New York City - Brooklyn and Queens

Finally here is my last update from NYC. This is my adventures is Brooklyn and Queens. I flew into Queens so I thought I would start with that first. Before my trip to New York I had never taken an internal flight (only a transfer), it was very different from my other flying experiences. I checked in at a touch screen kiosk, and it really was just like getting on a bus, well with a couple of burly security guards and x-ray machines. I did almost miss my flight as I was waiting at the gate that it said on my ticket, which was obviously the wrong thing to do. Anyway here is a relic from the 1964/65 World's fair at Flushing Meadows-Corona park, Queens, NY.


Here it is, with the "UFOs" for all you Men in Black fans.

The park was actually pretty cool, definitely a nice way to spend an hour before a METS game, or if you are lucky enough to get a US tennis open ticket. I guess no trip for me would not be complete without some kinda of baseball related thing now. As Dan had never seen a baseball game I thought it would be cool to take him to see a MLB game and the Yankees were only playing on the Sunday. I sported my Durham Bulls cap of course. It was pretty cool, we saw a home run and got some hot dogs brought to us, he he.

I was really happy that we got to spend sometime in Brooklyn, as it is damn cool. From chilling out late evening on Shannon's rooftop, finding lots of book that people leave on the 'sidewalk', strolling along the promenade, to eating Pizza under the Manhattan bridge (see previous photo here). It is just a cool place to visit. It feels more like New York, the Brooklyn accent is fantastic (unfortunately Iain I didn't here anybody proclaim in a gruff voice "thats it, we're moving to joysey" but I did hear lots of grumpy people that could have said it. Which reminds me of something that I heard in Manhattan. A really big tough looking guy was talking to his friend about going to get some beers after work, then he just came out with "you will need to remind me to call my cat sitter"...only in NYC. Check other out on overheard in New York.

We also rode the Subway to Conney Island. Which was pretty damn cool as for a lot of Brooklyn it is over ground and you can see all the buildings etc, which quite a few had Dutch style architecture, which is a nod to the old school new Amsterdam era. I'm not going to lie to you, Conney Island is like Blackpool but without the donkeys and amusement parks. But it does have 'Shoot the Freak'.

And a pretty cool rollercoaster. Thats doesn't look to scary


But it kinda was....

Red Collar

Had a wonderful evening last Friday night. It started off with a bloody massive thunderstorm. The electricity even went off. The tales of the thunderstorm were pretty funny, we had a near miss (due to Ryan being outside while the storm was going down), a shaking car and a broken shooing bag which nearly resulted in a tofu squashing incident. To top it off all the way to Chapel Hill it was fine and as soon as we pulled on to Franklin St (the main st of Chapel Hill), the thunderstorm decided to have another go at us, apparently not satisfied with almost getting the tofu squished it wanted to stop us going to Carrburritos. But alas four hungry people within spitting distance of the best burritos in the triangle were not going to be stopped by a little torrential rain.

After out fill of burritos it was to the local 506 for the musical entertainment of the evening. Ryan spotted the singer from Red Collar the band we were planning to see. We were invited to a house party they were also playing later that evening. The first band were fronted by a maths professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. They were pretty good actually. The place was rammed, usually at the 506 there aren't too many people, but it was a free CD launch party, people always love free shows, even with the possibility of getting pissed on by thunderstorms won't stop em. So as you can see from the photo I stole, of the gig it was pretty sweaty.

Red Collar are five piece from Durham, NC. I'm not going to try and pigeonhole them, they just play good modern rock 'n' roll. Listen to them. They put on such a good show. With so much energy (see photo below), even in the bloody hot pit that is the 506. They put a smile on our faces. I don't think you ask for much more than that. I paid money to see a lot worse bands and I will pay good money to see Red Collar again. After the set we had to get out as it was far too hot. So we went to the posh wine bar down the street. I found out they serve PBR in a can for a dollar 50. Sweet, the night was turning out to be pretty good and we hadn't even got near Time Out Chicken.

We mosied on down to the party. It was pretty cool party with lots of people. We managed to find time to find some gin that was washed down with Buzz cola (an advertising scheme from those good people who brought us the Simpson's movie). I have had worse drinks.... just. The band were indeed setting up to play in somebody's living room. That was pretty strange to see (see pic of band below, complete with curtains in the background). What was even stranger was the mosh pit that ensued. You couldn't really escape it. It was so cool being in somebody's house with a damn good band playing. Certainly one of my coolest experiences in the US so far, especially Andy 'losing his shit' in the mosh pit, I'm not going to try an explain that one but I will go as far to say he didn't soil himself. The moral of the story, Durham rocked Chapel Hill.

