New York

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“One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years” Thomas Wolfe, American writer

Having absorbed vast quantities of popular culture centered on New York in my 23 years I arrived in New York with an odd sense of familiarity, and full of preconceptions about the “Big Apple”.

Our time in NYC started at a cold JFK airport, late on Sunday afternoon due to the time difference between the west and east coast. Hearing that a yellow taxi into the city would cost $45 bucks we ventured to find the train line which would connect us with the New York Subway. It was quickly apparent that the jacket and hoodie combination I was sporting wouldn't be enough to keep out the biting cold, and so I vouched to get some warmer garments, especially a hat to cover my flowing locks of hair asap! Getting the Subway was fun, it looks exactly like it does on the tele/cinema - not aesthetically appealing perhaps, certainly not a warm happy place, but the carriages are spacious with good seating and appropriate air conditioning, sadly no sign of Bruce Willis or Keano Reeves though. Despite the lack of movie stars, what truly puts the London Underground to shame are the NYC Subway ticket prices - £1 for a single to anywhere on the system. You'd probably pay a fiver for the same ride in London!! The station names are a bit forgettable however (although helpful in telling you where you are) - with most named by the number of the street the station is on. They certainly don't waste money tarting up the stations, which I think is acceptable given the money is instead invested on allowing the trains to run 24/7. Anyway enough about the Subway or I'll start to sound like some kind of train spotter!

After stayed in about 30 hostels on this trip Hostelling International on the Upper East was to be our last. Here we were greeted by a typically unfriendly NYC welcome and given the cards to our room. Frankly the choice of hostels in NYC wasn't great, but judging by the online reviews this seemed the best of a bad bunch. These internet hostelling review sites have proved very helpful as their reviewed by other travellers who’ve stayed there, so you know what somewhere is like when you book. Hostelling International got 70% which is exactly what it deserved. The kitchen was the best I've seen, the communal areas were clean and well appointed but the atmosphere was a bit Orwellian - very controlled and emitting the feeling everyone was constantly under surveillance - they were probably worried about terrorists targeting the hostel for their next attack… However in all fairness to the hostel, all it represented was a microcosm of NYC itself - controlling, anal, extremely self-satisfied and unfriendly - the irony that NYC is were ‘Friends’ is set wasn’t lost on us, no wonder they never left the coffee shop and/or their apartments!

Another quote about New York I came across on the google search I did five minutes ago comes from the actress Bette Midler who demonstrates New Yorkers attitude towards the rest of the world commenting that...

“When it's three o'clock in New York, it's still 1938 in London”

Now New Yorkers claim to be the big cheese (get it!?) on a number of fronts - fashion, commerce, art, culture, sport, jay walking (an American guide book proudly informs us that New Yorkers will jaywalk 10-15 times a day, but that we probably shouldn't try it or our tiny non-Manhatten brains would combust and burst into flames at the unfathomable complexity of crossing a road when the lights aren’t green) but there's one thing New Yorkers can really claim to be truly in a league of their own - arrogance and an over inflated sense of their self importance (ok that was two but who's counting?). They truly are a self satisfied bunch of..... Our first experience of this was provided by the waiter who served us at a diner we eat at on our second night, having walked 10 blocks trying to find somewhere to eat which was in our price range but not fast food. Throughout the meal he badgered us about how great the food was, that you could only get a burger, chips, milkshake this good in NYC. The milkshake was his personal favourite as he went on about how you couldn’t get milkshakes this good (although I wouldn’t have been surprised if he thought we’d only seen milkshakes on TV and never had one - to busy in our caves and performing rain dances I suppose!) anywhere else in the world as it was made with Hagan Daas, world how much it would cost in England (ok he had a point there) and generally how much better New York is than everywhere else, because it is. I now understand the advert for American Airlines which says if we can please New Yorkers we can please anyone, if they can they must be realising happy gas from the air conditioning cos’ sister, it aint possible.


