New York

Every time I visit the US I have to fight off people trying to help me carry my bags. At the airport, in the hotel, everywhere. Once I even found a naked guy hiding in the bathroom waiting to grab my luggage, at least that’s what Tub told he was up to when I got back from work. If you aren’t quick enough they get hold of your bag and walk slowly along the road carrying it. It not only slows you down but stresses you out as you have to keep looking for them to see if they have legged it with your stuff. At the end they give you back your bag (except in hotels where they make you wait half an hour for it) and look at you like a proud dog that’s just shat on the carpet, waiting for you to reward them with a tip.

Today we are taking our impressive collection of suitcases from Washington to New York on the train. There are areas of our suitcases that I am not allowed in to. “That’s shirts in there, you can just wear yesterday’s T shirt again, you don’t need to go into that bit.” Tub tells me. There are parts of the suitcases that will remain totally untouched for the whole trip. But we had to bring it all because “You never know.”

For some reason though Tub only brought one pair of shoes with her. There is a section of Suitcase 5 that is marked as shoes but it is completely empty. Tub has been bouncing from foot to foot all morning (just like she did when Elvis came in the room) and singing New York New York while looking at the empty bit of the case. This could be the most expensive part of the trip so far.

Anyway today rather than snarling at the people who try to carry my luggage I will graciously allow them to carry it and then give them a tip. I have a pocket full of $1 bills ready to hand out along with the obligatory pat on the head.

We struggled down to reception and were greeted by the first prospective baggage carrier. “Good morning sir, do you need a taxi?”

“Yes please, and could you help us with some of these bags?” I answered.

“Let me get one for you sir” he said, disappearing outside without so much as an oversized carry on bag with him.

Tub is from the North East of England, she is a Geordie, which means she kanna speek proppa and the end of every sentence goes up like a Miami flyover. Tomato isn’t the only word she struggles with here.

“What would you like to drink ma’am?”

“Watta”

“Sorry ma’am, what?”

“WATTA”

Confused look.

“H2O”

He understood the letters but expecting a guy in his 40s who is working in a fast food bar to have a strong grasp of chemistry is a step too far.

One thing you can say for politicians, they are all lazy fuckers. Washington has hardly any streets with names. They just use letters and numbers. Seriously, 5th Street, Q Street. Even the ones with names are just the names of other states or cities in the US. I suppose they didn’t have time to pick names since they are so busy planning the next world war.

They do a nice line in buildings though, and the train station is no exception. As we struggled through with all our bags hoping that someone in a nice cap would appear and offer to help, we admired the beauty of the architecture. If I had had a free hand I would have taken a picture.

We were told that only poor people caught the train in America and I’ve seen some of the poor people here. If there was a poor Olympics the Americans would clean up all the medals (and expect a tip for doing it). However most of the people queuing up to get on the train seem to have shoes and coats, so maybe its not so bad.

I don’t know why this picture is sideways.

It’s pretty obvious that politicians don’t use the train though. We took our collection of bags straight on without showing ID, having Tub’s knickers inspected or having to hand over a 3rd bottle opener with pen knife. “Oh sorry about that. I did the same thing on the last flight.” There are no security checks, no safety video, no seat belts and no bullshit about staying seated until it comes to a complete halt. In fact they throw you around with gay abandon as you walk the length of the train looking for the beer car.

Tub is worried about the luggage getting stolen because it is out of sight and the train stops every 4 telegraph poles at some tiny station. I told her not to worry. Unless its a gang of 5 people they couldn’t carry it all.

We are in New York!

Now New York is a town that you need to be careful in. There are lots of pickpockets around. For that reason we have left our passports and all of our money in the hotel safe… in Washington.

Tub realised this when we were in the middle of a scrum in Times Square. I immediately phoned the hotel in Washington to see if they had found them. It was difficult making the call at 4pm on a Saturday in Time Square but luckily my phone battery died so it didn’t matter.

This guy isn’t having a great day either.

