Check them out here!

That’s all for this update, other than to say that a) New York sucks in the rain (didn’t really do anything last night other than go to a restaurant called Josies, which served very tasty organic food), b) New York is great in the sunshine, c) Central Park is LOVELY, d) the CNN tour is being stopped in December because it’s a bit shit and content free, e) the “Tuck Shop” cyber cafe is great (we’re here now).

Anyway, yes, check the photos out!

Y’all have a good one, now,

Squage

Not as much as getting up at 4am, but it sucks anyway.

Yep, today the heavens opened at about 7am and it’s not stopped chucking it down in the Big Apple since.

Still, that’s not stopped Pat and I having a good wander and finding indoory things to do. I’ll come onto that in a sec… first to fill you in on the last day or so:

Note: Pat’s managed to find the one net cafe in NYC that doesn’t have computers with USB ports so for the purposes of this blog entry, please just imagine that the pictures I’m describing are there. Ta

Yesterday afternoon Pat and I wandered to Grand Central station, which was really quite amazing in its size:

[Here I am in Grand Central station – the main concorse. Yet again you *might* not be able to guess the country we’re in… ;-)]

Breathtaking, huh? (Work with me on this)

After wandering around the main bit we wandered downstairs to the food court, which is as far a cry from, say, Liverpool Street station’s 2 pasty shops and a Maccy Dees. This was a biiiig room with loads of chairs +tables in the centre, with catering outlets taking up every bit of wall space – and wow, what a selection. Just about every type of food you could imagine.

On Stu B’s advice, Pat grabbed a massive slice of a Junior’s cheese cake. I’m told it was, to coin a phrase of Graham “Croc” McGibbon – Gooooooooood.

Anyway after that we went on a wander around the streets, Pat having to stop occasionally to lean against something as the Vobble Radio show he’d been made by Bobince was too funny to walk to (I’m not even going to go into the features/fake ads etc, but let’s just say they were a) bad taste, b) sweary and c) utterly awesomely hilarious).

Bobince, Pat tells me you’re an insane man.

to cope we went to the New York Public Library and after some possibly slightly unnecessary storing of Pat’s bag (complete with me in it, damn it) in a cloak room “for security”, Pat read about some Japanese art or somat in an exhibition, some of which were apparently very early Manga art.

He’s probably now planning coming up with some stupid cartoon creation on the back of that. For shame!

By this point it was dark and as we left the library we noticed an open air, free to use ice rink, decorated with lots of christmas trees and accompanied by some funky New York jazz music… twas really lovely sitting watching people skating around, listening to the music – felt like something from a cheesy 80s christmas movie.

After chilling out (eh? eh?) there for a bit, we wandered to the amazing Times Square:

[The amazing sights of Times Square – check out that massive LCD screen!]

I wonder how much electricity the bit on the right must use… Still with me? Good

Went into the Hard Rock Cafe and Pat had a massive veggie burger and a few wheat beers (all of which were Gooooooood), and the lovely waitress (who was possibly the most helpful I’ve ever met… I thought New York waiters/waitresses were supposed to be grumpy!) took a photo of Pat and me:

[Pat and myself at the Hard Rock Cafe]

Blah blah blah something about an item in the non-existent photo.

After that, we subwayed back uptown to the hostel and had a very good kip.

Today we woke up to the sound of rain and angry drivers honking horns, and made our way downtown (via the subway this time, none of that crazy walking for 3 hours) and so far today we’ve a) grabbed a nice chinese lunch, b) seen a film at the MASSIVE AMC cinema at Times Square (for you Essex folk, imagine a multi-floored cinema complex with each screen as big as Screen 12 in bas vegas) – “Bable” – twas v. good actually, quite odd, with a bit of shifting around between stories, but I recommend seeing it.

Not really done much else. Went to Macy’s, which was as horrible as Lakeside, just in New York… and browsed some cool T Shirt shops (no purchases as yet though).

Anyway, must dash. Some idiot in this place things that a lift music version of My Heart Will Go On is unfair for even deaf people to be in the company of.

Have a nice day…

Squage

Home from home:

(we didn’t go in)

Oh My God @ this one:

And the classic:

Heh heh.

Have a nice da-ay,

Squage

…I’m blogging today…
…I’m gonna tell you all about…
…New York… New York…
…
…now:

Hello! Yes! I’m blogging! (So stop moaning in the comments! :-) )

Well, what a couple of days. It’s been very surreal!

Starting at 4am yesterday did indeed suck, but after a nice Wetherspoons breakfast in Heathrow Airport with my family I was feeling a bit more alive (of course, the drink I had to wake me up (a caffine free Sprite) didn’t *quite* do what I was hoping it to…).

Following a rather emotional farewell with the folks (it rather sunk in on saying goodbye to them that I was really going away for a year) I made it through security with surprising speed and easiness and managed to get a pint in before heading off onto the plane.

The plane journey was good actually, with nice comfy seats (I was on an isle seat with two free seats to my left, which was goodness), a bump-free ride and Talledega Nights, Pirates 2 and 3 rather awesome (and in some cases piss-myself-laughing funny) Radio Vobble shows to keep me company.

Once at the hostel (via a 50 minute taxi ride (which was a lot less insane/scary as I was expecting – I guess my trip to Rome a few years ago means no driving is scary anymore…)) I unpacked and then trundled for a walk to Central Park – wandering around the reservoir (yep, Central Park has a reservoir) I watched the sunset over the New York horizon, which was truly lovely (beats Pitsea Oil Refinery by sunset – who’d’ve thought it?):

After a nice walk around there I trundled back to the hostel (via Subway, ho yes (old habits die hard)) and crashed out in front of the telly.

