Welcome to Gotham City ...

Day 17 - Friday 25 January 2008

The best way to visualise this wonderful, amazing, must-visit, city of Chicago is to check out the last few Batman movies (you know the Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney and, best of all, Christain Bale ones). The Gothic stone architecture, aligned alongside enormous 1970s glass towers has you walking around, eyes upwards, expecting at any minute to see the Bat-sign projected onto the sky and the Dark Knight himself to swoop down and land in the alleyway next to where you're standing. Add into the mix freezing temperatures and heavy snow white outs and it's been another incredible week in Jez-world.

This is the most under-rated city and I've been blown away by it's beauty, the genuine warmth of it's people, their hardiness (more in a sec) and it's buildings that came about as a result of a complete re-build following a devastating fire in 1871. The subsequent regeneration attracted the world's best architects to make Chicago their home for many years and the end of the 19th and start of the 20th century created the Batman backdrop (they filmed the latest movie here last Summer and I shall watch with interest when it's released especially now Heath Ledger has sadly passed away - a tragic loss to the film industry). The Loop that I mentioed before is a rickety old subway that sits ABOVE street level and shakes like buggery whenever you're on it. Here it is back-dropped by the amazing public library just 1 block from my hostel.

And back to those temperatures. Chicago has been in the middle of a cold snap, even for them, and temperatures all week have hovered around 0 degrees FAHRENHEIT. Now that's about MINUS 18 degrees Celsius and makes your brain ache. It's the weirdest feeling. Everyone is wrapped up to the nines and I'm so glad I invested in my kit. I've been freezing cold but toasty enough. All the locals wear ear warmers that go round the back of your head. It's all you can do to walk around for a about an hour before you have to duck into a coffee shop and warm up with said beverage. My caffeine intact has taken a battering. And it's properly snowed so there's about 2/3 inches lying around. When you go out of downtown that is. Man, America hits the salt mines hard. They use tons and tons of it on the roads and it gets everywhere. All my stuff has that salt mark around it that, if you squint at it, could pass for the old map of Gibraltar! They're also unbelievable at clearing it up. America is sooo over-staffed it's unreal. It was the same in Washington. When it snows there's immediately people around in local services uniforms clearing the 'sidewalks'.

But ... when it hasn't been snowing it's been ultra-sunny! I've got so jammy this week. So I went to the top of the Sears Tower (the highest building in America and now about number 3 in the world). I hesitate to do a quiz for the highest after the UN debates so we'll leave that for now! No I won't! It's Taipei 101 in Taiwan (according to Wikipedia so leave it there Matt and Nick). Unbelievable views and here you can just about make out the iconic Soldier Field where the Chicago Bears play and, of course, that's Lake Michigan behind (only frozen out to the breakwater I've now found out).

I also checked out the Shedd Aquarium but it was a bit pants because you had to pay to see the sharks. And I don't know about you but after Planet Earth's footage of the great whites leaping out of the water to snaffle those seals anything else shark related these days seems a bit of a let down!!!

But Pizzeria Uno on the Near North side of town was a treat. It was where the deep dish pizza was born and it takes them 40 minutes to prepare and serve. But boy was it worth the wait. The Lonely Planet suggested it and came up trumps. Really tomatoey and washed down with a beer, eaten at the 1943 founded-bar watching ESPN's sports news. A top evening.

But not as top as last night's trip out to Michael Jordan land i.e. the United Center! I joined a hostel organised outing to watch the Chicago Blackhawks take on the Columbus Blue Jackets in the National Hockey League (ice hockey). For just $15 we had seats right at the top of the stadium but looking virtually down on the action and it was so easy to see the puck and all the missing teeth on the players. Now there's a sport that's not good for the looks. Those guys are brutal and there was plenty of body-checking, tactical to-ing and fro-ing, 'let's go Hawks' cheering but only one lousy deflected goal (that Monkey Ashton-Blanksby from Lichfield Hockey Club would have scored had he been able to skate). And it wasn't to the Hawks so my bad luck for the home teams is back. I was going to watch the Chicago Bulls play basketball the night before but their form is so bad (according to the Chicago Tribune) I didn't think it was wort it. Here's me with my Tamao (spelling?!) from Nagoya in Japan and he did a top job of snapping me and Michael! (They have a very impressive 6 NBA title banners hanging in the stadium. Unreal in American sports and I doubt ever to be repeated).

