WEIRD

I was reading this on the BBC yesterday. I found it interesting that the correspondent found the noise off-putting at times. When I finally landed in my beloved Manhattan after years of longing to go, the two things I found surprising, because they had not been obvious from seeing Manhattan on TV, were the noise and the smell. He's right, you can hardly hear yourself think for the noises of talking and traffic and everything else - it is wonderful! It is so alive, it is jumping. You couldn't have paid me enough to use earplugs! The noise made me want to skip with joy! And the smell was mouth-watering. At ever corner I encountered another new and delicious smell as someone cooked something you could buy for next to nothing. I just loved everything about it! I felt I'd come home. If I had all the money and job security in the world, I'd be flying there on Saturday to get married.

PHOTOSTITCHING

Don't you just love the effects you can achieve by stitching photos together? I felt that Manhattan lent itself particularly well to this method of creating breath-taking panoramas, although of course I have used the technique back here in Glasgow too on occasion. I must try to use it for cloning too.

GROUND ZERO

I guess this has to be the final New York topic, there is no avoiding it. I had known from I touched down in New Jersey that whatever else I did I would pass Ground Zero at some point, not because I wanted to go like some vulture and see it but because I knew that wherever I went in downtown Manhattan there would be no way to avoid it because it is such a huge scar on its face.
I deliberately got off the tourist bus a few stops before it, not only because I didn't know how I would react to it, and I didn't want to be together with a group of tourists, but also because I needed to be alone with my only post-2001 baby when I came face to face with the scene that would forever make him different from my other kids. He was the only one born into that new world, the one that changed forever that day.
I looked at a rough map I had in my pocket to see where exactly it was, which street I should turn up to get to it, as everything is such a maze. I wasn't where I had thought. I was still in Greenwich village, so I walked and that was when I found myself at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. That was nice. I had expected to visit Ground Zero and instead I had this euphoric Brooklyn and back experience that probably took me over an hour.
When I left the Brooklyn Bridge, I didn't reconsult my map, I just walked aimlessly, figuring I would find it if I headed for the Battery Park. I turned a corner and came face to face with a huge silver station sign. It didn't register at first. I read it: World Trade Center Path Station. As the last word passed from my eyes to my brain, I became instantly as cold as ice, my heart seemed to be trying some how to escape from my throat. Tears started to roll involuntarily down my face. I looked around. I was the only single tourist. I was the only person crying. Others in groups of 3 or 4 were posing in front of the sign and smiling. I felt that was so wrong. For half and hour Léon and I quietly walked right round the site, just alone with our thoughts. One of the four sides had a wall, blocks in length just covered in the names of those people. I read the first 2 or 3 but it was too much to contemplate, so I thought of them as a group and not as individuals, just for that one day. It was the only way to walk on. From my skipping euphoria on the Brooklyn Bridge I suddenly felt a cold despair. I needed to get away from there. I walked slowly thinking: Why?

BROOKLYN BRIDGE

Almost finished on the topic of NY for now, you'll be relieved to hear but I still have two final topics. The Brooklyn Bridge being one of them. On Mon 9 October, as you know I was going to see Barbra in concert. I remembered in an interview years ago how she had said walking across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan to see her first Theatre Show had been what had made her decide to go into show business. On Monday 9th, it was 27 degrees, the sky was cloudless and I found myself in Southern Manhattan. What better day to walk that bridge?, I thought. I went across with few preconceived ideas. The bridge was not quite what I had expected. The pedestrian part was above and in the middle of the traffic and made of old wooden beams. Pudge's buggy made a really cool noise as I wheeled it across the bridge. As I looked back towards Manhattan in the beautiful sunlight and smelled the ocean beneath me, as I watched the little boats sailing out to Liberty island and Ellis island I felt 10 years younger. I found myself skipping with joy like a carefree child, instead of carrying the weight of my grown-up problems as usual. I don't know what lifted my mood in that way but I felt almost euphoric. I wanted to sing with joy. The Brooklyn Bridge had an amazing and unexpected effect on me. I'd recommend it to anyone who's feeling down! :-)

SMELLS AND NOISE

These are two aspects of New York that none of the films or TV capture. The traffic, the taxi horns, the many different languages you hear as you walk down the street and the smells that make the place alive: chicken, lamb and sauces being barbequed on street corners with noodles or rice, sweet nuts being roasted everywhere - cashews, peanuts, coffees, and pastry smells - delicious!

CHEAP CLOTHES

Another rant about prices: if I had known how much I would have to pay for T-shirts in NY, especially baby T-shirts like this one I bought my nephew Gordon (whose parents are lawyers in case you are wondering), then I wouldn't have bothered taking any clothes with me, I would just have taken an empty rucksack. Some shops were doing 5 T-shirts for $10 and I think I paid $2-50 for Gordy's T-shirt.

COFFEE, CROISSANTS AND DANISH PASTRIES

So here it is in Manhattan - large coffee with a bagel, just $1-25. So why do we numpties in Scotland pay 4 times that much here for the same thing? Today I was in Tinderbox where a 2-drips-in-a-cup espresso costs more than that without the bagel :-(

TIMES SQUARE - AN IMPRESSIVE SIGHT

I don't know what it was about Times Square. I assumed with all that hustle and bustle and neons, Léon would find it fascinating. However, for some bizarre reason, every time I took him there, 5 times in all, he fell asleep! Maybe he'll find in more interesting next time round.

