Day 277 (Thursday 17th) - Clare's Arrival
I woke up in all my clothes, still drunk and panicking. hurriedly I managed to load Pat into a cab with all of our luggage, to only mild protests, and went to get the subway out to the airport. Due to one of those inexplicable quirks of subway systems worldwide, the train changed destinations at random, and I went four stops in the wrong direction before I noticed, changed trains twice, and went the right way. consequently I arrived at the airport at half 11, whereas Clare should have got in at 1120. Luckily (for me) immigration were very finicky about everything and took ages, so I was there in time to pick her up. The shuttle bus back into the city took ages, far longer than the subway would have taken. There was loads of traffic, we were the last drop off, and finally there was some big accident and the road was shut off. Eventually we made it to the Liberty View building, 99 Battery Place, which is a huge apartment building down by the waterside, just seconds from battery park, from where we can see the statue of liberty. Within this building is the flat that Julie had lent us for the night. We were all in need of a bit of a wash and brush up, so it took far longer than expected for us to make it down to the park for a Burrito and an explore - we wandered around the area for a while, and came back for a nap, which ended up lasting far too long - it was dark when we awoke, and the bedroom was flooded - something had gone awry in the bathroom, and there had been water leaking into the room and all over the carpet for ages. We called maintenance, who said they'd sand someone in the morning, and as there was nothing we could do we went out to a bar called Edward's for a drink or two, and explored the financial district at night - there's not much going on.
Day 278 (Friday 18th) - Exporing Downtown & Brooklyn
From Julie's balcony you can see the former WTC site, or 'Ground Zero'. For some reason we (well, I) decided to walk by it on our way out. It was, well, it was bug and empty, and didn't inspire anything at all in me really. Then again I didn't really expect it to. We walked across the city to the Brooklyn Bridge, getting hotter all the time. Clare didn't cope too well, as it was at least 35 degrees. She was not too keen on the idea of walking halfway across the bridge, but we did it anyway. Along the way we saw loads of enterprising people flogging drinks from coolers, and an old woman wandered by in just a skirt and a bra, much to Clare's disgust - she yelled frantically to attract Pat's attention to the spectacle. We found our way down to Pier 17, where we had some cocktails and then caught a speedboat around the south end of the Island, out to Liberty Island and back. All this done, we returned to Julie's, where we found that the maintenance guy had come and removed the soaked floorboards - oops - and we moved to Hotel 17, where we were to spend all the rest of our time in New York. Pat and I went to a bar called Still while we waited for Clare, and met a girl called Ann who said she could hook us up with entry to Pink Elephant, apparently one of the best clubs in NY. When Clare arrived we headed to what we thought was the meatpacking district where we found a cool Italian restaurant called Vento, which was pretty awesome. Devin rang while we were there, and invited us to come over to Brooklyn to visit a few bars. The first one had awesome decking filling the outside, with coved edges that one could slump in for hours. Angelo joined us before too long, and we moved on to the next bar - this one was also pretty cool, full of arcade machines all round three of the walls, around which about 80% of the blokes in the bar were crowded. The next place I shall refer to as the Skeeball bar. It was just a pretty standard bar, but it had a game called (as you may have guessed) Skeeball in it. This involves rolling a ball up a wee slope into one of a series of holes. I sucked, Clare was OK at it, and Pat ruled. Twice he topped the 300 mark with 9 balls, which earnt him a free beer each time from the somewhat surly lady at the bar. Next stop was a swanky little cocktail bar where we were joined by Julie (incredibly, as it was about midnight and she had only just flown in from L.A.), and then after an overpriced drink we arrived at our last bar of the evening, which was a quiet little gay bar. Devin and I picked up on this immediately, but noone else seemed to notice - not that it's important, merely an observation. here they did $5 PBR and a shot - this is a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and a well shot (house spirits in English). PBR is a very cheap, very American beer that I remember people drinking back in Hong Kong, as it may well have been cheaper than coke. We were all falling about by this point, to the point where when we eventually got on the subway (which runs 24 hours a day, incredible!) Clare fell asleep with her head against my outstretched fist. We walked home via a convenience store from which we got some rather rubbish paninis, and so to bed. We had been discussing plans for our Saturday all night, which ended up being as follows: go to Coney Island for the day, be out of the house and on our way to a rendezvous point (to be decided) by noon.
Day 279 (Saturday 19th) - A Cultural Day
Well, our plans evidently failed. We awoke at noon, and I texted Devin and Angelo to gauge enthusiasm for our day out at Coney Island. The response from Angelo was "Moving slow..." and I received similar sentiments from Devin. Instead we decided to meet them in Little Italy for lunch. We ended up being rather late (something only I was bothered about, apparently). We had a pretty good lunch, accompanied by much needed Bloody Marys all round. We wandered Little Italy and Chinatown, looked at plenty of odd stuff, Pat and I ate a load of Longans and Clare purchased a much needed fan. The others left to go about their days, and Clare, Pat and I walked through Sara D Roosevelt park towards the New Museum. There were loads of sporty things going on in the park, despite the incredible heat. The New Museum was pretty cool - it is a fairly incongruous building on The Bowery, looking as if it's been made by stacking a few massive irregular cubes atop one another. We had a beer in the 7th floor viewing room, which has wicked views all over the city, then proceeded through the galleries. I am writing this 23 days after the visit, so please forgive the fact that I can remember none of the artists. There was something in there I have never seen before - a living sculpture. There was a chick on the floor in one of the rooms, writhing (if you can call it that) very slowly in a supposedly preplanned fashion, as per some instructions laid out by the artist (Tino Sehgal, I have just found out - the exhibition was called After Nature). Also there was a room given over to the works of an Israeli artist the name of whom I have completely forgotten. She had some sculptures made by repeatedly dipping barbed wire in the dead sea, and some video art in there too. After the museum we walked through SoHo for a bit, via some really cool little clothes shops (Pat wasn't into them, decrying them as 'individual', which is Pat-speak for 'nothing I'd ever wear in a million years'). We had another date with Devin and Angelo, to see Barry McGovern in I'll go on by Samuel Beckett. It was great, really intense, funny and fast-paced all at once. Our day took a slightly downhill path after this, as we headed to a place called bar Rehab where a friend of Devin's was supposedly DJing. It was fun to begin with, but after a while this waned. I found myself struck with self-consciousness in an enormous way, as I fancied a bit of a dance but found I couldn't with Clare there. She is not a fan of the dancing, you see, and I don't think I've seen her do any in the last five years or so. Megan from the other night was there, looking stunning and intimidating, along with a Dutch friend named Anaïs. She was also gorgeous, and a good laugh - she danced like, well, like one of those irregular pendulums with hinged arms you get in science museums, which kind of flail about everywhere. She looked good doing it as well. Devin stunned us all by pulling out his dance training - Swing, Salsa, and soon to be augmented by Lindyhop, apparently - and became the sexiest man in the world for a while. There were gorgeous girls everywhere, although the place did have one detractor - the music. There was some D & B downstairs for a while, but by the time I had persuaded people to come and check it out it had been replaced by a distinctly average live band. Upstairs was just playing crappy pop and r 'n' b, neither of which were very inspiring. We eventually left Devin and the girls to it, and rolled home via some pizza, arriving in the room at 0340, ready for another sweltering day - according to the TV in the cab, it was 95° today and will be at least 90° tomorrow - the forecast actually said "no relief" which you can imagine cheered Clare up no end.
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