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 ...
1 comment:
Uranus my arse. Not sure when you fly next mate but forget about your arse it's your head I am worried about. It's do full of useless facts I think it might not get clearance to leave US airspace.
Glad to see it's all going well. I challenge you reach 11 stone by the time you get back...you fat knacker.
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