I've really spent quite a bit of time just living here around Chicago. I got a much needed haircut from a really old-skool barbers that had a copy of Penthouse as one of it's magazines in the 'read while you wait for a cut' rack! Crappy haircut because the guy was so keen on showing off his city to me and recommending buildings to visit. They're so proud of their city the Chicagoans but not of their gangster past. It's really difficult to find anything about it. The shops only have the odd Al Capone book and you won't find any tours offering to show you the grizzly sights. I used the old Lonely Planet though and found this Holy Name Cathedral where a couple of Capone's rivals were gunned down nearby.

And today was time to get some of Chicago's great culture (the theatre scene is huge) because I went to the Art Institute of Chicago where they have a ton of 19th/20th century European art. I did a Picasso tour and saw a few beauties. I also learned that one of my favourites from an earlier period, Caravaggio, was much revered and copied by numerous artists (like all the greats of course). And they had some amazing sculptures (my favourite art form) including a Touch Library where you could get your hands on some ancient Greek marble and limestone Chinese heads. Outside in Millennium Park (not sure when that was constructed has anyone got any ideas?) they have the ultra-modern 'bean' designed by Anish Kapoor. It's smooth stainless steel and reflects the downtown skyline back at you just like this self-portrait below!

And just as quick as it arrives it's time to move on again. Tomorrow sees me catch the California Zephyr (legendary!) and head over the Great Plains. I toyed with the idea of heading to Oklahoma and seeing some of that part of the wild west but decided you can't do everything and want to see even more snow. So come Sunday morning I'll be deep in the Rocky Mountains and in the Mile High City of Denver planning my trip for the middle of next week into the ski resorts. Is this just getting better and better ...? But it won't be such city-dwelling so the blog's will probably be taking a bit of a back seat. We'll all just have to starve ourselves off them for a couple of weeks ...? But who knows!

I have never been so cold in all my life ...

Day 13 - Monday 21 January 2008

And so I sit here, the modern equivalent of quill in hand, and feel a certain pressure to perform, because, in my absence, Tatey (the mad-cap keeper from Lichfield Hockey Club) has penned a match report so full of genius that he's had to write a letter of apology to the opponent's chairman ... I doff my cap to you sire and shall try my best to entertain ... and educate ... I'm in Chicago now and it's colder than the moon (the best I could think of opposite to 'hotter than the sun' Partridge fans). Washington is but a distant memory and already I'm really in the routine of packing up, moving city, and unpacking ready to explore. I feel that I've done the first bit of proper travelling by taking a 25 hour Amtrak train journey from there to here. It was the kind of journey that tests your patience, needs you to keep calm and is a lot easier when you give yourself plenty of time to reach a destination. But I fast forward ...

My stay in Washington has been a top one and I'd thoroughly recommend it for a couple of days to anyone visiting New York who wants to understand more about the USA and how it came to be. I spent a day at the National Museum of the American Indian and learned that there were so many different tribes with so many different beliefs (although all were closely linked to animals and the elements). To see the legacy to Indians you only need to look around you ... or me actually unless any of you have followed me here without letting on! Their ancestors are still living among the American people and using their own belief system. Surprising to me names like Sioux were not indigenous but made up by the French invaders (it's a derogatory name referring to a snake). In fact in the 150 years after the Europeans arrived there was the greatest transfer of wealth the world has ever seen and it built Spain into a super-power of the 16th and 17th centuries (the museum covered all of the Americas so it was a lot for Inka gold ...). Terribly 30 million Indians died both of arms and, hugely, European diseases. Phew. That was educational even for me. So here's a photo of the Chiricahua Apache Cherokee Indian Geronimo's gun for the cool bit.

I also went to the heart of their political system at the Capitol and got these classic shots. They're a mile or so the other end down their mall from the Lincoln statue and you can see that, although they're the next day, it was cold and cloudy.

And then it was stunningly beautiful! Sunny weather we've kept until the last few hours when ... sorry rainy England ... it's snowing here again. I just wish I could magic some of it over to you.

