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NY Snaps - and a little verbiage to boot

A not so subtle reminder that the USA is at war. By and large you wouldn't have known - until you looked closer. Every night on the news there were storys. At every airport there were servicemen in desert camo uniforms strolling around with machine guns either having returned or about to ship out to Iraq. The recruiting station pictured is in the middle of Times Square - multi multi million dollar property - and perfectly positioned to catch the eye of teenagers out shopping or catching a movie. Pizza, popcorn and a 12mth tour in Baghdad.

We had primo seats for the baseball. And I found out that the seventh innings stretch isn't a passage of play - its an actual stretch as in you all stand up and touch your toes. Ours was accompanied by the YMCA.

These are the girls on the Brooklyn bridge - well three out of 4. Empire State top left.

New York New York

I'm going to try to get this down while its relatively fresh. Between time passing, jet lag and alcohol induced malaise I'm already starting to forget the finer details - and it was the details that made the trip so great.

Scott and I flew out from Heathrow on American Airlines and proceeded to demolish a bottle of Jack Daniels. Being wily coyotes we surrepticiously kept the bottle out of sight, the only give away was the girl like twittering echoing around the cabin originating from our shiny, ruby red faces. We were mighty proud of ourselves at fooling the AA stewardesses and saving ourselves a fist full of dollars - beers cost $5 ea. Mighty proud indeed until one of said stewardesses found the empty JDs bottle in the bottom of a clean sack I had purloined from the galley and reminded us that under US federal law it was an offense to drink duty free on a plane and that as well as reporting our felony to the captain (who would be mentioning us in his report) we may be liable for a $1500 fine to be paid at customs.

So it was somewhat sheepishly that Scott and I slinked off flight 49 to the unapproving sidelong glances of the cabin crew. By this time I had pretty much resigned myself to not only the fine but also a protracted cavity search (Scott may even have been looking forward to it). I had heard American customs cut no slack, they were at war goddammit and infiltrators like us were to be rooted out, fingered and made to fell the might of Uncle SAM. In the line though we quickly decided to ham it up a bit - how could it hurt? Our feeble humour (at the expense of Canada) went down a treat with a Rocky Balboa lookalike customs official who looked us up and down and in a thick brooklyn accent said

'heh, youse guys are kinda funny - go straight trew' then yelled to the several men with machines guns - 'yo dese guys are VIPs - let em trew' - and with that we jumped in a yellow cab and whisked through the dark, dark Queens night toward the lights of Manhattan island.

The cab ride in was breath taking - the buildings towered over the road in an endless series of flourescent canyons stretching beyond reason. We got dumped not far from Times Square and in our enebriated states managed to find 47th street and the Portland Hotel. Its difficult to describe the sensory overload of trudging across Times Square at 1am - street performers banging drums - with a belly full of bourbon and fuzzy sleep deprived eyes. Suffice to say it was very special indeed.

The next day we got up super early (about 6am) due to the time difference and hit the streets to be met by thousands of scantily clad women taking part in a charity run throught Times Sq. Reluctantly we pushed on to the Empire State and beat the crowds to be one of the first on top. As cheesey as I thought it would be it was one of the highlights of the trip - the audio guide really set the scene and we got a sense of the city growing out then up, up, up.

That night was a bit blurry for me - we met some friends and had a great dinner but my hangover and the jet lag hit me hard. However next day was Yankees day - and that was one of of the all time great party days this little Savage has ever had.

Yankee stadium is up in the Bronx - a short subway ride away. Matt and Kristin joined Scott and I at the Rockefeller centre and we beelined for the the Bronx. We arrived - bought hotdogs and giant foam Yankee fingers and set about polishing off as many beers as possible. The sun beat down upon us and the innings passed by in a dreamy fashion - I was paying more attention to the vendors who were running along the bleachers yelling for people to

"get ya hot dawgs, fi dollas"

"Beer, beer, cold beer"

"Peanuts, bags a peanuts"

It was just as I imagined but better - the vendors were very friendly and very mad. One giant black dude took a shine to Scotty and started yelling out the names of all the players and their numbers to impress him. He had some kind of cleft palate though and ended up spitting all over the beers he was trying to sell - I got a video here.

The game ended 2-0 to the Yankees. Seattle had tried hard but NY won the day. As the crowd dispersed they started playing New York New York on the loud speaker system. We put our hearts into it, and they must have heard us because they played it again, and again ... and again. I never grow tired of that song though and it gave me an excuse to grab a lovely young american girl and do the can-can repeatedly.

We were ejected by the security staff on the 5th rendition of New York New York. This gave me the opportunity to spend $100 in the Yankees shop. You can see my pink Yankees bat in the photos. Before leaving the Bronx we stopped in at a baseball bar across the road from the stadium - the beers flowed freely but we started getting funny looks from a group of latinos standing by the bar. We were breaking into a dance fever, busting out classic kiwi manouvers and generally causing mayhem. One of the group at the bar decided he'd had enough and challenged us to a step off. He threw down the gaunlet with a brisk two step followed by a jack hammer mime. Being the drunkest I accepted the challenge and broke loose with a running slide the length of the dance floor followed by white man gyrations and a hand stand. Knowing he couldn't possibly compete with a comedy act the Latino guy threw in the towl. Somehow we managed to convince a group of girls to give us their numbers for later on then we left - shakily and headed back to Times Sq.

That night we met the girls at Hard Rock Cafe then took the wildest taxi ride I've ever experienced downtown. We had 2 cabs worth of party people so naturally gave the old classic 'follow that cab' to both drivers. They drove like 2 bats out of hell - swerving into impossible gaps - throwing us around the shiney vinyl seats like greased chipmunks on an icy rail. Somehow we made it to the bar alive - Hogs and Heffas, apparently a NY institution. It was a bit quiet but that didn't stop the bar tenders (all hot girls dressed in leather) from dancing on the bar and hollering abuse at all the punters. A good but very messy night - Scott and I had forgotten dinner and the girls insisted on tequila shots.

Next day was rough - we walked around aimlessly - visted the natural history museum but ultimately gave in to the hangover and fell asleep in central park.