The future is unwritten…..?????

This morning I went to the NYC fan club of Liverpool FC, which strangely enough is a bar, and they had this mornings game on. Being a minor game here there was only about 400-500 people there in a bar the size of a small front room, so it was quite close. The mode change during the games were fun to watch. As the bar was on the lower east side I wondered around there after the game. This is the part of the city that poor immigrants have gone for hundreds of years (for those who have seen the truly bad ‘gangs of New York’ you will have some idea of how long.) These days this means East Asia, there are whole street where there are no English on any signs I could see. There seams to be a whole lot of churches and fortune tellers, which is an interesting comment about poor people taken out of their country. I walked from there to the financial district which is only about ½ an hour. On Wall street there is a very nice church and Morgan Stanley seams to be doing very well. An interesting comment about the masters of the universe…..

I then went off to an American football game, this is a pre-season game between the two NY team so there was about 60,000 people there this didn’t quite full up the stadium. This stadium is being pulled down at the end of this year to be replaced by a $US1.4 Billion stadium right next door, which is smaller but has more corporate facilities so should make more money (It is covered in corgiate iron and they have just put a train station right next to it, wow what an idea if only someone else had thought of this.) The game was actually quite interesting, this guys are amazing big and strong and can run very fast. The most bizarre thing was at half time there was a group of US shoulders just back from Iraq. Lets just say the whole ‘support the trops’ thing is VERY big here even in the liberal blue states up here in the north east. It was very noticeable that most of the crowd left at ¾ time, to try and avoider the traffic on there way home. By the end there wasn’t many more than a Hurricanes warm up game in Masterton, but even as New Jusry seams to be bad industrial areas and a swamp it isn’t that bad………. (sorry John 1)

Don’t give me Kul-cha…up front with the knobs

Got up this morning and it was raining in New York, not cold sort of mid to late 20s. So quite muggy. I thought ‘you know I hear NY has some quite good indoor things to do’. So I walked down time square and then up to central park (I know this is an odd thing to do to keep out of the rain but there you go). So I then whet up to the Guggenheim, but there was a madly long number of people waiting to get in so I gave that up for next week. So I walked around for a while (yes it was still raining) and I ended up by the East river (that’s the one that doesn’t have planes falling in to it all the time). I then saw the UN building so I went in for the tour.

Very interesting tour it was odd to see the general assembly room, thinking of all the history that has happened in that room, UN trivia questions 1: name the two ‘associate members’ of the UN who get to sit at the back and not vote. We then walked though displays on some of the major Un programs like the peace-keeping deployments, UNECF etc. UN question 2 name the last 4 colonial powers according to the UN?

Answer 1: Palestine and the Holey Sea (yes they sit them beside each other they must have so much to talk about)
Answer 2: France, US, USA & NZ

Tomorrow is a big sports day with breakfast watching a game with the NYC Liverpool FC fan club and an evening with two NY NFL clubs out in New Jersey

Jet lagged in the City that doesn’t sleep….. (well not actually but I am sure I will get a good night sleep tonight let’s put it that way)

So yes I have made it to NY, NY. It did take a while, for those of you playing at home it was 33 hours 2 minutes and 22.65 seconds door to door.

Amazingly I did manage to be OK for 3:50 leaving home on Thursday, but as it is still Thursday for me I don’t know how do tenses for this. This is the first day I have every had with two sunrises that I saw and two sunsets that I saw, I have been on the ground in 4 time zones so it is a bit of a strange thing for me.

The flight from Wellington was OK, a bit bumpy going out. When the turn left came you could pick well which people are used to flying out of Wellington.

Sydney Airport is as dull as ever, and as I didn’t bother going through customs and didn’t have any Aussie Cash I just sat an enjoyed the sun.

Then the 14 hour flight till they re-fueled in LAX. I am so glade I got the emergency exit row, made this a whole lot more bearable. So more or less just sit around watching movies with a bit of sleep, but I don’t think I got more than an hour in one go.

The flight lands to refuel at LAX, I didn’t see LA at all, amazing smog even Americans committed on how bad it was. Then a truly amazing experience to make thing sensible we went though customs and homeland security at LAX. The first step which I have never done in less than about 3 hours before I had completed in all of 10 minutes, not sure how they have changed things but all good. I then had a customs guy want to go though my bag, but I realized he had seen my hurricanes shirt and wanted to talk rugby (no I am not making that up).

Then back on the same plane for the flight to NY, I am so happy to be doing this legg in a 747-400 rather than in some 737 or similar, Not only are the conditions better, they actually give you food, but even better these things go higher and faster. We noticed when we were going over Arizona and about 10,000 feet below us we saw An American airways 737 (soory I have spent a lot of today looking at planes so I am noticing these things) and we simply flew streght pasted them, this leg is over 2 hours shorter then the last time I did coast to coast.

I then got a shuttle into town, the women sitting next to me and noticed my hurricanes shirt (again not making this up) she tells me that she is in town to play in the US all stars rugby 7s comp this weekend, so yes while you lot are watching the shield match I may well be watching rugby in Manhattan.

Anyway I fell the need for non-airline food so must go.