After the band had finished a Time Out was called, and answered. I had my usual of chicken and a biscuit, but a fellow party goer had a 2 and a half dollar ice cream sandwich. This thing was huge (not 'el gigante' huge but still pretty damn big). It consisted of two cookies that were approximately face sized and about a tub of ice cream in it. People couldn't get their teeth round it. Yes, you will be pleased to know I shall be eating one in the near future, complete with pictures of a fiver being swamped by it.

Steak

A tale of two steaks.

Here we see an American male in his natural habitat. A native to North Carolinacestershire, but has spent time in the Steak capital of the world, Texas. After the Steak was wrestled from the freezer and thawed out, it was seasoned to within an inch of it's life with all kinds of goodies (I will be killed if I divulge the secret, and Ryan does a have a gun, well a BB gun...). These are the smaller variety of steak and not the 64 oz plate breakers found in Texas.

The colonial is happy to pose for the photograph, but is eager to get on with the grilling, or barbecuing as we Brits would say. They are clearly advanced in the art, as this specimen has a gas griller.

The simple meal consisted of steak, mashed sweet potato, beans, cornbread and pickled cucumber. It went down extremely well. Much better than the staple diet of synthesized food called 'McDonald's' that the larger locals tend to enjoy.

Softball

I was asked to play softball yesterday, which you may remember fro such posts as this one. I am guessing I wasn't the first choice, as until yesterday I had never really tried to catch a ball with a glove on my left hand. Softball and baseball are essentially the same thing for us Brits..... Rounders with gloves. The difference between softball and baseball is that softball the pitcher bowls underarm and the ball is bigger.

Playing was bloody good fun. After a few minutes warm up with the league's glove (thankfully it wasn't like the PE kit that you used to get at school when you forgot yours), I was dropped into right field. Thankfully the other team were all right handers so left field was busy and I was just looking cool in my Sheffield United shirt watching just in case it came to me. Thankfully that didn't happen. It was a pretty slow game at first with both teams getting their allotted three outs to switch innings pretty quick with just a few base hits but no runs.

So up came my first bat. With my unconventional swing I managed to hit it first time. Which was pretty surprising. Next thing I knew I was legging it like a mad man towards the base. I was safe. Woo hoo. Next hitter hit it and the ball got to second before me. I was damn pleased that I hit it. The fielding carried on as I liked it.

Next time I batted, again hit it first time, nobody caught it and I got to first base. Two base hits in a row is pretty good. I got to second on the next hitters go. Pretty impressive I'm thinking. On the next hitters go I get to third and I am told to stop by the third base coach. I just then waited for them to tell me what to do, and just legged it home when the time came. We got 7 runs that innings and one of em was me running it in. WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO. Not bad for my second attempt, although I have to give most credit it to the rest of the team or I would have run somebody out or done something equally as stupid. I got my high fives and grabbed my well earned beer.

In the end I got about 4 runs like that in the end. Got quite a lot of base hits. I was pretty pleased. The team were pretty excited about it too. We had to play another game after the first one, which we won. The second game was against the people from the previous post. Ah ha. My batting was pretty much the same as the first except they were pretty good fielders and everyone was finding it difficult to get the runs in. I was moved to the more exciting roll of catcher in the fielding part of the innings. This was what took some getting used to. Catching with my left hand and not with my body behind the ball was really strange.

All in all it was a good outing. It really hurt today. Next time I might even get a photo of it. It wasn't pretty though, thankfully the full Boars Breath of NC weather wasn't in full effect or it could have been messy.

Poll

Blogger has just added a poll option so I have decided to give it a whirl. For now I am going to put up a suggestions for the blog poll. But if anyone has any ideas (about a new poll or suggestions for the blog) please leave a comment or e-mail or facebook message, as I know people can't be arsed to e-mail anymore as facebook is just too easy (I Hold my hand up to that). Stupid suggestions welcome.

