Mid Atlantic

Hmm as i never planned on writing a blog for this part of the trip, the first three weeks have been cobbled together from a partial memory and stealing from Ollie's 'comprehensive' notes. This whirlwind 18 month trip made ever more unlikely by Mr Browns incompetence and the collapse of the pound began on August 5th with a flight from Heathrow with Mike and a meeting with Ollie out in JFK. Ollie had to fly seperately due to his round the world ticket. Me and Mike however opted to fly the gypo Zoom airlines (which amusingly went bust about 2 weeks after we landed in America). Everything I touch everywhere I go always falls to pieces lol.

Zoom had seemingly commandeered a rather shonky looking Finair plane that only had one tv for the whol cabin. It looked like we would be crossing the Atlantic in a plane that was designed in the 1980s, but hey at least unlike Qantas it wasn't exploding mid air.

We dropped down in NYC minus the nearly dying part last time I flew into New York. Mike even managed to get involved in chatting with a young kid who was lost in the toilets and crying, leaving you with one of those awkward moments. Do you leave them and feel guilty or try to help them and get arrested for being a creepy man. While queueing for immigration I realised that I still had to fill in a stupid white immigration form despite already spending a whole day in the US embassy after they had explained to me that Mexico and Canada were part of the US. How stupid is that. I knew originally that I wouldn't be flying home again and having phoned the US embassy to check what exit proof they needed I was told that Mexico was part of the US and subsequently my visa waiver would not cover my 5 months in both countries. So six months and 110 pounds later I was still filling in a fucking visa waiver. So I braced myself for the usually hospitable greeting from US customs. You know the one. Where they look at you like your a sex offender trying to gain a teaching position at your kid's school, having just poisoned their parents. its almost like they expect everyone is not filling in thje questions about whether you are a Nazi or an explosives expert properly and that secretly your a time travelling Nazi Al Qaeda member with explosives training and a sinister plan to smuggle drugs into the country hidden in illegal vegetation. And you may also have once had a speeding ticket (which they take very seriously over here). Just then a tattooed Geordie asks me and Mike if we wouldn't mind looking after his bag while he goes to the toilet. Now your warned about these situations. Imagine trying to explain that some Geordie gave you this back of cocaine and no you didn't pack it and please God help me. So naturally we said no problem and sweated all the way until he returned from the toilet to inform us he was a 19 year old Geordie in the navy and trying to escape from it, but that they wouldn't let him leave. Our very own mini military Guantanamo. So I got to the front just in time to hear an alarm go off and the guy in front of me carted off for interrogation as I presume his fingerprints didn't match up. So now I am crapping myself and there is noone at my desk. I spy that the desk to the right of me has noone so I wander nonchalantly round to that one. He barely glances up before issuing the cursory "Where did you come from?" I reply that the person in front of me was arrested so I changed lines, to which I receive the reply "and so you took it upon yourself to make that decision did you?" and then and there I knew this wasn't going to be pretty. Having told him I was travelling for 2.5 months, 18 in all, no I didn't have a return, I booked my flight ages ago, no I didn't pay for it on my card and a whole host of other answers he didn't like, he luckily decided I was allowed to enter despite my stupidity.

We stayed up in north west Manhatten near Columbia University and so naturally we spent the first night wandering around for a student bar. And which student department do you go to if you want to find out where the best parties are? Thats right. The Physics department lol. Here we were informed they don't have any because they have to be 21 to drink and our best bet was a bar called the Heights which was a cool little Belgian rooftop bar. When we were checked into the hostel we were sent up to a six bed room occupied by four Spanish guys and given that there were three of us, there was going to be a bit of a problem. After our combined pigeon talk that concluded nothing except I supported Spurs and one of them supported Valencia we realised the hostel had fucked up and we transferred to a room occupied by a guy from the Dominican Republic (cool dude and gave me some useful tips), an odd quiet guy from Canada (nothing unusual there) and a French dude (which pleased Mike). We would be joined later by a bearded Swedish dude who had roadtripped the States the other way round to us (who had a bottle of whisky he was whipping through) and some odd Russians.

We got up in the morning and I surveyed the showers. With two showers either side of the building, the other guys opted for the far side and got cold showers. I opted for the near side which was lovely and warm and only mildly spoilt by the streak of blood running through the bath which stayed all week. That was the only time I used that side. I managed to drag the others on a logistics day for clothes in Banana Republic and a crackingly shit but practical phone for $15. If anyone is confused by why I am writing pounds but using $, its because Yankee kayboards make no allowance for foreigners. We managed to pick up some tickets for an NBC studio tour that I really wasn't too bothered about and wandered down to the Brooklyn Bridge to see the artificial waterfalls they had installed. Mike also managed to get hit by some dickhead cyclist crossing the bridge. That night we split up, with me and Ollie heading to Old Greenwich in Connecticut to meet some of his workmates, while Mike caught up with some old acting buddies down at a pier on lower west side for a messy and late night.

Old Greenwich is a nice little place, with one house even having its own private beach volleyball court in their back garden. Ollie's workmates were a nice bunch and when they insisted on paying for our meal in a nice seafood restaurant I wasn't going to complain. People from Garston don't turn down freebies :-) It was however the first time in three visits that I was ever id'd in America and it came in a restaurant. I was not amused.