Moving onto a positive…earlier in the aforementioned day we took a lovely long walk through Central Park, which really must look something special in the summer months with all the leaves on the trees and the sun shining. Without these joys the park was still impressive in terms of its size and the amount of people running around within it. The rich 'look at me mummy and dadies' walking through the park symbolically shouting 'here we are, we have CHILDREN and have enough money to walk through the park advertising it on a Monday morning' provided amusement and warmth to our frosty bones. Central park really is huge so we were pleased to eventually find the exit which led us onto 5th Avenue (the big shopping st). Here we visited Swartz- a massive, though completely uninspiring toy shop, where Steve Irwin's 7 year old daughter was signing autographs for a huge line of mainly adults and a smattering of small kids. We pondered whether the ordeal she was being put through constituted child abuse, and if the people queuing up to get a 7 year old to sign something could get any more pathetic. It wasn't all bad however as Nikki got her picture taken with a lego Spongebob, whilst I was pictured with Iorek Byrnison, the bear from 'His Dark Materials', what was I saying about pathetic adults? Following the toy shop induced excitement we wondered down 5th ave in search of some warmer clothing, trying not to be hypnotised by the copious amount of American flags hanging from every available orifice of every building. I was pleased to see that not all of NYC is a fantasy and that steam does rise from the drains!

Eventually having bought a warmer coat, jumper and a hat we found ourselves in the most simulated place on planet earth - Times Sq - what a dump. It's just Piccadilly Circus but worse, tackier and even less interesting. Just as we were about to write this area off as being as bad as the Patpong area of Bangkok we found an M+M store which salvaged the place from that indignity. Yes a whole shop devoted to those colourful, round chocolates was as great as it sounds, and against my scrooge like recommendations Nikki got us a big bag to share, full of lots of different flavours, shapes and colours of M+M - salvaging the day from going down as a total write off!

“I moved to New York City for my health. I'm paranoid and it was the only place where my fears were justified.” Anita Weiss

The quote above is my favourite from the NYC series. Our second day proved to be much more enjoyable than our first as we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, saw the Statue of Liberty and visited the site of the World Trade Centre all on the same day. The bridge encompasses a wonderful pedestrian walkway 10m above the traffic which means you can walk along taking pictures of the city without having to watch out for cars. I wouldn’t rank the Brooklyn Bridge with the same status as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, or as iconic as the golden gate bridge, but there is something quite powerfully symbolic about the way it connects Brooklyn with the island. The only problem with this walk was that the weather had hit -4C and our fingers felt like they might fall off every time we took the camera out! After the bridge we walked to the harbour and bought tickets to the ferry to take us to Liberty Island to see the famous statue. What we weren't expecting was to be forced to wait outside in the cold for 45mins as they did airport style checks on everyone boarding the ferry. The security in NYC really is hysterical, and makes the place 25% less enjoyable in my opinion as you're just constantly criminalised and made to feel on edge - not by terrorists but by security! Poor Nikki looked like a snowwoman by the time we finally got on the ferry. I must say that the statue is amongst the greatest world monuments I've seen. Seeing it in person really is quite breathtakingly magnificent, it's just so grand, and so undeniably French, no wonder the mark it left on all those who entered America through this area has been so profound. Sadly you are no longer allowed to climb to the top of the statue, whilst to go 30ft up to the base you have to pre book three days in advance - no doubt so that they can perform background checks on everything from how you like your eggs to your favourite dinosaur (more on that later). After seeing the statue the ferry takes you to Ellis Island where there is the fantastic immigration museum which details the experience of the millions of immigrants who came through here with the aim of gaining American citizenship.

The hopeful, open USA of the early 19C signified by the Statue of Liberty and Ellis island was painfully contrasted an hour later at our next port of call - the site of the World Trade Centre, which to me seemed to symbolise the modern capital driven, defensive, corrupt, hysterical aspect of modern America. I wouldn't say I was moved by seeing the site of probably the most shocking public event of my lifetime, instead I felt an unfathomable emptiness. Apparently they plan to build the 'Freedom Tower' where the old towers once stood.

Having tired our legs out from all the walking we went in search of a suitable eatery, taking in Chinatown, little Italy and parts of Soho without finding anything remotely enticing on our budget, eventually settling on an Indian restaurant. Sadly the food was incredibly tasteless and bland and a complete waste of money - thank Aero it was hot in there!!