Myfootballclub.co.uk

Ok here is a cool link for y'all. For £35 you get chance to own your own share in a football club, make all the decisions like who to get as coach, what team/tactics etc. They plan to get 50,000 people to join in and get a pot of £1.35 M. I like it, it's just like champ man, but for real.

http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk/

Round the World

I just received an e-mail from an old friend Jamie Fox from my masters and he sent me a link to his web page for his trip round the world and his life after that. I thought I would share it with y'all. Here are the details of his trip.

UK, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Greece, UK

The page can be found here @ idledreamer. If anyone is thinking of going on a trip to Africa, Australasia or South America, I suggest you take a look. Jamie also lived in Madrid, Spain for a while teaching English as a second language. He is now happily married with a daughter.

The National

OK here is just a quick post about music to break up the NYC posts (the Manhattan post is now finished, woo hoo). I have been getting into a band called 'The National' recently and just wanted to share them with you. They have had a lot of exposure on KEXP, which is a fantastic radio station. Here is their Myspace, their official site and they are also coming to the Leadmill in November. My favourite song by them is 'Mr. November off the album named Alligator, which I picked up for the bargain of $12. It sort of ties in with NYC as they are from Brooklyn..... which is coming up next.

New York City - Manhattan Island

I have decided to split the main New York post into two parts. Manhattan and the other boroughs. Most of the touristy stuff is in Manhattan and a lot of the cool stuff is in the other parts, not that I'm saying Manhattan isn't cool, it's just that there is more to NYC than Manhattan. This is not going to be a blow by blow story of my stay in NYC just ramblings with photos. I made quite a few notes while I was there, so I wouldn't forget stuff (How sad am I?). I am missing some photos because Dan hasn't them and some are in other posts. Here are some for your viewing pleasure.

First up is the Statue of Liberty. This is the view from the Staten Island ferry, which is nice a free and you get a lovely view of the statue. The colour was rubbish because of the hazy weather so I decided to sepia tone it. It is quite hard to get a photo of the statue on the way there as the ferry is full of tourists looking at the statue, but on the way back they are over it so its fine.

One of the things I love about New York is the contrast. Here is a view from the Brooklyn Bridge of lower Manhattan. New York is not just skyscrapers and rich people who work on Wall St. It also has some really poor people. There are so many different communities, with people from all over the world living together. Although some of the sounds and smells make you wonder what the bloody hell is going on. Chinatown and the East and Greenwich (West) Villages are pretty close together but are worlds apart. Both are really cool to hang out in. The 'village' where Bob Dylan, other musicians and artists used to live. Since then it has been gentrified and is now uber expensive. Chinatown is just awesome, it slowly creeps up on you then, all of a sudden you in China. Even the McDonald's sign has Chinese characters in it. New York in general has this wonderful hustle and bustle about it but in Chinatown is it even crazier. People selling stuff from tourist tat to strange seafood that you have no idea what it is.

One of the other things I love about NYC is the parks. You can get some pretty good street entertainment in them too. It varies from chilled out jazz bands just jamming, free movies in Bryant park and a tourist spectacle such as the 'Afrobats', as seen below. They were actually pretty funny in their very well rehearsed show, chanting punchlines such as 'rich people at the front' and 'we are risking our lives for you sick entertainment'. My favourite part was when a helicopter came overhead and they all stopped the show and acted if it was an arrest, putting the hands behind their heads.

It is easy to forget that your are in New York while chilling out maxing relaxing in central park. Well until you turn around and see the bloody big skyscrapers behind you. This was the first time I flew into Ne York, it was fantastic seeing it from the air. You get to see how big everything really is, even though Manhattan is just on a little island. Central park is just huge.

It really is a concrete jungle. This is a view from the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Which is about as high up I get so, no cool aerial photography from this one. Dan may have a few. Looking up in Manhattan gives me a sense of vertigo. It is cool though. There was a pretty big thunderstorm while we were in Manhattan. It went so dark because of all the buildings, it was pretty cool when it got back to daylight.

Live Earth

The second day I was in NYC, I managed to go to Live Earth. While there were many bands that I would not normally see (the set list is here) it was still a cool event. The whole day was pretty mad, but cool. It started off with a very American breakfast of pancakes in a lovely diner in Brooklyn. I then went to meet Dan at Newark, NJ airport. I had to get my first bus to 'New Jersey' which is known as the 'garden state' or as I (and many others) like to call it the 'armpit of America'.