I took a tour inside the Capitol and saw where the early Senate and House of Representatives sat (that together, today, make up Congress). Plenty of statues given by states and 'isn't democracy amazing' (yes, for the record). But you can't get anywhere near the real action these days unless you have pre-arranged a trip through your local education establishment, got the seal of approval from your local Senator and all agreed to only wear orange pants ... can you tell the incessant and endless searches in Washington got to me a bit in the end! A final bit of DC (the local name for their capital) sight-seeing saw me jump into the National Archives and look at the original copy of their Declaration of Independence. Very, very old, hermetically sealed and if you even wink at it you'll get chucked out. More Italian frescoes abounded throughout DC and especially here. And that was it. City 2. Done! I liked DC and enjoyed my time there. Sorry. A bit Louis Walsh and I expect I'll like everywhere I go because of my cheery outlook! So it wasn't as cool as New York but probably better than I thought it would be. It is a bit soul-less, clearly a business city (dead on Saturday when I left) and surprisingly small downtown (you can walk everywhere from Hostelling International). But it's very green (in Summer I'm told), very clean, very safe and has loads of free museums to spend weeks in courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution http://www.si.edu/museums/ And if you go Gill then head out to Dupont Circle and spend the afternoon in coffee shops and second hand book stores. It's very chilled out, suburban living. And Elsy I picked up this book for $4.50 in one of those stores that you'd love. It's about coaching college basketball from a legend. It's old school, (PARENTAL WARNING) calling the players f______ this and that but some interesting lessons to be learned.



I demolished half of it on the Cardinal (what a top name for a train) yesterday that took me from DC to here in Chicago via Charlottesville, Cincinnati, Charleston and Indianapolis. Again, 25 hours and all because I wanted to see the 'real' America. Well I think I did. Inside and outside the compartment. I saw someone fatter than Alan Brazil Robbie J! I listened to a 3 hour cell phone call last night from some guy to his girlfriend ('no baby, you put the phone down first') and sat next to a large woman who brought all of the pillows from her bed at home just to make sure she was comfortable. But she wasn't. Because she spent half the trip on her cell phone whinging about how slow the train was going to a friend. 'Well if we jettison your pillows love we'll probably pick up speed and be in Chicago in half the time'. I'm British. I didn't. I just sat there quietly reading ... But outside the Appalachian Mountains were unbelievably beautiful. They separate the eastern sea board from the great plains in the middle of the USA before the land rises up again into the Rocky Mountains. Imagine dusk, on snow covered mountains. in the middle of nowhere, chugging along under a full moon and sparking off two deer that bound away across a field and into the woods. Unlike the bit before I couldn't make that up. Magical. Here's a snap from around the same time. Sorry it's blurry. We were in a train that, for that stage at least, was going quickly!



And to Chicago. Safe and sound again in another amazing hostel breaking the bank at $34 each night, bang downtown and all but a hotel (en suite bathroom for our huge dorm). It was so cold yesterday that 'you couldn't even remember your name' according to one of the Hostelling International staff. Jeez. But here I am today (a warm-ish one!!!) arriving in style in another unbelievable Union Station. The Amtrak stations here put the British Rail network to shame. They really remind you of a golden era of the railways and it feels very Indiana Jones-like arriving into a new city to be met by marble, oak and enormous Roman legionary statues. Not to mention the obligatory clock!

The photographer, bless her, for this following shot was a runner who stopped especially to snap away at me! The American people are just uber-helpful. Behind me is Lake Michigan that is the size of many seas. Check out the striations. Yep. It's frozen over solid to the breakwater a few hundred metres out to 'lake' ... weird huh?!



So it's bed soon because of limited sleep last night. And Chicago to explore tomorrow. All the best museums are free to visit because of a local governmental clause so after my free breakfast I'll check out what could be the best city yet! And I thought this was all going to be really expensive! 'The Loop' is the possibly the trendiest thing I've seen on my journey yet. Here's a picture but Wikipedia it if you want to find out more ...

These last couple of posts have had the dates a bit off because I've typed one day, uploaded photos and then posted the next. Oh well. Who cares! It's the least of my concerns. I've just run out of clean clothes ... I've also just commented on the bottom of the Washington wonderland post including the answer to the quiz question Matt and Nick!

Walking in a Washington wonderland

Day 9 - Thursday 17 January 2008

It couldn't, it shouldn't, it wouldn't ... it did ... it bloody snowed!!!!!

Just when I was sat around wondering why it was so warm and pleasant in these, supposedly, snowy areas ... it wanged it down this morning. Hooray! And the proper stuff of 1980s England. Big 50p piece size flakes of snow that stuck to the ground harder than those weird Octopus toys that stuck to windows when you were a kid and were rejuvenated by hot, soapy water (I know it's random but I am in retro-mood and I can only blame this over-hot hostel that was very welcome after a day in the snow).