One minute you’re a perfectly happy illegal immigrant running a hot dog stand in New York. And the next minute you are sitting in the back of a paddy wagon explaining that of course you have a passport and a permit to sell food but unfortunately you left them in a hotel safe in Washington.

At least we were in the right place at the right time to take over his business and raise some money for the holiday.

Tub was a bit upset about losing the passports so we did the only thing we could… we went shopping.

Well its pretty safe, we haven’t got any fucking money.

(Actually in case anyone is worried we have US dollars, its the Euro and Aussie that was in the safe and they are sending everything up on in the post, what could go wrong.)

I was thinking of arranging another movie tour – Miracle on 34th Street, probably the only film where the original and the remake are both excellent. They pretty much only went to Macy’s though, so I think we can tick that one off.

No Tub! Boots.

And then coats.

This season’s fashion is Christmas Tree.

And remember this guy?

We like New York. It’s America without the Americans.

Sunday

Although it could be any day really.

No sign of the passports yet.

Today Tub needed a fix of bridge so there isn’t much for the blog. Its getting a bit cold here which is odd because the taxi driver who brought us from the train station said it was going to nice for the next few days, but he couldn’t find the hotel and dropped us 2 blocks away so maybe he is full of shit.

Bridge was less of a disaster this time, we finished 3rd out of 11.

They certainly like a queue here, although of course they have a different way of pronouncing it, they say L-I-N-E.

They queue at 11am to see a show that night…

They queue to get into the Apple Shop…

And they queue to go to the toilet…

We found these people in New York’s Horse Shit Park, queuing to join the Amish.

After bridge we stumbled across Paul Bruschetta’s old favourite bar C4.

And of course I had to have a hot dog.

Who doesn’t love the taste of lips and arseholes.

I wouldn’t say our hotel is the biggest place in New York but by square metre it might be the most expensive.

Macquarie

Ok, I have finally officially left and the last of the money has hit my bank account (thank you Emma for all your help!). So now I can really say what I think about the place.

I absolutely loved my time at Macquarie, I don’t have a single bad thing to say about the place or the people. A lot of my best memories are of time spent at Macquarie and I had the opportunity to do some fantastic things and to visit a lot of places that I would otherwise never had gone. I’m glad I’m not there anymore but I also have no regrets about the time I spent there and the wonderful people that I got to meet and work with.

If it wasn’t for all of the stupid libel laws in the world I would publish the book that I wrote a while ago about the place called “The Production Line at the Millionaires Factory”. If you want an unofficial copy email me and I’ll send it to you.

If the passports arrive tomorrow we’ll be leaving on Tuesday on the next leg of the adventure, The Queen Mary 2. If not we’ll still be running this kebab stand on Park and East 32nd. Come and visit us, we do some great Kosher food.

Dinner

We went to Hell’s Kitchen for dinner because Tub had seen Gordon Ramsay there on telly (he was in the one in LA though, but never mind). Apparently it is where all of the locals eat but it was just as full of European tourists as everywhere else. Tub was telling a very elaborate story over dinner and when she got to the bit about how big the fish had been she managed to backhand a whole glass of red wine over the German tourist two tables away. She continued with her story and managed to work my glass of wine into it so she didn’t dry out. As he mopped himself down with serviettes and swore loudly in German Tub waved at him and said “Oh, you are from Germany. We’re going there in a few weeks. Is it nice?”

We walked home past another Scientology building, these buggers are everywhere.

And a torch that thought it was a car.

New York is a great city.

Monday

Hmm… no passports. They were supposed to be here at 9am. Fedex don’t know anything about them so I rang the hotel in Washington. “Don’t worry sir, your passports are perfectly safe. I can see them from here. They are sitting in the out tray waiting for collection.”

We have been promised they will be picked up by noon. Cutting it a bit fine.

Everywhere we go we see Fedex.

We went shopping which can be too much for some people.

1.30pm. The passports are still in Washington. Time for plan B. Tub is going to fetch them herself and I’m going to the pub with Paul Brusaschi. Both activities take about 8 hours.