New York, New York

Well we've been away from home 11 months today, at times recently it's felt like it and we've both missed home, felt tired of the constant travel and motels but when it comes to it, the thought of the trip being almost over makes us intensley sad.  The plan is to get the car back to the rental firm, spend the night at an airport hotel then head into Manhattan for the last week blowing a fortune in the process.

Driving into New York City is just the kind of experience I guess you would imagine.  A huge amount of "Jesus Christ look at that" coupled with abject fear of the traffic.  Remarkably we only get lost once and find our way to the airport hotel where we get a swim and jacuzzi (It's our 25th anniversary after all) and nice meal to get us set for a busy day.

We bid farewell to our lovely car Bernadette, after 70 odd days and 7000 and odd miles we've become very attached to her, it's a wrench to leave her at the Avis office and we regret it even more when we "saddle up" with our rucksacks for the first time since Los Angeles (Christ they're heavy) and head down into the New York metro to find our way to 7th Avenue up near central park.

The metro is complicated, mainly by the lack of bloody information and anyone to assist you at anytime (assuming you don't want to approach the gentleman cleaning his boots with a flick knife or the thirty stone black lady who is talking loudly to herself between taking gulps from a bottle wrapped in brown paper) However we emerge blinking into the sun on 7th and 53rd right next to the Letterman show studio and 250 meters from Times Square. New York City is just what it says on the tin. Bustling, Busy, steamy, noisy, siren filled, cacophonous (is that a real word?) FANTASTIC.

We approach the desk and tell 'em it's our 25th anniversary (24th actually) today and get upgraded to the 24th floor overlooking Times Square and just soak up the atmosphere.  We can look across to the Chrysler, Empire State and Rockerfeller buildings and see the remarkable roof scape that you've seen countless villians chased across.  Billows of steam pour from roof vents and the lights of times square are all very blade runner. One evening of our stay here we have a storm and it just looks remarkable, on Sept 11 they fire searchlights upward to mark where the towers were and its just a stunning sight.

Once we're settled we dive out into the streets and just let ourselves get carried along down to Times Square and sit at an outside cafe to people watch, this ghas to be one of the best venues in the world for that particular sport. In the evening we spoil ourselves with a bottle of champers and (unfortunately) a pretty unremarkable meal for our anniversary, but finish the eveninmg in a great Irish bar.

It hacks down with rain so today we buy and Umbrella and Kim starts out on her orgy of shopping.  First however we must have the "New York Deli" experience. UK readers will no doubt recognise that sinking feeling you get when having ordered a £5 Ham sandwich you recieve two bits of thin white bread that taste and feel like ceiling tiles with a peice of ham that you can read the menu through.  Here however your $7 gets you a garaunteed 1lb (one pound!!!!) of meat in a huge roll.  It's impossible to eat, you can't get your gob wide enough.  Of course it's accompanied by a huge bowl of slaw and half a dozen cucumber sized dill pickles as well.

The waiters, bar staff and shop workers have to be the rudest we've ever experienced.  Waiters in particular are incredibly curt given their reliance on tips to make a living.  It's great when they spend an hour ignoring you and or treating you like scum then write the tip THEY suggest you give them for it.  It's even better to scribble it out quarter it and scarper.

I've spent the last week or so growing a beard of sorts.  My success can be guaged when we go into a restaurant down at the Statten Island ferry.

"Afternoon ladies two for lunch?" chirrups she who's getting bugger all for a gratuity.

The shopping here is of course fantastic (if you're a girlie) I manage to get into Mannys and check out all the famous guitars but the real reason we're downtown is so Kim can push our rucksacks (not to mention credit card) to breaking point.  Bloomingdales, Maceys the lot plus gawd knows how many other places all roll by over the next week.  I spend so much time outside ladies changing rooms I get a police record.

