New York, USA

The original plan for me was to come to New York for Xmas and spend the day helping out at one of the shelters for the homeless. However upon looking at organizations on the internet that do this sort of thing it would appear that they were all fully booked and had all the helpers they needed. If I was feeling ultra generous I suppose I could have roamed the streets to maybe find a shelter that needed help but considering I had enough trouble finding motels in a big city I decided to leave my charitable Xmas day to another day and see what the Big Apple had to offer me for Jeebers’ birthday.

So apparently Jesus was actually born on the 24th of December and the 25th is when all the wise men and other band wagon jumpers came round. That’s why the Germans and the Swedes (amongst others) celebrate Xmas on the 24th. History over with, for Xmas this year I got 3 (count ‘em), 3 bottles of A1 Steak Sauce from Teddie. A bit like HP sauce but actually better. Our many visits to IHOP had cemented it as my favourite sauce. It tastes a bit like Frankincense, mixed with Mir.

After an exchange (of gifts you saucy lot!), we headed out to Central Park and Manhattan to wander around. The trouble is, lots of other people had the same idea. I honestly under estimated the amount of people I expected to be out. Don’t they all have families to be with? It turns out that this place is rather popular with the tourists around Xmas. I still managed to have Turkey though in some sort of deli. It was, however, possibly the worse meal I had had in 12 months of traveling. Yo Ho Oh No! (Not John Lenons wife you understand.)

Not a lot else was to be done. The queue for going to the top of the Empire States Building was 2 hours long and 20 dollars (the last time I went up there it was free and had no queue – this could be due to the fact that my friend with me at the time worked there and he probably had some sort of pass. I don’t remember this though), the weather was turning pretty shit, so went to the Rockafella center instead. I had the idea of me and Teddie having a romantic skate at the rink by the big Xmas tree all alone on Xmas day. I think I watch too many films sometimes and have my head in the clouds as when I arrived there, there simply couldn’t be more people. It was heaving. People queuing up to look at the massive load of people queing up to go on a very crowded ice rink. And this was when it was pissing down and freezing cold. Got the obligatory snap though:


“I gotta go wee wee”

So in a last ditch attempt I tried to maybe get some tickets to go see Saturday Night Live (as this is where the studios were). Unfortunately though you have to camp outside the building on Thursday all the way through to Saturday to stand a chance of maybe getting a ticket. Even a live incestual 4-way sex show starring the royal family isn’t worth that much queuing time so I decided to call it quits and snuggle up in bed. Xmas is about being inside with (and being inside – arf!) loved ones not being outside in shit weather in crowds of unknowns.

Not the best Xmas ever. More something that didn’t live up to my expectations. Which is kinda summing up the USA for me. Never mind, next stop is Boston…to meet the in laws. Gulp!