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Ramblings and photos from a fearful homebody on the loose

So here’s the rest of the New York trip…

by dodgyhoodoo on June 18, 2013, no comments

I know, I know. I’m sitting in Savannah, working on photos from DC, and haven’t even written up the rest of the New York trip yet.

Took the Staten Island Ferry. Obviously it was good to see Liberty, but for me it was actually more interesting to see Manhattan, Jersey and Brooklyn from the water. Having got to the other side and watched everyone else pile straight back on the ferry, I was buggered if I was going remember Staten Island as a ferry terminal that just happened to have a borough attached. Unfortunately it was Sunday morning, and the town of St George was eerily quiet (and the coffee and breakfast joints were all closed up). So much for that. Had a wander round for a few blocks though, and even when things are up and running it must have a very different vibe over there.

Back in Manhattan, I stopped for something resembling early lunch in the tourist trap construction site known as Battery Park: one hot dog, one small Bronx Brewery Pale Ale, $15. I guess you’re paying for the view (though that beer’s not bad at all). Decided I wanted to walk home over the Brooklyn Bridge, for that Cloverfield moment if nothing else. Slightly appalled to see a local fire station turned into a Starbucks…

Then ended up getting myself lost again having a wander round Prospect Park. (A) That place is actually quite large, and (B) wouldn’t it be handy if a single one of these map apps actually gave you a scale? Lost count of the number of times I’ve missed an easy way back because it was either way closer or way further away than I expected…

Another day, another day’s worth of opportunities to get entertainingly lost. I was heading for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then The Cloisters, but wanted to get an early start in Tribeca before heading back back to Central Park. Had to visit a fire station.

I can see how you could spend days in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and never leave the building. As with most places, four hours was enough for me, especially as I was planning on heading to North Manhattan that afternoon to see the Cloisters (also part of the Met).

I noticed on the way back from the Cloisters that the individual bus I was travelling in was no.666. True to form, the journey back was hellish – New York rush hour plus a southbound 5th Ave diversion around Mount Sinai. With that weird kind of luck I’m starting to get used to, though, walking downtown one block back from the diversion to where I thought I’d be able to get an alternative connection dropped me right here:

These things always seem to work out fine.

Coney Island the next morning – last full day in New York. It was absolutely perfect weather for the beach – blazing sunshine and a cool breeze. No crowds as I’d come down an hour before even the refreshment stands opened.

Cops on ride-along scooters, people. Respect the authority.

So, sitting in Brooklyn Bridge Park that evening, I decided to come back to New York for another 4 or 5 days before I fly back to the UK. Going back to the same digs in Brooklyn too, got a lot more to check out down that way as well as in Manhattan.

[Speaking of Brooklyn: for food and drinks down that way, I can recommend the Alchemy Tavern on 5th Avenue, the Brooklyn Bar(n) on St Marks Avenue, and Gorilla Coffee on 5th Avenue. Yes, they’re all in Park Slope, like I said I need to check out other areas…]

 

A couple of things London could learn…

by dodgyhoodoo on June 15, 2013, no comments

There’s traffic signs all around New York and Washington DC that make me wish London had something similar. For example:

– New York: Cyclists must always yield to pedestrians

– New York: Don’t block the box! Fine plus 2 points (not sure anyone in London even knows what a box junction is, beyond pretty yellow road decoration)

– Washington DC: Drivers must stop for pedestrians already on the crosswalk. (City law apparently.)

Boris is a fan of New York, right? Someone should get him on this…

I now return you to your previously-scheduled “where the hell’s your blog entry for the rest of New York?”

(I hear it’s cold and wet over there. 28C and blazing sunshine say hi. Apropos of none of this, the National Museum of the American Indian is fascinating.)

Gone a week already. Better catch up…

by dodgyhoodoo on June 15, 2013, 3 comments

Wednesday: Brooklyn Bridge Park, coming up sunset on a beautifully clear day. There’s a song going round my head that just won’t quit – you know the one, even if it’s sung by gremlins. The view’s spectacular.

Manhattan sunset

I have to thank my lovely lady E for this. Even before we got together, she had so many suggestions for things to do and see that I turned a couple of days’ sightseeing into best part of a week, and now I’ve gone and fallen in love with the place.

So much so that I’ve been too busy wandering to keep up to date with processing photos or writing any of it up… Time for some catching up.