Ever noticed how the changing rooms are nearly always by the ladies underpants section? Sure you can sit there for a while but eventually you need to stretch your legs, she's taken 58 garments in there after all.  You wander over to the knickers, have a look around, perhaps run the back of your hand down  a few of the silky ones, give the gusset a bit of a squeeze, before you know it you're moving in for a sniff when you catch the shop girls eye, she's 20 and looking at you like you're something a large dog just left in the gutter......"yeah.... well 20 years ago I'd have knocked you bandy darlin'" is complety lost on her of course, so I return, sulkily, to the fashion mags.

It would help a bit if we could have some decent bloody music to listen to as well. The Americans seem preoccupoied not so much with the quality of peoples voices but rather with the number of octaves they can employ in any given line of a song.  Currently they seem to be in lurve with something called a Ceiling Dijon or some such.  You'll recognise her voice (if not the blasted song) She sounds a bit like a jet taking off in the good bits, but pretty much every song lurches along to a "climax" that involves notes only dogs or possibly bats can hear, you only know she's got there when your spectacles shatter, I bet she hasn't got a green house.

We do all the sights.  The sad Dakota building, the back street buildings that all look like that Led Zeppelin album cover, ground zero, Maddison Square gardens, Shea stadium, take a trip out to Lady Liberty, the Empire State, Brooklyn, Harlem and the Appollo Theatre, Central Park, Wall street, (we half expect to see yuppies plumeting out of windows this week!) up the Rockerfeller tower for just stunning views across the city.  On the night of Sep 11th we take an amazing trip across the Brooklyn bridge and look back at the Manhattan Skyline all lit up with the searchlights firing straight up in place of the twin towers.  It's a staggering, utterly unforgettable spectacle.

We metro across the city a few days later as the rain hammers down and spend a fantastic hour or two sitting above the main concourse of Grand central station nursing a couple of glasses of wine.  It's possibly the best spot on earth to just watch people, from right up here we can look down on it all and all of life just unfolds before you, a wonderful, wonderful waste of precious time.

After a last frenetic day and night in NewYork City with a cool Brazilian meal with possibly the worst restaurant singer we've ever heard, it's such a sweet relief when he stops or a waiter drops a pile of plates! it's time to pack the rucksacks for the last time, leave 'em in left luggage and go get a nice lunch. In the middle of Times Square today theres a free concert featuriung scenes from all of the musicals currently on Broadway.

Those of you who know him will understand my nervousness when I learn that the show is produced by a Steve Meyer. For the uninitiated the Steve I know is not the most "stable" character.  Actually it all goes off very well, had it been THE Steve Meyer, at some pooint a wild staring eyed man in blood soaked clothing would have bounded on stage singing "F**K off if you can't be civil" nutted the chorus line and leapt into the audience wielding a knife. (bless you Steve mate wherever you are)

We scoff smoked salmon and good wine at an outdoors restaurant on 7th Avenue and ruminate on the trip like you'd expect at such a time, then we hoist the packs on (christ they're heavy) and duck back down into the metro.

Right across the city our airport hotel welcomes us and we swim and jacuzzi the early PM and then enjoy our last meal of the trip.

04:30 wake up call and at 5am -ish I'm lugging the rucksacks out into the hot sticky  parking lot to wait for the air shuttle.  Right across from me there's a car that looks just like Bernadette.  I've done it so many times over the last few months that the urge to wander across and dump our packs in the back ready to hit the road is so overwhelming that restraining myself almost makes me physically sick, my stomach knots and turns over.  How many times have we put our kit in the trunk, in how many motels over the last three months, got in the car and opened a map and said "where shall we go"?...... god only knows. All I can say is that the fact that here and now it's all finishing, after so much planning and traveling is just.......well I  can't put it into words.

The sugar coating for the pill is of course home though, and the fact that we can rattle on about this insufferably for the 10-15 minutes it will take everyone to get bored with us.

I hate bloody flying..... a few year ago in the States I got myself a real bargain on some red Rockport sneakers, my plan all along has been to get another pair, great colour they are, a very deep red...................

almost ruby you could call it....

Perhaps if I clip the heels together ......

........................."There's no place like home"

......................................"There's no place like home"

........................................................"There's no place like

..........................................HOME"