And so Washington has been surprisingly awesome. Grabbed the obligatory Starry Bs for breakfast (who've swallowed the competition very sadly) and walked straight to the White House. It's actually very impressive. You can't really get near it and I made the mistake of asking a security guard to take my photo ...! The place was deserted because of the snow but thank Abraham Lincoln for the group of Japanese tourists who passed just when I was about to leave. My best gestures and lots of smiling resulted in this trump shot from an elderly Japanese gentleman who was clearly a photographer on the side. You can just about make out the Democrats soon-to-be new home out behind the snow!

I did plenty more today that included over-eating (for the first time I succumbed to the American style of ordering sides and a big drink with an already big standard meal). Oh well. Like it will affect me!

But just a day of wandering around, enjoying the cold, feeling the crunch of snow under feet, and letting these landmarks get into your soul. It's quite something to stand where Martin Luther King Junior delivered his "I have a dream speech' and stare in awe at the size of the Abraham Lincoln monument. He was the USA's 16th President and a powerhouse against slavery until he was sadly assassinated on 15 April 1865. He must have been pretty remarkable to have this dedicated to him.

The only remarkable thing about me ... is how, in this photograph, I don't have an even weirder expression on my face considering the snow in my shoes, down my neck and seeping into my pants by this point of the afternoon. It certainly can snow in these parts that's for sure ...

(By the way I've now added pictures to the previous post 'The New York state of mind ...' and you can find it via the archives on the right!)

The New York state of mind ...

Day 8 - Wednesday 16 January 2008

Well, here I am again and I had hit the first technical snag of this adventure. The operating system of the computer was too old to recognise my camera and so we had a blog without the comedy pictures of me in front of random New Yorky things ... should I have gone on .. you bet I did ... and now it's all fixed so enjoy!

And 'here' is, for the first time, somewhere different. Yes New York fans I'm afraid it's been and gone. I'm typing from the British government's home turf, Washington DC (as Ben Elton used to say, 'a little bit of politics there ...'). It's been a strange day today leaving somewhere that you love and having to say goodbye. But I guess I'll have to get used to that. After all just look at the mileage checker!

My early impressions of the USA's capital are that it's a lot tidier, more polished, more orderly and, consequently, more soul-less than the Big Apple. The hostel is similarly great and placed bang downtown but drop your chewing gum and a Judge Dredd style figure might fly down and give you a ticket on the spot. The weather outside is getting colder I'm pleased to say (I'm desperate to see snow) but the hostel is roasting. It's also home to a Swede from Stockholm called Jens with whom I've just grabbed some food in Chinatown ... these hostels result in so many random meetings they're ace. He's a lucky blighter. Has a friend playing for the Washington Capitols ice hockey team and keeps hanging out with these National Hockey League stars. He, unfortunately, didn't mention cutting me in on the deal for tickets to tomorrow night's game ... yet!

So when I blogged last I was off to see the New York Knicks and, despite me being there (I'm usually a jinx to home teams in the USA), they won. Especially unusual because this season they suck. But they beat the Detroit Pistons 89 to 65. They were awesome but then there were the Knicks City Dancers ... http://kcd.nyknicks.com/ Purely for their dancing ability of course. But, wow, what a show is basketball! And what an atmosphere because of one weird thing. The rights to American sports are clearly more in the public arena than the Premiership soccer (?!) in England. So during the basketball, when the New York Giants football team is playing at the same time, the game pauses at a free throw and the live coverage of the Giants plays on the big screen (Garden-vision of course!). Even the basketball players look up to watch and the New York crowd goes wild when the Giants intercept the football and win! The basketball then re-starts. Unbelievable! But viewing their sport is such a social thing for the fans. More about the experience than the sport. They all turned up late and then left early when it wasn't close. Just like everything else in the average American's life. It's a fast snapshot and onto the next thing to attack the senses. Court side seats (for them not me) resulted in 2 more celebo spottings for the chart (up to 4 now remember!). Add Courtney Cox-Arquette and John McEnroe please. And this has to be the best taken photograph yet from someone I randomly stopped and asked to help out (a twice daily occurrence in my life now).