After a day getting entertainingly lost and drenched to the skin on the Lower East Side (oddly much more fun than it sounds) I made an early morning beeline for the High Line,  a relatively new public park built on a mile and a half of elevated railroad on the West Side. It’s a great walk with some interesting views, sculpture and street art, and a couple of cafe stops along the way. Well worth a visit.

The High Line currently stops at W 30th Street, parallel to Penn Station, where I noticed that a quick trip north on the A Line would get me to the Museum of Natural History. So obviously that was me sorted for a few hours… And then of course I’m right on the doorstep of Central Park.

Everything looks familiar. Of course it does. At which point it hits me: I know that bridge on the lake. “Big strong man like you shouldn’t be afraid of a little boom-boom.” (Shame about Kastagir, but there can be only one.) Walking round this town’s like wandering onto a film set sometimes…

Those musicians at Bethesda Terrace are Tribal Baroque, check’em out. (I bought CDs then realised I don’t have anything to play them on over here. Oh well, they’ll keep…)

More catch-up to come.

Fifteen Sides Of A Square

by dodgyhoodoo on June 12, 2013, 2 comments

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.

Welcome To Freefall, Population Me

by dodgyhoodoo on April 12, 2013, no comments

So yeah. Somehow it’s been two weeks since my last day at the old day job. I’ve got 8 years’ worth of clutter to purge from my flat, a new love in my life, and less than 8 weeks till I Go On An Adventure. Possibly By Mistake. Hit It…

(At some point very soon I also need to get my head around WordPress setup again… Seeing as Posterous won’t be here in a couple of weeks. Argh.)

So. Lovely people of the Twitterblognet. Tell me things about where I should go when I get to the US. Here’s where I’m definitely headed so far through Jun/Jul/Aug:

– New York for a week

– Savannah

– Atlanta

– New Orleans

– Chicago

– Bloomington MN for CONvergence 3rd-8th July

– Seattle

– Portland

– San Francisco for a couple of weeks

– Indianapolis for GenCon 13th-19th August

– then probably a couple of weeks roaming Lovecraft / King country

I’m also hoping to fit in some Ansel Adamsness either before or after San Francisco (depends when my lovely lady E can fly over).

Now there’s got to be places I haven’t thought of. For a start: East Coast places between NYC and Savannah, West Coast places between the Pacific Northwest and San Francisco… I don’t have much planned off-coast, definitely not planning on visiting DC or Las Vegas, but anything else is fair game.

Feed me suggestions, folks. Send me places.

FEARFUL HOMEBODY REDUX

by dodgyhoodoo on January 9, 2013, no comments

So. Now I’ve done it.

Having sat on this since October in the hope that I’d be able to tell my manager(s) and immediate team all in one go (and naturally failing due to scheduling chaos), I’ve finally caved and just emailed them all to tell them I’m quitting the job, going travelling for a bit, and moving back down to Brighton.

Couldn’t stop shaking when I pressed send. What the hell was I thinking? The economy’s gone to shit. I have a full-time job and a flat. Why not toss all that out of the window, bugger off to the States for a few months, and drop myself back in Brighton in the autumn with neither job nor flat lined up? (The fact that I can actually fund this right now doesn’t get a look in, and Mum would probably build an afterlife from scratch specifically to haunt me from it if I wasn’t doing something life-changing now. But the fear doesn’t care.)

I keep stamping on that fearful homebody I’ve turned into, to no avail. He’s a persistent little fucker, with a nifty line in terrified paralysis whenever anything interesting but risky pops into my head. (Interesting but risky covers anything from faking my own death and running away to a clockwork wombat circus in Walla Walla to saying hi to a stranger at something that’s actually meant to be a social event.) Between that and the crushing depression that inevitably follows when I succumb to that fear, which to some degree or other is most days, no wonder I’ve sat in this cosy little nightmare rut all this time. Something drastic was required.

So it’s real now. Quitting the job, travelling alone for a few months. Take that, ye wee cowrin panic beastie. (Also: fuuuuuuuuuuuuck) Obviously I’ll be looking for suggestions for places to visit, good food, must-see stuff in the USA. I’ll be over there June through August / early September (based around SDCC, a fortnight in San Francisco, then GenCon as a basic skeleton). I’ll post up a very sketchy itinerary later and doubtless keep bugging people for ideas. But for now, I’m trying to remind myself this was a good idea and to stop panicking please.