Tuesday 2 October 2007

Fw: BLOGGER TO GO

Three guesses where we are. Clues::- yellow cabs, big apple,
New York cheesecake. Got it? Wrong! We are on the train to Boston. Moral of this? Don't be taken in by the obvious. Just travelling though Conneticut.

I am overhearing a conversation with another group of passengers. American: "I travelled across Switzerland in a train and it was 1st class", "Like Orient Express?" "No, but very good" "I happen to live in Switzerland and I know the train you speak of. We had a terrible summer there". I want to get involved "I have been on the Orient Express, and the summer in Switzerland was great compared to England", but I resist! Hard for me to do that!

So, New York. The taxi from JFK must have been the worse taxi in town. Beat up and shabby, no aircon. (temperature of 85F and humid) and a driver that didn't speak English.

So. New York. Impressions. I like the humour and smartness of the natives. Almost European in style. Not very American at all.

There was a UN congress in session and the security had to be seen to be believed. I thought I was back on the Orient Express again. Our hotel was being used by diplomats so there were many shaddowy FBI/CIA/Security/dog handler characters around. I was tempted to point out to a guy in the lift that he had a wire growing out of his neck, but I resisted. Probably the thought of being wrestled to the ground and dragged off to god knows where acted as a deterant. Mind you he was cute so it might not have been all that bad!

On our first day we took a couple of tour buses. The first guide was very informative, but incomprehensible he had a very heavy black accent- is it very un PC to say black? Well.fuck it, black was what he was and black was what he sounded like and no-one could understand him.

The second tour guide was very irritating, he called us "my friends" - well I for one was not his friend. By the end of the tour I wanted to kill him.

Highlights of New York were meeting up with my mad mates beautiful son who has become a native New Yorker and, incidentally, too tall and thin/being moved by Ground Zero/having a great lunch in Wall Street (I can testify that lunch in NOT for wimps) and viewing Mathatten at night from the Statten Island Ferry.

We saw all of Manhatten including Central Park, the UN Empire and Chrysler biuldings, Brooklyn, in short - all of Manhatten. Our feet are sore and our legs ache, but we had a great time.

Let's hope that Boston is equally as good.

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