I spent a day at the American Museum of Natural History and the attached Hayden Planetarium. I saw an awesome neck-ache show in the planetarium called 'Cosmic Collisions' starring Robert Redford (narrating, not colliding with anything). I watched, fascinated, how planet earth came into being (those pesky scientists and their absence of a God-like figure it's so confusing!). And did you know our moon was formed in just 1 month. Amazing. See these blogs are educational! Feel free to insert the old Uranus gag in this section Ed ...

I also went on a tour from a 'hello' geeky yet funny scientist/curator/guide. He was a top man but soooo keen. The first free tour I've been on that lasted 2 hours 15 minutes. I felt like I'd sat 3 GCSEs in one afternoon by the end (he liked questioning us). And he left us in a corner of the museum rather than back at the start. Now that museum's a bit old and creaky now (lots of taxidermied animals), is huge again (like the Met) and covers about 2 square blocks (a block is about 300m). Screw me if I wasn't concerned about turning into a fossil by the time I made it out ... and if you remember the movie Night At The Museum from a year or two ago then yes it's that one. I liked the planets v the skyscraper here.













Used my last day in New York to really get to grips with why I came out here. That is to understand the world and my place in it a bit better. So I went to hang out with Kofi Annan and toured the United Nations (actually the Secretary General is now Ban Ki-moon from South Korea). The guide, Shad from Kenya, was awesome and answered my tricky question about the percentage of the United Nations budget spent on administration v programmes (it's about 20/80 respectively but waaaaay more complicated than that). There are only 3 countries in the world who aren't members ... the first one to post them on the comments page gets a prize (I'll work something out I promise). Go on, look it up and you'll have learned something else today!

A few more UN facts =
Formed after the Second World War to prevent such atrocities from ever happening again
6 arms - security/trusteeship/secretariat/law courts (in the Hague, Belgium)/economic and social/general council
$15 billion goes through the United Nations each year

This is me in the General Assembly although because there are 182 member countries the place is enormous and my flash only reached me of course! The room below is the Security Council where they're currently discussing Myanmar I guess and it gives you an idea of how these places look. Pretty enorm again!



















After all that learning I succumbed to Niketown and the movies to see I Am Legend for my final hours in New York. I really liked I Am Legend because it was an apocalyptic New York that was awesome to see considering I'd visited all of the major locations over the last few days. And indeed watched it from just 2 blocks west of Times Square. Again, I'm going to wake up from this sometime soon ...

OK. So my time's coming to a close again and I'll finish with a few New York observations. You live in a movie set. Everyone's using the iPhone (apart from old skool Crackberry users). Starbucks coffee is sold in jars in supermarkets. Everyone jay-walks (a big no-no in California but not this side of the USA?). Mineral water is everywhere (is normal H2O not enough America?). The people keep you on your toes (one guy asked me if I knew where a Citibank was the other day while we stood outside a Citibank - I just pointed and he apologised for being slow but I thought he was scamming me!). It makes you go 'hmm' at first but by the time you leave you realise you've fallen in love ... go ... now .. the hostel cost me $27 each night!

I'll leave you with a couple of my fave New York photos from my very own Sony Ericsson. The . The top one is the public library on a busy Saturday afternoon. And the bottom one is a weekday morning stroll around Central Park.



















Oh - and I'm sure you've worked it out but if you want to get a closer look at the photos just click on them. It opens the original sized image and you can see them properly.

The bar's set high now so just where can Washington reach ...

Welcome to the world!

Day 5 - Sunday 13 January 2008

This is going to be unbelievable ...

How can 5 days seem like so long. And not in a bad way. But in a great way. This is already feels like a life changing experience. As Julie Andrews (she was a honey in her time) sang 'let's start at the very beginning' (there's a reason I mentioned her and you'll find out more later)

American Airlines have seats for big people so Growbag they're for you - and me! Tons of leg room, older cabin crew (the service industry isn't only for the young pups over here) and very, very, very tight security. Awesome pilot who joked around on the intercom and played a train's 'choo-choo' on take off, What a genius. I worked out that you fly only a few thousand metres higher than Mount Everest. Interesting huh ...? Two celebrity spots at Heathrow for Gars' twitching album. Michelle McManus and the 'filthy journo' from when John Nettles filmed the Airport series for the Beeb.