The next day we rocked up and undertook the NBC tour which was fun for all the TV themes they played from our childhood. Mike also volunteered to be the weather man in a mock news broadcast which was hilarious. He managed to drop in his usual risque humour and delivered the weather while actually standing in front of the screen. Anyone who knows him can imagine his physical gesticulations. Needless to say the Yankees loved it. Mike then departed to meet another friend and Ollie and I went to queue for tickets for the Colbert Report. When we arrived the queue was massive and it reminded me of the Russian Embassy. We got chatting with three girls from Florida who persuaded us to go to Denver and the New Belgian Brewery (best decision we made) and explained they would not switch their voter allegiance because Florida Democrats needed them more. Time was ticking away and we had to leave our names and then come back so we went for drinks with the Floridians and returned. We made it to the last 5 when we were informed there were only 4 tickets left. Courtney managed to lie to them suggesting we were all friends and a spare fifth ticket was gained. So once again my luck of the Irish has squeezed me through the door. We didn't have a seat and had to stand in the aisle. Still it was awesome seeing Colbert and really funny. We then hooked up with Mike and headed to a couchsurfing party in the lower east side.

It then began to piss down with rain and we continued our onrunning theme of always bringing the English weather with us. The party was crammed into this little bar and we got chatting with a lawyer and accountant from New York, while Mike was chatting with a German girl and being stalked by as he put it "a lovely but very dull German guy". He was then solicited by a hammered Yankee in Pink who claimed all three English guys she'd slept with were shit and Mike wooed her with his usual brand of slapstick slag humour. Some dwarf girl was chatting with me and then disappeared with a tramp while I spoke to the most depressing man in the World. Ollie was chatting with some bints from Yorkshire who were a bit dense and then some Danish guy appeared before disappearing again. The tramp made a return and told me how he wanted to be a tramp on the west coast and really didn't want to do anything. Meanwhile Ollie was being barred for refusing to tip the barman. Mike eventually disappeared because he was tired, we got chatting with an Andrew Warren lookalike who had met our mate Jonny a few months previously, some random Russian girl and a bandana dude who told us about a club in the back of a toy shop. It was a very random night out and I don't think it won any converts from the other guys. At 3am we got a text from Mike saying he was lost somewhere in NYC. Now he had left us at 1am so it was a little concerning. How you get lost in a city where the streets go up in number is an achievement but we told him to find a corner somewhere and we'd come find him, but we heard nothing so headed home.

The next morning we awoke to a bombshell. Mike had decided he wasn't enjoying the trip and had changed his flight to go home on the sunday. Kind of random and unexpected it was not the best start to the day. We did virtually nothing this day. Just wandered around Central Park before heading to a Chinese restaurant with unlimited wine while you are eating. We did the usual English thing and massacred a number of caraffes before heading on to the second shittest night of comedy I had ever been to. All of them were rubbish, the last guy was a complete racist and there were no memorable jokes. Still it beat the guy in LA who talked about GRILFS (grannies I'd like to fuck) and that was his highlight. Still it was a good night. We probably realised this night that six nights was unnecessarily too long in a city we'd all been to before but it was still proving to be a good kicker.

On the saturday Mike went to meet another acting friend he had once fucked in a phonebox, so he was hoping for a Manhatten revival. Ollie and I trecked out to Coney Island and got burnt on the quite cool beach. This was also the morning of the great train fiasco. We stupidly paid to get on the wrong side of the train line and wasted our money. Having realised our mistake we climbed out of the station, crossed over the road and went down the other side. We bought another ticket and entered the station. Really oddly all the same people were on the platform as had just been on it. I wondered how they had got around so fast and why we hadn't used this walkway until I realised we were still on the wrong side. We had crossed the wrong road. In the evening we went to see Mike's mate in a play about Woodhull (the first woman to run for President). It sounded good and enabledme to bask in the warm glow of knowing the evil Hillary had been slayed earlier that year by Sir Barrack of Obama. It was a good play and Mike's mate chewed up the scenery in her performance. He then went to the afterparty while Ollie and I retired back to the hostel. Mike then decided that night he was enjoying himself and he wanted to stay. He had however missed the office hours to change his flight and would have been forced to buy a new one. Faced with that expense he realised he would have to return home and with Zoom airlines collapsing he would have faced an even more anxious predicament.

So on sunday we lost Mike and after Sean's earlier bailout we had received our second casualty of the trip. Me and Ollie now realised petrol was going to be a bitch in our SUV but we had a wander through the Dominican Republic Parade on the sunday. It was a cool parade. One group had even wired up a sensational base system to their car that was deeper than Ministry of Sounds main room. Made the street vibrate. A lot of fitness on parade and it boded well for New Year. We also managed to get a rendition of "Hell yeah, the countries going to have a Nigger President" from some girls wandering down the street. It looked like my 2007 pick Obama was picking up speed. That night we saw the movie 'The Whackness' which was really good and an interesting Indie film if you get the chance to see it.

On the next morning we rocked down to JFK to pick up the beast. While we had been promised a Chevy Trailblazer we were to be left with the choice of a white one or a blue Toyota Highlander from Maryland. We went for the blue one as a white car is just far too Essex. They did inform us that although we had booked this car for two months, after one month we would have to stop off in a National centre and change contracts which was fucking ridiculous as how would we know where we were going to be on this road trip. They said they would ring us if we didn't ring them, but we both missed each other in the end and if you find yourself in this situation just ignore it as nothing untoward happened. So we were up and running (or crawling given the New York traffic) and despite being a man down we were now on the proper part of the trip. Onwards and southwards :-)