We had a pretty uneventful flight. 7 odd hours, 3445 miles and managed to watch Bruce Almighty, Anger Management and the start of the Italian job. Mx had arranged a transfer for us to the hostel, which actually was bloody useful, coz I couldn't get my bearings and the road and freeway structure was a complete bloody mystery to me.
The drive from JFK took us through Queens, which looked like a bit of a shithole (understatement), but there were kids out playing games of Cricket and football (our kind, the proper one).
As we closed in on Manhatten the awesome skyline started to loom large. The traffic on a sunday afternoon was mayhem, god knows what it would be like at rush hour.
We arrived at the hostel, which appeared to be in a nicer area of town (we'd driven through some real holes). The first thing that struck me was the smell. It smelt worse than boarding school, bearing in mind I shared a dorm with 19 others teenage boys, that's pretty bad.
It's fair to say that it's no palace, but it is bearable and I've stayed in worse places. We are sharing a dorm with 2 other blokes, 1 English the other Korean. The hostel has all the facilities, it's just whether you can get them to work. The atmosphere is vibrant and the other people seem nice.
My first impression of NYC is that it didn't disappoint or surprise. It's exactly like the TV. Traffic mayhem, Yellow cabs everywhere, construction workers chatting in their yank accents, Traffic cops, Shoe shine men, ethnically very diverse and all this to the backdrop of a spectacular skyline.
It's fair to say that I wanna do the sights and then get outta here and see real America.
