Lots of delis, restaurants, shops, all entertaining the millions of people who were wandering about despite the temperature. The hotel was pretty nice - too nice. Will had [View Full Entry]

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So it’s a bit brisk here in Sunny Piscataway. But right now it’s not the arctic circle or anything. It was quite nice and sunny when I got up, and the walk from the hotel to the office was only marginally longer than my usual walk to work in Sydney. It’s a couple of big buildings, a lot of VZB people here, in a big suburban business park. At least they don’t all work from home every day. Another blast from the past, I met Alex in Europe many years ago, I especially remember a meeting a load of us had [View Full Entry]

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Monday was a day in the office. It felt pretty odd getting up at 730am to get myself organised, especially after a long day of Thanksgiving eating and drinking. I hope I expressed enough gratitude to Gareth and Sally. It really was a bit of a lifesaver, to spend 5 nights with them, be made to feel so welcome, to be shown the sights and sounds, and on top of all that, not need to part with lots of cash for a hotel. All rather fine. He even gave me a lift to the office. I think that even so the [View Full Entry]

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I need to write this every day, Its all got a bit blurred. Saturday we got up and, like, so did some stuff. The photos on this page are a bit jumbled, some are from the day before but no matter. I just sat and stared at the screen, eventually memories of Saturday came to me (short term, erm, thingummy…..you know). We made a brisk start to the day by popping down to a bar called Bagpipes, as you do, at 8am. Bagpipes is a classy bar in a corner of a shopping mall, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a [View Full Entry]

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Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We started in The Horseshoe Lounge' (The Shoe). As mentioned previously, it’s a really cheap and dirty dive, and a total blackout inside. Reminded me of London during the blitz. They’d put on a turkey dinner, which was OK but I’m pretty sure it would’ve made Gordon swear. There were ants on the table that were enjoying it more that I did. We washed down a few beers - Lone Star mostly - and then I was introduced to shuffleboard. It’s a big wooden board, 20 or 24 feet long and only about 2 feet [View Full Entry]

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So......I....and didn't it...... Couldn't it have been......and then..... brilliant! Accidentally, oops. All covered in hair. Running towards me. A fireworks display in the village. 1 girl was very badly burnt. This post is logded in honour of Rowley Birkin, QC, who has been a trusted friend and mentor to me for many years. It's 1.45am, and has been a quite considerably long day. I intend to elaborate on what thanksgiving actually means, but for now just take my word for it, it's all good. I'm afraid I was very.....veeeerrrrry drank....... [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Austin. Layla's Dad Gareth met me at the airport at 430pm. Been on the piss ever since, now 230am. Not sure how I can type. All good. night. [View Full Entry]

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