Ill In New York






Urgh. One thing you really don't need on holiday is feeling ill. Hacking up huge lumps of plegm is really not what you need. And any more detail than that is really what you don't need, so I'll back away from the subject at this point. Just one word. Ickiness.

When illness and ickiness ensue one thing you really don't want is for it to be really cold. And today it was cold. Our coldest day yet. -11�C. I forget exactly what that was in �F, but I don't really care, I'm a centigrade kinda guy. Also seeing Martha Stewart Living on TV in the breakfast bar of the hotel was not fun either. I didn't really want any Blue Peter style tips on how to make clever Valentine's gifts.

On my way out I swung by the Hilton to see the "other half", before heading to FAO Schwarz. This is a toy store that John and Julie had told us about the previous night. It's most famous for appearing in the film Big. It's not that big a toy store, but it is very cool. And on the way over there I found Tiffany's. You know, as in Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's actually tucked in one corner of the Trump Tower - the corner we kinda missed out by leaving through a different exit. I was tempted to go in there just to be able to say that I'd been in there, but I didn't. I figured it would be slightly better to save that for when Alison was with me.

As I said, FAO Schwarz was very cool. They have lots of big displays, big displays that you want to photograph, particularly when you own a digital camera and can delete pictures later if you decide they weren't worth the effort. Bob the Builder, Mr Potato Head, Darth Maul, C3PO, you name it, I photographed it. Sadly however they did not stock a certain Lego set either. Bah.

I needed to go to Grand Central Station, to go to a shop we'd spotted on previous visits there, in preparation for the next day, being Valentine's Day. On my way there, I spotted the New York Yankee's club house (ie, store), and went in and marvelled at all the funky gear related to a sport I had very little knowledge of. And I bought a baseball. Because hey, I may not know much about the sport itself but I've seen enough episodes of Deep Space Nine to know that a baseball lying around on your desk looks very cool.

So at Grand Central Station I got Alison's card, along with a little tin of kissing coupons (say whatever you like, I'm hopelessly romantic at heart). I also wandered around the main concourse with my camera by my hip, taking photos at random. Some of them I put on slow flash-less exposure with the intent of getting coolly blurred photos. I'm still not sure to what extent I succeeded, but I may share the results once I've decided any are worth it.

Since I had a small amount of time to do so, I called in at the internet cafe in Times Square to "check" on things, and found that we had our details for the hotel in Ithaca we would be staying in there. This was good, as we were starting to wonder what we would be doing for accomodation!

Then I joined Alison for lunch at the Hilton. Despite feeling really shitty by this point, I was still able to appreciate a particular amusing moment. As this was a Choral Conference going on at the Hilton, there were, quite naturally, lots of preppy American choral girls running around the hotel. We overheard a conversation amongst a group of such girls while we were sitting eating. One of the girls was talking about something and said "...and it irks me." She then laughed at herself for using the word "irks", saying she sounded British or something. Her friends also laughed at her and at the word for a while, and then one of her friends said "Continue with your irkness..." LOL, Americans are so funny :-)

After lunch I hung out with Alison on her conference stand for a while, then headed back to the Hotel for a rest, pausing only to call in at Starbucks for a tea and a cookie, because, well, you gotta. I had the TV on for a bit before deciding to sleep for a bit. The TV really pissed me off. The American media seemed to be doing its best to whip up hysterical fear of terrorism. Now, unless I've totally misunderstood the definition and purpose of terrorism (it's entirely possible that the American Government has re-written the dictionary in this respect when I wasn't looking), the fear of terrorism is where the "terror" part of the word comes from. You could say that it irked me.

I went back to the Hilton after my sleep, then did a Starbucks run for Alison (and myself, natch) since she was stuck inside all day. We discussed my irkness, and how it was also an irky issue for her too. There was obviously a lot of irking going on here. An amusing corollary to the irkness though was the rumour going around about the rumour going around about the New York subway. The rumour going round about the New York subway was that it was going to get hit with a gas attack that night. The amusing rumour about the rumour was that it was started by New York cab drivers. I'm guessing I don't need to explain the humour in the rumour about the rumour?

That night we had a concert to go to at the Lincoln Center. A number of performances by the New York Philharmonic of Berlioz's Requiem were being done for the conference participants. Since we were both participants (officially, even if one of us was only in possession of a pass in his capacity as freeloader needing to be able to visit his girlfriend at lunchtimes), we got freebie tickets. Yay for knowing the right people (ie, me knowing my girlfriend).

Getting to the concert could have involved travelling by subway, but the rumour could've been true - and more to the point, with the hysteria bringing down the passenger numbers, would you feel safe travelling on an almost empty subway? Think of it in terms of travelling on the subway late at night. It could also have involved travelling by taxi, but you try getting a cab when no one is using the subway. So we walked. It was only about ten blocks away anyway, as it happened. This involved walking up Broadway, which we hadn't really done at all yet. It also involved negotiating Columbus Circle (where Broadway crosses 8th Avenue), described by the Rough Guide as "a pedestrian's nightmare". Bah. It was simple. If that's their idea of a nightmare, I wish my nightmares were more like that.

We ate at the Houlihans opposite the Lincoln Center. The food was okay but the service was numbingly slow by New York standards. We were in a bit of a rush since it said on the tickets there would be absolutely no late admissions to the concert. Lucky for us the concert started 10 minutes late then. I even had the time for a trip to the men's room, despite being warned that if I went I'd miss it. Some people just don't understand desperation when they see it. And yes, I'm well aware that probably falls well under the heading of TMI, go figure.

Despite my heading pounding through most of it, I really enjoyed the concert. Especially the bit when the brass suddenly came in, when you didn't actually realise until that point that there were any brass there. Very cool. I even made an effort to wait for a loud bit to hide the sound of me blowing my nose, which impressed Alison (her being of a very musical bent). I found the last two movements of the work a bit weak, but apparently that's what requiems are like - the whole "oh no, everyone is dead" thing, etc.

The trip back involved a quick detour into a branch of Duane Reade (like Boots only scummier, and with more branches) to try and find some more Paracetamol, on the grounds that a) I was ill and b) due to a) we were running low on the "emergency supply" we'd brought with us. Small problem. In the US, Paracetamol is not called Paracetamol. It has another name, and though from looking at various packets I was willing to hazard a guess as to what it was, I wasn't buying medication on the basis of a hazardous guess.

It was another issue to be addressed, but it would have to wait for the time being. Bed was calling.







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