The Big Easy

Seeya Baby

.

"I'm Hit!"

Baaaaaa

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Grand Central with diva

Five bucks

Our trip to New York has been a raging success, the weather was perfect (it rained the day after) and we made the most of it. The luck we've had...

The bomb in Times Square was a cue to machine-gun equipped police to dot the landscape and squads of uniformed cops to mill like sheep. The whole thing added an edge to our day.

Apparently they have arrested a suspected dickhead in relation to the doofus car-bomb, so all is well. I saw a policeman checking out a car in Time Square and had a vision of the damned thing exploding like some hell-scene in Iraq. I had the urge to escape and was hurrying Jane along in the process. Reality bit. I was afraid. Surprising really because I tend not to be cautious, but the thought of a car-bomb in one's vicinity is a great motivator.

We rode rented bicycle through Central Park, because the weather begged it. The park is a big place but there were thousands of cyclists in some NY-wide event taking up space, but it was still a great ride. We found a lot of the bridges and fields that have featured in movies.

We hit the Museum of Art and Design, in Columbus Circle, which featured a show called 'Dead or Alive'. It was fascinating. All the exhibits featured intensely laboured pieces made of organic artifacts. Like the skull illustrations made of minute pieces of cockroach wings, the cloth made from regurgitated mouse-hair (from a midden made by owls, complete with a wheelbarrow-load of mouse bones). Feathers, bones, bugs, the lot, all tied together with hundreds of hours of intense artistic obsession. Look it up.

We took a taxi to the Guggenheim and had a great time looking at the permanent collection. The exhibit on the spiral was the usual 'whatever' assembly of pretentious photographs. The building itself was great though.

We went through the Sunday markets on the way south to the Staten Island Ferry and generally tried to relieve the soles of our feet while we glided past the Liberty Girl. It was a big day and we were constantly struck by the wide roads, sidewalks and huge canyonesque vistas. It's a heck of a place.

One thing though. New Yorkers were generally more than decent and if we were taking a photo, everyone would stop rather than ruin the pic. If we were crossing the road they would wave us through rather than slow us down. There might have been some indifference there but I saw no rudeness.

We spent 36 hours in NY and were amazed at how much we fitted into them. It's been fast-forward for a while now but this was a worthy stop-over. We wish we'd allowed more time but it's a pricy place to stay.

The taxi-ride in the early morning to JFK was at 80 mph and we had a great flight to London with BA.

Easy.