'The subway is a porno,
And the pavements they are a mess,
New York Cares' Interpol (band)

Our friends from the San Francisco Arsenal supporters club had been kind enough to give us the details of where in NYC we could catch the all important game against Milan in the Champions league. Thus on the Wednesday of our week in NYC we squeezed into a pub called Nevada Smiths, with 150 other football “fanatics” to watch Arsenal give the Italians a 0-0 thrashing. Sadly the atmosphere in this place was more hostile and less welcoming than the places we watched the Gooners in SF, and I can't say I really enjoyed it. Before the game we thought it’d a good idea to take a lift up to 67th floor of the Rockafella centre to get a panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline, the Hudson River and the surrounding boroughs. It was good, although whilst many of the buildings in NYC are very interesting I think the skyline's pretty uninspiring, including the Empire State Building. After indulging in one joint passion - the Arsenal, we indulged in another, particularly for Nikki - bookshops. Although this proprietor never quite reached the heights of City Lights in SF, it was cool, perhaps too cool as the people working there were the most self satisfied, fake intelligencia wankers one could hope to avoid. Staying on a literary theme we later attended a poetry reading in a church. Now for me these readings can go four ways - they either blow my head off with amazement or boredom, or they're really funny because of being amazing or terrible. The first half fell in to the hilariously bad category as the first poet plonked around on stage “performing” with acts such as wrapping another woman up in paper, it was something you had to see to believe. In the second half we were treated to a reading by Jerome Rothemberg who was half good, half boring. To get us in the mood for all this poetry we enjoyed a batch of doughnuts from the ‘Dunkin Doughnuts’ across the road - well we could hardly come to America and not try doughnuts could we!? My favourite is still the humble jam doughnut if anyone was wondering.

“This is New York and there's no law against being annoying”
William Kunstler

Luckily not all the American's in NYC are New Yorkers and so there were some nice people for us to talk too. Particularly interesting was the political theorist in our dorm who divulged very illuminating opinions on corruption in modern day politics. Then we had a guy and a girl from somewhere in Northern USA, who were going round the country selling posters who were very friendly and gave us some advice on good places to check out. Sadly not everyone in our dorm was quite as agreeable...

Most of our NYC Thursday was spend with dinosaurs, stuffed animals and lots of stuff about space in the National History museum which proved to be a pleasant way to spend the day although after going to so many museums on our tour our enthusiasm for reading through exhibit after exhibit has decreased somewhat. The more interactive, visual parts of the museum did grab my attention, particularly the planetarium (which I always like!). You could tell we were in NYC and America when the monologue was by Robert Redford! As seems to be the standard for all large history museums these days, the Natural History museum also had an Imax cinema where we watched a 'presentation' about dinosaurs presented by Michael Douglas which was moderately interesting, although Nikki fell asleep on my shoulder so perhaps not riveting. The showcase exhibit called H2o which focussed upon how we use water today and in the future - some of which a 10 year old could have told you and other parts which were genuinely interesting, took up the rest of our visit.

So after a long day traipsing round the museum we returned to our room to find 3 new residents and the lock missing from our locker and all our valuables inside it gone - passports, Ipods, PSPs, travel doc's - everything! When our new Chinese friends had come into the room having been allocated beds and lockers C,D+E they saw we were using locker D and (despite their being 3 other lockers available!) ran down to security and got them to chop off our lock so they could use it. Why they couldn't use their initiative and choose another locker one only knows. After this point to say relations between us and them turned frosty is an understatement. Sadly this wasn't our final contretemps with these people. Having returned from a wonderful Mexican meal earlier that night we retired to bed only for Nikki to be woken half an hour later by a rocking noise and the sound of sheets moving...the Chinese guy pleasuring himself in his bunk! To try and stop his public act, Nikki got up and made some noise to put him off which it did only for Nikki to be woken again with him making even more noise! Did this guy have no shame? Did he not think one of his two female friends wouldn’t wake up and hear like Nikki did!? I should say this act was thankfully only audible, and not visible as he had put towels up all round his bed. At this point Nikki tried to wake me to tell him to stop, but I was too deeply asleep and told her to go to sleep - to be honest I'm glad I didn't know! Luckily they moved rooms the next day.