I was fast asleep by 7:30pm (12:30am UK time).

Today, after a 13 hour sleep I grabbed some food from the hostel kitchen (free food for the win) and started my epic trek to the south of the island.

94th street to south of Wall Street in 3 hours, via a Virgin Megastore and Tower Records (both stores I went in and browsed before realising I have no CD player or DVD player for the next year) and, ahem, Maccie Dees.

Amazingly, McD’s portions were about normal… although they were about two-thirds of the price in the UK.

Apparently.

I didn’t eat anything there so I wouldn’t know.

No.

*looks left and right and scarpers*

Anyway, with tired legs I wandered into this lovely Burger King (no food, just using the net cafe)… ready to go up to Grand Central Station, have some Junior’s Cheese Cake on recommendation of Stu B and go up the Empire State building for sunset.

I think I’ll use the subway on the way back :-)

Right, enough typing.

Toodles,

Pat

Pat really needs to reconsider what a “good time” to leave the UK is.

*YAAAWWWN*

See you on t’other side!

Squage

…

I’ve been busy for a lot of today, stopping for some footy watching and a nice couple of goodbye beers with James and Gib this afternoon.

Inbetween these tasks, I’ve been feeling a strange mixture of massive excitement, a bit of sadness and a little fear.

It’s really odd not knowing what’s coming. This is so much bigger than anything I’ve ever done and so it’s really difficult to contemplate. I mean: I’m not coming back to England for A YEAR.

That’s insane.

What’s great though is that I know this is the right thing to do. Where I was in my life wasn’t where I wanted to be and I’ve felt like I’ve been treading water for years now… so this is me doing something about it.

Anyway I’m not gonna waffle on as a) there’s plenty of time to do that on my travels and b) it’s 8:30pm, I’m knackered and need to get up at about 4am.

Do stay in touch – I’ll do my best to reciprocate!

Toodles,

Pat

…and I spent most of today recovering from last night.

Twas a great night (thanks for coming FFE folk, I really appreciated it!!), but unfortunately there were more than a few vodka-cokes, beers and odd shot things (cheers Mr Elliott… I think) to make most of today a touch delicate.

Here’s a photo of the hard core group who managed to make it through the bowling, meal and onto the wonder of Chicagos:

There were plenty of other photos from last night but I think it’d be unfair to post many of them online :-)

Anyway after a whole lot of packing, tidying and drinking water I’ve managed to get to a stage where I could actually go to the airport and get out to New York. Which is nice. Still got lots to do tomorrow in the world of PC cleaning up, car emptying and printing of documents, but I’m pretty chilled regarding everything.

Tonight we had a family meal out (the last one for a year – eek), which was really nice. It was a curry, inevitably, and excitingly (what?) Scuzz and I both sampled the true joy of the Celebratory Dessert Team – Punky and Gavvi:

Live the dream.

2 more wake ups to go…

Pat

…and I’m getting quite excited now. But it’s excitement with a tint of sadness, which was quite apparent at the end of last night.

Lev and I went to Bas Vegas for a nice meal – complete with doodling on the tables:

Following that we went to see a rather high brow piece of cultural “infotainment”: Borat.

Despite the second half feeling like it was just treading over the same ground that the first half did, I still heartily recommend seeing it, if only to sit in horror whilst watching Borat and his rather portly producer running around a hotel stark naked and staring in disbelief at a crazy Christian Gospel ceremony in Texas – where Cohen doesn’t even need to make his character do anything ridiculous to make the audience cringe…

Anyway, after seeing that, Lev and I said goodbye “for a year”… and as I drove off I suddenly realised that, oh my god, I’m not gonna see my friends for an entire year.

It’s really quite scary.

Anyway, another goodbye happened today – this time with Gary Steers (him from SGR Colchester fame) and Sarah Soon-to-be-Steers:

They got me an amazing selection of amusing and useful gifts for the journey… including a pack of cards with a lame – sorry, great – chat up line on each card.

My favourite is the following:

“Hello. I’ve got 3 months to life”.

It’s just so wrong. I’ll let you know if it works… :-)

Right, time to go… got some getting ready to do for my Work Leaving Do this evening!

Til tomorrow (whereupon I might be a touch hungover)…

Pat

…and it’s feeling crowded in the house with all the Squagés hanging around!

Still, Pat seems to be pleased with it so that’s fine. He had another nice lie in today, which was good to work off the beers from last night’s pizza, beer and quality film fest round James’ schweet flat.

Pat spent most of the day putting off going to Lakeside to get some more bits for travelling. Following watching far too much daytime telly, Pat watched series 3 episode 5 of LOST – which was ACE, thanks The Dave :-)

Eventually he wandered over to Lakeside. I stayed at home. I’m glad, as it seems like it wasn’t that great. From the random, confused mumblings I managed to extract the following analogy:

In Constantine, the world of Hell exists in parallel to the world of the living. The image below illustrates how these worlds appear:

Here are those same two parallel worlds at Lakeside Shopping Centre, Thurrock:

Nuff said.

Toodles,

Squage

…and the “not being at work” thing isn’t quite sinking in.

The idea that I might NEVER go back into the office again seems really odd – after all, I went there straight after Uni and it’s been the only thing I’ve known since.

I keep feeling I’ll be going back next week – which, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth.

Very odd… I keep swaying between sadness and a great sense of relief + freedom.

I suspect that’ll get replaced with MASSIVE EXCITEMENT in a couple of days… in the mean time I’ve been filling my time today organising myself and buying stuff:

That’s not including the clothes… I really hope my back pack is big enough :-)

Toodles,

Pat