This hostel stuff's really amazing. At least in this Hostelling International New York place. It's like a club for explorers. The shower's better than the one in my old place. The bed's more comfortable. And they do a top coffee to set up your days of discovering NYC for 60p. The club atmosphere's superb. The second night I was here they hosted the showing of an indie-pendent movie about backpacking that's showing on National Geographic channel and negotiating to get on MTV. If you want to find out more about all this backpacking stuff head to the movie's site at http://www.amapforsaturday.com/ The bonds created between travellers are really strong and you can spend your entire trip within the confines of them e.g. eating in the hostel every night. But, personally, I think you need to balance the companionship with getting out there and feeling the place you're in. We're in the Upper West Side just south of Harlem on Manhattan. A few blocks from Central Park and in a really cool neighbourhood. Not in the ultra-safe and touristy Midtown but the edgier, more real New Yorky area. Oh. And a word on the title of the movie. The Saturday reference is all about asking any backpacker what day it is. They'll always go 'errrr ...'. I'll let you work the rest out yourself of course. And for anyone who's ever holidayed isn't it just the best feeling in the world. Enjoy it next time it happens to you.

It's wild how my feelings have changed to stuff overnight. Before I decided on this hair-brained scheme I would have been a bit wary about travelling around by public transport in a place I didn't know. But immediately it's so normal to jump on the subway and buses and hop on and off them around NYC all day and all night.

And so NYC is everything I thought it would be. Big, imposing buildings dwarf you. Times Square at night dazzles you. The subway is loud and rattly. Central Park is mesmerising. The first day I walked over a hundred blocks and went straight to the top of the Empire State Building to get my Bloodhound Jones bearings. See I really did!

















As you can see although I'm wrapped up it was sunny and has been really warm. In fact it was 65F the day I arrived and everyone was in short sleeves! The top of the ESB was really quiet and not very windy. All you could really hear was the sound of trains, construction and 'will you take a photo of me please' in every language known to humankind.

I spent a whole rainy, misty day at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on my second day. This is like the Louvre, the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery all put together and placed, quite beautifully, on the East Side in Central Park. I've never seen a museum that big in my life and doubt I'll ever see one that big again (the Vatican City might be the only exception?). If anyone knows please tell me! I was on my feet from 11am-7pm (museums at night and in artificial light are just magical) and was still discovering new wings in the final minutes of my visit that I hadn't seen. In the end I had to submit to the first sensory overload feeling of this trip. For example, they've got half of Cairo in there and here's the proof!














See! While it may look like I've arrived in Egypt early I haven't. This is a tomb (later converted to a Christian church) 'saved' by the USA following an appeal from the Egyptians when the Aswan dam flooded numerous tombs. Cost them $16 million to save it mind you ...

'The Met' as I'm sure you know it's called had so many diverse pieces. From this to Picasso to David to Caravaggio (I love his work) to Asian sculptures to North American art (that was closed and dotted around sadly) to ancient Greek and Roman copies of Ancient Greek artifacts. The list goes on and on. Oh. And to donate your entrance fee you have to give your donation to a lovely old 'ma'am' who sits under a sign saying 'suggested donation $20'. I gave her the unemployed rate of $5. Nah. I'm kidding. You'd need balls of steel to do that. I very Britishly told her that I thought $20 was a bargain!

But a stand out piece was in the modern art gallery. They had Damien Hirst's 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living'. Which translates from arty-farty speak into 'bloody big, scary shark in a tank of formaldehyde'. I'd have taken a picture but it wasn't allowed. So check it out on Wikipedia. If you're fussed. The Met doesn't have, for a British educated lad anyway, the stand out, iconic pieces of The Louvre. But for me what it lacked in that area it made up for by volume.

Ghostbusted down in the New York public library yesterday when I posted to the comments from the previous blog. Thanks again guys. To each and everyone of you. It was amazing and really made me feel grounded again after a few days out and about. I'm loving hearing from you. I guess this blogging and emails to you back home will be, like the rest of this trip, random! Don't forget that I'd still like to hear your news (I don't want this to be me, me, me!) The normal will be needed from time to time. Though don't ask me for tips about fixing your old boiler (you did after all marry him Sara!).

And so to last night. Teamed up with a roomie, Mark from Oz, and headed to a Broadway show. For Nev's sake (you'd have loved it darling) went to see Mary Poppins just off Times Square. Superb production in a brilliantly old theatre (the Amsterdam) and a ticket for just $30. The hustle and bustle of leaving the theatre back onto the street on Broadway is a throw back to the old days and has an electric atmosphere. Had to top the night off with further proof that this is not all made up!





