“A car is useless in New York, essential everywhere else. The same with good manners.”
Mignon McLaughlin quotes (American Journalist and Author)

Friday - we awoke in the knowledge that today was our last full day of the whole trip which would've been very sad had the gods of fate not covered NYC in a deep, deep snow overnight for us to adventure and explore. The snow culminated our collection of weather types on this trip - blistering heat, ridiculously heavy rain, cyclones, freezing cold and more blistering heat! It seemed the perfect full stop to a life changing trip. After some pop tarts and Nikki's favourite yogurts (but not gourmet yogurt!) out we went into probably the deepest city snow I've ever seen - the sidewalk's were covered as were the trees, the buildings, the cars, the swings - it was truly magical. Having thrown a series of snow balls at each other we headed to Central park where we could really enjoy the snow! Here the white tinted light created a Narnia-esque scene. Everyone in the park seemed so happy; it’s funny how snow can take people out of their usual gruff city malaise. It really looked like those corny Christmas cards of a winter scene of kids playing in the snow. Sadly as the snow built up in the folds of our jeans, in the sides of our shoes and the wet seeped into our gloves the became too much and we knew we had to return to the warm.

In search of this warmth we headed to the enormous sports complex at Chelsea piers. On arrival we saw a bowling alley which looked a good place to get warm and spend an hour or two. Oh how wrong we were. As soon as we stepped through the doors we were jumped on by five people who worked there telling us what to do, where to go, without giving us a second to take in the surroundings or check the prices - they were clearly all after tips which subsequently means they all wanted to bug you and 'offer' help at every turn. However they soon realised we weren't going to let them wait on our every need, and certainly weren't going to tip them. Once they backed off they moved from trying to help us to watching our every move, making us feel very uncomfortable and like we didn't belong. Which we probably didn’t given the rest of the clientele in this posh bowling alley, not we had wanted at all. One of the guy’s working there and watching us even had the cheek to come up and tell Nikki the flaws in her bowling technique - blimey we're not professionals, we just wanted to have a fun game - sorry I forgot we were in NYC where all fun is simulated, plastic and prescribed. What an awful place that was and we were only too pleased to finish our one game and leave.

"Found a lot of trouble out on Avenue B
But I tried to keep the overhead low
Farewell to the city and the love of my life
At least we left before we had to go" Ryan Adams

With bowling being such a disaster we decided to go home, however as we left the piers we saw a batting cage, something which was on my must do list for our time in America. We were greeted by a typically frosty response on enquiring how much it would be to have a go and how it works - they really do treat you like an ignoramus. Once I was in the cage they came along and watched, not to offer help or guidance but to watch over me because I’m stupid and might do something wrong, 1984 indeed. The problem for them was that I now encompassed a powerful position with bat in hand. Using this weapon I directed every ball coming at me (at 30-40mph) straight at them as hard as I could. There was netting in the way but I think they got the message as to what I thought of them. Hitting the balls in the baseball cage was great fun however and something I'd love to try again at a higher level.

As if that wasn't enough sport for the day, wanting to end our trip on a high note we booked tickets to the NY Knicks basketball game against the Toronto Raptors at Madison Square Garden. As one of the world's most famous venues hosting events such as the Ali/Joe Frazier fight, this was quite exciting for me. The sales assistant in the NBA shop where we bought the tickets told us that the tickets weren't very good, were really far away and we wouldn't see much. She must have serious trouble with her eyesight as despite being in the third from back row, the seats were great and we could see really well. Before the game we were required to stand for the American and Canadian national anthems which were interesting.

The game itself was enthralling, I'm not a huge basketball fan but it was fascinating to see live. Especially the players movement to create space on a crowded court. I'm told the Knicks aren't very good so perhaps we weren’t treated to the pinnacle of the sport but how would I know!? The first couple of quarters pleased us with the Raptors taking an early lead, come on you didn't think I was going to support NYC did you!? I've hardly praised the place. Sadly our dreams were dashed as NYC came back to win quite comfortably in the end. Poo. The atmosphere in the 'Garden' was fairly lively but totally synthetic with people only chanting when the giant screen shouted commands at them such as "DE-FENCE, DE-FENCE". In terms of atmosphere it was comparable to a night at a pantomime, nothing more nothing less, with less sexual innuendo (apart from the cheerleaders). It was a fitting night to cap a trip of wonderful nights with Nikki who was, as ever, a wonderful and very funny companion.

Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I don't want to be a part of it, New York, New York

OK so I changed the lyrics slightly. It works better for me this way. Whilst we were gutted to be at the end of our trip, and would've loved to have gone on to somewhere else, quite frankly we had just about as much of NYC as either of us could take and were therefore looking forward to returning to Blighty, our families, proper chocolate and football. Before our flight on Saturday night however we still found time for another couple of adventures. The first involved checking out from the hostel at 7.30am so we could get to Nevada Smith's to watch Arsenal again. Luckily we were late and missed the horrific injury to Eduardo but did see Clichy's awful mistake in the last minute which cost us the 3 points and what now looks like a whole lot more. Absolutely gutted we found somewhere to have our last American breakfast and chatted about the game, the trip and the day. As it was only 10.30am and our flight was at 8pm we decided to go and buy the White Stripes latest single in Spanish and then go to the cinema and see 'There Will Be Blood' which was pretty intense but excellent. 4 J stars. Despite the film being over 2 hours it was still only 1.45pm and so we sneaked into ‘Juno’ which was just starting. Juno was OK, I'd say 3 stars, nothing special.

"New York City cops
New York City cops
New York City cops
They ain't too smart" (and neither are we) The Strokes

Once Juno had finished it must've been about 3.30 so we returned to the hostel to collect our bags, finish the pop tarts and for me to have a shave. However by the time we had done all this it was 5.30 and time was starting to get tight. This was exasperated as first we had to wait for a train having taken a while to lug our bags to the station, but worst of all despite being on the right train line it took us over an hour on the train to realise we were on the slow train and that it was 7pm and that we weren't anywhere near as close to JFK as we should be. Panicking we jumped off the train and came out of the station to try and get a cab. Sadly we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere with no chance of getting a taxi. So we returned to the station, ran through the barriers and waited on the platform for a train - 7.20. By the time we resignedly got to the connecting train which would take us to JFK terminal 7 it was 7.40 - there was no chance of making it now. We arrived at the airport at 7.55 with a woman speaking on the tannoy saying 'This is the final call for Nikki Dudley and Joe Ruddock on flight 801 to London Heathrow' - shit.

So we missed our flight. Luckily however all was not lost as BA put us on a flight home leaving just 50mins later at no extra cost! Relief seeped through every pour! And so after a few days short of four months we flew home to where it all began a lifetime of memories ago.

To conclude these blogs I want to thank you all for reading our stories and sharing in our journey. Doing these blogs wasn't always easy but knowing that there was friends and family interested in reading them gave us that extra incentive to get them done. For that enthusiasm I thank you immeasurably as you provided the motivation to complete a record of our trip which I'll treasure for the rest of my life. You've been such a receptive audience that sharing our memories with you has been a treat, and something I'll miss now that our trip is over.

I especially want to thank both Nikki’s and my parents who supported us before, during and after this trip with such unerring assistance and encouragement. Your help meant that we could get on with enjoying ourselves, something which I can safely say we achieved! Thank you, you’re amazing.

But most of all I want to thank the beautiful girl who made this trip so unbelievably enjoyable - Nikki. You were, and are the best travelling companion a boy could ask for. I’m so glad we have each other to share in the memories of our amazing trip. Despite the blogs they’ll only ever be two people who know the entire story of our trip, what it was really like and how we felt at particular points. I hope we’ll get the chance to go away and have new adventures, creating new memories soon!

For the rest of you, without trying to sound too preachy, travel. To wherever that may be, you’re life, as we found out, will be the richer for it.

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Photos

Goodbye sun.
Goodnight to our travels

I prefer our black cabs
Sorry.

Me and Irorek
Legendry bear

I LOVE this quote
If you cant read it says...
'When I arrived in America I thought the streets we're paved in gold. However I soon realised three things - the pavements weren't paved in gold, in fact they weren't paved at all, and I was expected to pave them!'

Here comes the pitch...
Its outta here!! This baseball lark is easy!