Gone traveling,
Back shortly.A Travel Journal by Scott Hargroves & Heather Noonan

Hello people/persons/you that are/is reading!

you’ll have to bare with me, as my eyes are blurry, my muscles are achey and the room isn’t quite keeping still at the moment. No, I’m not drunk! I’m suffering a bit of jet lag and combined with the New York induced giddyness and delirium it’s all a bit odd. I’d like to say we are keeping this post short, but it is our first post since leaving and, naturally, a lot has happened in the past 24 hours.

So…where to start? We set our alarms for 5.00am English time and thanks to our very own Handy Andy, made it to Manchester on time and ready to roll. Some of you may be aware of my slight problem with flying….in Scott’s case, acutely aware (his ears are thankfully in tact this time!) In preparation for potential meltdown I had stuffed my luggage with distractions – namely chocolate, Flight of the Conchords and Calvin and Hobbes. Sillyness is obviously the route to a calm Heather. New York is the furthest I have ever flown and all preconceptions about flying (you’ve been on a Ryannair/Jet 2/Easyjet plane?) went out the window thanks to British Airways. On our seats when we boarded we found a blanket…each!… and a little pack consisting of socks, an eye mask, toothbrush and toothpaste and headphones. Score. I didn’t wear the socks, but I’ve kept them anyway – you can never have too many. There was a little tv for everybody, and, I had no need of the FOTC because the in flight entertainment featured the Friends Episode.

So, for the first half an hour – undoubtedly the worst part of any flight for me – I was in a smile-trance fuelled by the excitement of all of the distractions. Hurrah for British Airways! I’m sorry if some of you have already been on a long-haul flight and know all of this already… but you know, it’s all part of the experience!

The rest of the flight can be read like this: nice food, turbulence, nap, drink, film, turbulence, nap, drink, reading, nap, sandwich, music, LAND! We saw some big ass American houses on the way in – just like the movies say they are.

It was glorious. There were no clouds, the sun was high, and bright – we were ready for an adventure. Getting out of the airport was lengthy… but finally got to the security officer, MJ. He was cool, and signed my passport for me as it was my first stamp. Scott was unfortunately left with a scary Security lady who gave him the third, fourth and fifth degree. We all know Scott is the most suspicious looking person around, isn’t he? I had a mini mind panic, when I played out the scenario of explaining the Lush bathbombs in my suitcase. It’s just a Santa shaped toiletry, Sir! After that we passed some Customs Officers, who flounced the well signed statements of “We will offer all US visitors dignified respect, politeness and courtesy” and instead met everybody with rude grunts and demands.

Well, we weren’t going to let them ruin our day. We didn’t even let the con artist bus ticket vendor ruin our day. Or the taxi driver who took a 3 dollar tip instead of 50cents. Oh no. We’re in NEW YORK! Who cares? The bus was rickety, packed and hot. My earmuffs didn’t even get a look in. We passed the Bronx, where the houses were adorned in all manner of Christmas decorations, which was great to see. It took about an hour and a half, because the bus was also picking up travelers from other terminals before heading to Manhattan. The journey was quiet, and we got to see a lot of the surrounding city. Row upon row of Apartment blocks, factory buildings, warehouses, car lots, cemeteries… the cemeteries were quite insane. They were like a sea of stone, that went so far off into the distance that we couldn’t see where it ended, and went so far along side us that we were watching them pass by for up to ten minutes. The first cemetery was smaller than the second we, and the only readable plot was a grand mausoleum with the name Ginsberg along the top. It belongs to this Man. I’d like to go and pay my respects, but we don’t have much time here and it’s too far out now.

If anything, seeing such extensive graveyards was a very humbling (if a little harrowing) way to enter this city.

The bus dropped us off outside Grand Central Station and though we knew our apartment should be close, we thought we’d hail a yellow cab, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you get here. We’d had an email from the lovely Andrea, who is the owner of the Apartment we are staying in and she told us to collect her keys from the doorman. The Apartment is about 2 minutes away from the UN buildings and is a beautiful, old (very tall!) place. There’s a definite 20s feel. The actual apartment is stunning – you’ll get to see pictures if my camera finally starts to behave…

After about an hour of recovering ourselves from the epic journey, we decided to head out for a walk. It was about 6pm (or 11pm scott and heather bodyclock time) and we wanted to see how far Times Square was from here…so we got ourselves ready and I stupidly covered myself from head to toe in gloves, scarf, earmuffs, extra socks and a big coat. I thought new York was supposed to be freezing? In the lift down, we had our first encounter with a nice New Yorker… he said “come on guys, it’s not that cold!” with a big smile on his face and I explained why I thought it would be. Him being friendly and funny was offset by his Manchester United Jacket though… (thought you’d like that bit Matty. There is somebody in the building with a WiFi name of ‘LiverpoolFC’ so it seems we have struck up on an English football loving set of people here!

The nice man was right – it was mild and too warm to be wearing what I was wearing. Mistake noted!

Scott’s going to take over, as I feel I’m being too detailed and boring. Sorry guys!

Hello people of the world, Scott here. I can sum up our day fairly easily. Went on free tour. That’s it. ‘Nuff said. No only joking. The night was young still and us being over dressed for the mild winter New York is having right now wasn’t going to slow us down. We power walked for some reason (probably excitement) toward Times Square. I had buffed up on my navigational skills before leaving the house but Heather was greatly lacking in faith and thought I had her completely lost until the over bearing light of Times Square shone down on her like some form of god rays. We had arrived. It was interesting to see the energy it injected into us both. We were tired but it didn’t matter, we had some magic to consume.

Heather sniffed out the HUGE Toys ‘R’ Us and eagerly rushed into what can only described as a Mecca for kids on a pilgrimage to the promised land (of toys). Three floors and a massive indoor Ferris Wheel later and we had seen enough. It would be insane to work in somewhere like that, but all the staff seemed really happy to be there. (Heather here….I always thought working in the biggest GS in Europe was crazy at christmas time….you guys haven’t seen anything yet, until you see Toys R Us NYC style!)

We carried on up town and somehow ended up at MnM World. This place has “only in America” written all over it. I thought I would treat heather to a pick and mix bag that we will happily be crunching on for a few days. (Heather again… PEANUT BUTTER MnMs!!!!!!!!! The Hershey store was right next door but by this point I was getting dizzy and feeling some delayed motion sickness from the flying… and all of those dazzling crazy lights… so we’ll go to that another day)

We were getting hungry and the adrenaline was running low so we decided to grab a bite to eat while on the way home. We settled on a slice of pizza each and a massively freaky bottle of water (see pictures when they come) (It looked like the Holy Grail.) While walking back to the apartment we were happily admiring all the very expensive hotels when we both noticed someone dressed much better than any American man we had seen (Note: Sweat Pants, Fanny pack and a Micky Mouse T-Shirt is not cool America). After looking up (to see the Man whose shoes we were both admiring) and realising that it was in fact Jude Law we both turned to each other and laughed. It’s true, the British are generally much slicker than we give ourselves credit for. His wealth and fame might also have something to do with it…

So Day 2 is about to commence. We have had enough sleep (we hope) and we woke up at just gone 7am NYC time. After a bath/shower (and good use of the Santa bathbomb) we are now clean and ready for the world. Speak to you soon!