Times Square is weird. It's two triangles one of which is inverted. And it's so bright it's crazy. We've a way to go to reach these standards of multi-media mind you. On the screen behind me they showed LIVE coverage of the NFL game when Green Bay ran out winners over Seattle. The people stood, watched and admired Brett Favre doing his thing again. Can you imagine Sky ever doing that at Leicester Square with a Liverpool or QPR match?!

And my $10 bucks for this internet session is coming to an end so I better wrap up. This is a great way to engage the brain and I hope I keep it up. I realise that I may be teaching previous visitors to New York (or future places) to suck eggs with my explanations of what's going on. But this is my take on it all I guess. I hope it's interesting!

It's Sunday today so it's kicking back day even in travellers land. I'm doing this post, emails next, booking onward travel stuff and reading the Sunday New York Times. But more excitement tonight! I spent some of my Christmas money from Mum and Dad on a ticket to see the Knicks take on the Detroit Pistons at the Garden. Madison Square Garden. The Knicks are having a shocker of a season but no matter. I'll cheer them on whatever. A local new Yorker suggested I've got a good ticket for the price ($60) and I can't wait ...

Have a happy Sunday everyone from Jezmond x

Manhattan Skyline ... Tomorrow!

FINAL/LAST/ABSOLUTE Planning Day 100 - Tuesday 8 January 2008

And so we reach the day before the day of travel. The final piece of the jigsaw has been inserted and it all fits together. The new bank accounts are set up. I've become a teenager again and had to memorise a sequence of random numbers but that's all OK. The airport strikes scheduled for this week were called off. It looks like the perfect picture. All I have to do now is not drop it on the way to the airport and at midday tomorrow I'll leave London Heathrow bound for New York's John F Kennedy airport.

It seems very strange that on Thursday morning I'll be stood on top of the Empire State Building (just to get my bearings and ease navigation) in one of the greatest cities the world has to offer and my first on this journey of a lifetime. Am I a bit nervous, yes. Have I got the usual 'sniffy nose old man' to see me on my way, yes. Am I looking forward to this adventure, yes. Do I feel ready to head off ... 100 days and I couldn't be more ready!

I've booked into the Hostelling International New York on the Upper West Side for 6 nights. They have 624 beds and occupy a building the size of half a block or more. I'm sure I've read somewhere that it might be haunted and this just added to the attraction for me! I may be tempted to creep round the corridors late at night with a hoover on my back looking for Slimer. Well, I will be in the city of Ghostbusters!

Aside from that the Staten Island ferry around the Statue of Liberty is on the list, so is a Broadway show, so is a plethora of museums and so is Central Park. I also can't wait to find a bar and watch the American Football play offs this Saturday and Sunday. If I can find the right place then Sunday should be awesome because the New York Giants are playing although, sadly, they're away from the city and on the road in Dallas. Ah well. Big old bar stool, sipping beer and watching the game. Awesome!

Sadly it's not snowing in New York. In fact the weather looks a bit English. 5-12 degrees but at least there's going to be some sunny days. Why is England so grey all the time these days ... I hope it clears up for those of you back into the run of work in England.

And so the ruck sack is packed. In fact here it is below (I love the way Mum's and Dad's dig out mustard blankets when it gets cold). I'm really chuffed that I've stripped it down to the bare essentials. 50 litres all in (including the day bag and it's contents) apart from the clothes on my back. I'm a bit concerned that when it's sultry and hot in Asia I'll be cramming everything in there. But when it's cold and I'm wearing all my clothes there'll be plenty of room kicking around my 'sack'. Until someone half-inches it of course. Anyone want to run a book on how long I'll last before it disappears in a puff of smoke!


You may have noticed that I've added the final itinerary to the top right of this blog and also a miles completed checker. Seems a bit daunting to me that. 30 how many thousand! And I'm not sure if it'll work all that great. Big brother Rich and I talked about getting some Google bar up there that does the job a bit more professionally. And Tatey will be screaming Facebook right now. But it seems quite interesting so we'll see how it goes.

And now for the first time I'm feeling a bit like JK Rowling as she fought her way through the 5th or 6th Potter book (the Phoenix one?!) only to come up with an overly long product that wasn't as good as her previous work. So I'll leave the England postings and the planning phase of this blog behind and move on ... see you on the other side ...