Everything went smoothly, till we got back to the port authority (bus terminal) in Manhattan. Upon where we realised that there was no storage space in the bus terminal. A friendly NYPD cop informed us that there was no storage in Manhattan since 9/11. D'oh, really should have guess that. So faced with either at least an hour and a half round trip to Brooklyn to drop the bag off or risk it and take it to the Giants stadium we decided to get on the bus to joysey.

We arrived across the Hudson unscathed, all we had to do was get into the stadium. The first security guard was bewildered by Dan's massive bag. Especially as it had presents from the UK, i.e. beer. The second gave us a typical New York reaction "you can't take any of that shit in here" then proceeded to go out of her way to see if she could get us in. New Yorkers can be seen as rude but they can be bloody nice. After talking to the head of security he said we could as long as we store it under the stadium. This is where the fun started. We got to ride in a golf buggy all the way to the security office. It was like we were celebrities, people were giving us funny looks (I'm used to that now). On the way we picked up a mad German woman who had to put her video camera there too. She was batty, she kept on saying how the London concert was much better.

The rest of the day was pretty surreal too. Seeing famous people such as Cameron Diaz (who has insanely long legs) and Al Gore on stage. Drinking beer out of a 'plastic cup' made from corn. Rocking out to 'Bon Jovi'..... it was good fun actually. Seeing Kanye West run up and down the stage about a million times in 20 mins. Akon wading through the crowd with huge security guards and a massive jewel encrusted cross that could feed Africa... it's good job it wasn't live 8 or they would have had it off him. Hearing an old British lady do chimpanzee impressions. Anyways enough name dropping.

A day time photo

My favourite one of the Smashing Pumpkins. Who were bloody good. All in all everyone put on a good show, even if the music wasn't what I would normally like. It was for a pretty good cause....even if they wasted a lot of energy doing the whole thing....

Photos from New York

First things first, thank yous. Shannon it was a pleasure to hang out with you again (as always) and thank you so much for putting up with Dan and I, even though you weren't feeling great. Dan thank you so much for coming to the US, much appreciated.

I think this is going to take me a few days to sort the blog out, so I thought I would tease you with some of my favourite pictures that I took from the last week. Here is the view down 6th avenue from central park, complete with yellow cabs.

The British tradition of sunbathing in the midday sun has stayed with some of the colonials. It was over 35 oC and New Yorkers were flocking to central park.

This is the view on the opposite way up 6th on market day. Only in New York would they close a major road to let people sell kebabs on the street. I love it.

The first skyscraper in NYC. Clocking in at a massive 20 stories, its a baby compared to some. I think it is one of the coolest, probably because it would be one of the few I could actually go up. Vertigo is strange in NYC.

I really love the colours at dusk and the Brooklyn Bridge is so photogenic. Oh yeah that little thing in the background is Manhattan Island. It does look quite cool doesn't it.

Here is pretty much the same photo but a bit later. I think this is one of the best views of Manhattan you can get. It is from a little park in Brooklyn under the Manhattan bridge.

I just couldn't resist.....

Yup I actually walked across the Brooklyn bridge. I will tell all later. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

4th of July

I am back from my jaunt to New York City, which I will update you on very soon. I just wanted to put in a little note about the 4th of July. This year it was a strange one as it was on a Wednesday, having a day off in the middle of the week really threw everything off. I was going to New York, so I was pretty excited anyway.

I guess you wanted to know what I did for it? Well I spent most of the day hungover. As Ryan and I decided it would be a great idea to sit at the bar while going to the pub on the evening of the 3rd. I saw the day in in the right spirit, getting drunk and watching a band. I just got into the party mood a bit too much. The band were great, just playing fun music, so looking back on it I didn't mind the hangover too much.

The actual day of the 4th. I watched the traditional 'Hot dog eating contest' held at Conney Island, New York. They have 12 minutes to eat as many hot dogs as they can. Before anyone suggests it, NOOOOOO. That is too far. Here is a photo I took on my travels of the billboard. The record this year was 66 hot dogs. They dip them in water and just basically stuff them in. They aren't fat guys, either. I felt sick watching it, but the commentary was pretty funny. They were hyping them up as big athletes, comparing them to Babe Ruth etc. I just wanna see them go for an 'El Gigante'.......

New Pad

Here are a few snap of my new place. I will put more up soon. Check the big ass American fridge out. Also I have got BBC America on the cable. It has got advert though.