Monday 14th – The City

Another day off, another example of my lack of imagination. Today I went to the city. The original plan had been to go down to Jones Beach, but as we woke up to find ourselves in the middle of a thunderstorm, that idea quickly went down the drain. It’s weird to think that the weather in the city is always so different to that on Long Island when it’s so close, but this was as true as ever today when we got into NYC to be greeted by heat and humidity that’s unbearable in anything other than a t-shirt and shorts.
Anahita and I got into the city after lunch as usual, and after looking round a few shops, Anahita run off to meet a man. I was left looking round shops and wondering round backstreets (a backstreet in America is about the same as a motorway in Blighty) by myself for a few hours. I browsed through some big chain shops like footlocker and GAP, as well as some smaller stores including a place called OMG. After a while, I decided that I really was not in the mood for any more standing up as this was all I’d been doing recently. So I spent an hour or so just sitting in a little terrace/garden thing that exists where Broadway meets 6th Avenue.
For people who don’t know, whilst the majority of roads in the city run in the familiar Milton Keynes grid pattern, Broadway runs diagonally across Manhattan (the result of a colonial trading route or something I’ve been told), which means that whenever it crosses one of the Avenues (the long north-south roads named 1st Av, 2nd Av etc.) there’s a couple of triangles of dead space that are filled in with these quirky little parks full of coffee tables and chairs. These little areas are perfect places to sit and watch the world go by in.

Anyway, after a while of sitting here, Del phoned with the question of “how about a film?”. This seemed like the perfect idea, as I didn’t want to go home yet, but at the same time I didn’t want to walk round anymore. However, I questioned this idea when I was told that we were going to watch Sex and the City, but on balance decided that it would be kind of cool to watch Sex and the City… in the City. Overall, I actually quite enjoyed the film, and it was fun to be able to watch it and recognise a lot of places that the film’s set in.

I came back home that night to find that my room-mate had disappeared yet again. My room-mate, Arturo from Russia, slipped off into New York for four days last week without telling anyone, before returning with his friend Alex who was labelled as gay by all the girls, and spent all of his time here with his top off, lying on Arturo’s bed. So when I came home on Monday night to find that Arturo had disappeared again, whilst I wasn’t exactly surprised, it was a little weird. I’m writing this entry on Thursday, and he’s still not back.Finally, it occurred to me that I’ve been here for over a month now. I must be having fun, as time is definitely flying.