Monday 31 July 2006

Hot Apple

The heat in this city is increasing. Apparently next week is a record breaker. I hope not. But, I'll live with it. It's better than being in England.

I left the building today, and immediately regretted taking my jacket. This wasn't California where you could wear it on your shoulders, this would cause you heat related pain by being near it. I struggled with the door locks for a few minutes before I got in, and dumped the coat and left again. I took the subway to Times Square.

I honestly felt like I was at the centre of the earth. I looked into the sky, and imagined the world looking at me, as it revolved around me. Henny does work for a lot of companies, and they give him vouchers in return. As well as money, of course, but he gets vouchers. He doesn't use many of them, and gives them to me. At the beginning of the day, I had 5 Free Extra Value Meal vouchers. Now I have 4. But these vouchers don't need any purchase or anything. I hand it over, they look, they give me the meal. This evening, he also gave me three Starbucks Drink Vouchers, valid here, Canada and the UK for any drink I like. Venti Java Chip Frappucino tomorrow I think.

I wandered Times Square. I wandered 42nd Street. It is just shops with massive rents backgrounded by skyscrapers. It's a beautiful shopping complex. An iconic shopping complex. THE shopping complex; where you buy anything that's worth owning. Like I<3NY shirts. It was a spectacle that had my neck craned for hours. I didn't actually do much. Or anything. I did a little shopping. I had more Cold Stone Cemetary ice cream, white chocolate with Oreos this time.

It was strange to hear English accents around me again. I felt no less like a tourist, I just felt less alien. I felt less foreign. This is strange because Natasha noted that she felt more foreign in New York than any other place. Compared to Osaka and San Francisco, I feel less foreign here. I do however, feel more remote. The friendliness of people here seems to be less. I'm not complaining, it's what I was expecting. And it's quite nice to be ignored in the hustle of everything. Despite the fact that this isn't my home, I feel like it has been, just for the way people don't tend to react. People are still friendly, don't get me wrong, but this isn't the West Coast. And don't think I don't enjoy not being ignored. It's why I like going to far away places and I cherish my accent when I do, but this makes a change.

I had a good chat with my family before I went out, and I am still eager to see them again, but I'm liking it here. My feet are throbbing and I have another busy schedule tomorrow. I'm going to see if I can get discounted tickets to Rent, and look for other, cheap shows as well. I applied to go and see a taping of the Daily Show, and I'm also going to go in and look for tickets for The Colbert Report, Letterman or Conan O'Brien, if they're available. I don't know much about the latter shows, but any live taping would be awesome.

I have vouchers for free food, and drink, and the subway is pretty cheap here. It's $2 to go anywhere you like. And it's not exactly the most pleasant trip ever. It's smelly and dirty, and people keep trying to sell you things, but I enjoy the 90% saving over a cab.

Henny took me to a Chip Shop, where we chatted and shared stories about the West Coast. I also finally ate deep fried chocolate. This was a deep fried Reeses Peanut Butter Cup, and it was good, but I'm too used to deep frying to come with something savory. I noted that it tasted like less-healthy chocolate. Which it was. Still good though. One the walk back I also grabbed a 12 pack of Welch's Grape Soda, a relatively tasty drink which Henny had brought over for us before.

I'm expecting every person who has missed me to meet me at the airport. That is, if Heathrow has the capacity to hold all of you. Oh ego ego. But I am hoping to see Becky waiting, and parents smiling as I walk in to Terminal 2 (it isn't necessarily Terminal 2, I just left from there).

If you are jealous of my location, I ask you to do one thing: imagine all the media that has portrayed Ney York City, and use that to pretend you're there. It's pretty much what it's like, just with the third dimension and extra senses and all.

Erin mentioned we were starting a new society. She's going to have to be a long distance President of the Amateur Philosophy/Capture the Flag/Break Dancing Society. Or APCtFBDS. Rolls off the tongue.

I finished Arrested Development. Fantastic show. I'm going to have to watch it again, with friends. But I did like how it ended. It wasn't typical, but it was very conclucisve. They couldn't have had any further seasons. Maybe a Year Later special or something. Speaking of watching television on the computer, I might finish The Life Aquatic, or watch Hero. And turn the air conditioning back on. I missed out on stuff I did today, but you haven't read the last few updates and I'm writing this for nothing you worthless reader.

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