And then the cab driver says, “It gets worse, that manticore was from Queens!”

… What do you mean, what the hell am I talking about? Haven’t you been following – ah yes, you obviously haven’t been reading the blog posts I haven’t gotten around to writing yet. My bad.

So I’m off and away, and almost out of time in New York already. And I Aten’t Ded.

Photos are on the way. So far I may or may not have:

– realised that I have no sodding idea why I think I hate flying when I’ve had more aggravating journeys from Finchley to Holborn than the flight from Heathrow to Newark

– repeatedly proved that I’m a glutton for punishment in the form of Museum Foot (or just walking for miles and getting entertainingly lost)

– found several bars / gastropub-type-places I could call home if I moved to Brooklyn, which I could certainly get used to the idea of if I wasn’t already moving to Brighton (which, it has to be said, has substantially fewer stumbling blocks in terms of immigration law)

– got myself so lost I must have walked fifteen sides of a square to accidentally end up somewhere more interesting than I was originally aiming for (this seems to be my main method of navigation in a new town: have somewhere in mind, get turned around a dozen times no mater how carefully I check the map, and end up somewhere else I’d have wanted to go in the first place)

– almost bitten my tongue off trying not to swear very loudly on seeing the view straight out of the door to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s roof garden

– walked from the Battery to Brooklyn City Hall over the Brooklyn Bridge (and boy have they reinforced that baby since the Cloverfield incident)

– heard the £1 Fish song blasting out of someone’s car as I walked off the bridge into Brooklyn (I have no idea what’s going on here, half the crappy pictures on sale around Central Park are of One Direction, they outnumber Bieber)

– made a special side trip to North Moore Street, Tribeca, just to get a photo of a fire station…

– realised that the bus I’d taken back from the Cloisters was number 666, just as the traffic went to Hell thanks to something outside Mount Sinai Medical Center that closed 5th Avenue for a few blocks (looks like New York traffic needs as much of an excuse as London to get irretrievably snarled up)

All of which tells me (a) I should just buy a damn map already, not just look at the iPad and assume I’ll remember directions, and (b) things are probably just going to keep getting stranger.