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

I went into a chemist on 5th avenue an hour after arriving in Manhattan. It looked spookily familiar - it could have been Superdrug. The lay out was similar and the brands the same: pampers, colgate, ultrabright, snickers, mars bars, Rimmel, Max Factor etc etc you name it. There were fridges along the walls with cold drinks and packaged sandwiches, cosmetics, off-the-shelf painkillers and toiletries in the middle. The one odd distinguishing feature though was at the checkout: cigarettes - this looked really incongruous to me as a Scottish person, where basically smoking has been banned everywhere but in your own house or outdoors because of health implications - a chemist/tobbacconist combined - weird!

LIFE'S REGRETS

Straight after lunch one day in Manhattan I passed this place near Times Square. I was full and Pudge was asleep so I noted it mentally (everyone who knows me know I am more than partial to a slice of cheesecake - preferably chocolate, but blueberry or pineapple also cause me to smile a bit) and vowed to return later in the day. Imagine my disappointment when I forgot and only remembered once I uploaded the photo back in Glasgow :-( Oh well, guess I need to go back.

DRINK

Another astouding thing I found about America is how cheap everything was - the food, the drink, the clothes, the gas. WHY exactly do we put up with the climate here in the UK and pay such inflated prices? (Oh I remember, it is to get away from George Bush, isn't it?) But excepting that - us crazy Europeans pay ridiculous prices for cans of coke etc from street vendors and the likes when in the centre of Manhattan, this double-sized can of grape juice cost me just 99cents. So tall, it was like one of the skyscrapers itself, and such good value Léon and I shared 2 a day :-)

DELI FOOD

One thing I really loved in NY was those food places where you could go in and fill a little plastic tub (or even a big plastic tub) with everything from steak to noodles, to rice or mashed potatoes and then take it to the little park in front of the New York library and eat it at the little tables set out for that purpose. On our last day Pudge and I shared a tangy shepherd's pie, some mushrooms dripping in butter and various beautifully steamed veggies in the sun. Yummmmm.

APPLE UPDATE

Léon tried his hardest to reach them earlier but still couldn't so unless we get a ladder or a broom there is soon going to be a cider factory on dad's garage roof!

FIRST BAGEL

You can't go to New York without eating bagels so for my first bagel I opted for the veggie special: cream cheese, lettuce, onions, slices of tomato (or tomayto), avocado, sundried toma(y)to too - yum!

SOCKS AGAIN

Got you worried there - you thought I was going to rant madly about missing ones, didn't you? ;-) No - just thought you'd like to see the pretty New York socks I bought the kids - call back at my site in approximately 2 weeks to read the rant when they go missing!

LONE WOMAN WITH A BABY

When I was a student I backpacked all around Europe alone, interrailing, bussing, even hitchhiking (though not alone). No one ever commented - when you are 20 and alone it is ok to travel far and wide. Now at 38 with a little baby things are different it seems. Women don't travel alone at 38 and certainly not with a baby. The first to point this out to me were my beloved, overprotective parents - mum emailed after a glass of wine or 2 'why are you doing this to us - you are freaking us out!' sweet! :-) But it continued at the check-in in Glasgow airport - the horrified desk worker inquired if I was meeting relative in NY. No, I am flying to Manhattan to spend 4 days walking about taking nice photos of my baby, I intend to go up a few sky scrapers, eat some nice food and then hear Streisand sing! I replied - the look was incredulity. On arrival in Manhattan I stuck out my hand to stop a little blue minibus marked Airport-Hotel transfers, the driver helped me my rucksack and my buggy (sorry stroller) on and then waited with the engine idling. I asked if we had to wait till all 9 seats were full before going as only Pudge and I were aboard. Oh aren't you with someone? he asked - I was waiting for your husband! Then I went out for my first walk - I walked in the general direction Times Square, on my way I passed Grand Central Station. At Times Square someone stopped me and asked for directions to Grand Central Station! I gave them, having just come from there. A second person stopped and asked the same 2 minutes later and so the pattern started - 10 times a day I was stopped and asked for directions all around Manhattan because a woman alone walking the streets of Manhattan can't be a tourist she can only be a local! I was puzzled that the rules for men and women were still different even in the noughties but I was also secretly quite proud that I looked so at home, at ease and confident that even the locals assumed I was a local :-) Because of this I found Manhattan a wholly unthreatening place, I walked about even after dark, though sensibly, and as I merged into obscurity among the other 8 million inhabitants and no doubt several million tourists, I felt like I had come home. All my life I wanted to visit New York, I had taken 9/11 as a personal attack as if they had done it to Glasgow and not New York. In a way I was scared to visit in case it turned out not to be the home I had felt it to be from a distance. Dreams have a way of disappointing you, but this was one dream that lived up to and surpassed my expectations. In a way going there alone probably reinforced the feeling of home because home is the most obvious place to spend time totally alone. NY I LOVE YOU :-)

THERE'S YELLOW AND THERE'S YELLOW

The first thing that struck me when I reached Manhattan was that shade of yellow used for the taxis. Everyone has seen movies set in New York so everyone knows the yellow taxis just as if they had lived there all their lives. BUT what no one actually tells you is that they aren't yellow, they are more orange. Maybe it has something to do with the resolution used on US movies or something but they are definitely a different shade from on the TV. I think this photo of Léon with the duck shows what I mean - the duck is the colour the TV has led me to believe the cabs are all these years and Léon's T-shirt is the colour they actually are. Interestingly, although this shocked me every time I stepped outside on Saturday, by Sunday I was already so accustomed to them that I no longer found the shade disturbing.

FLYING ANGEL

You have to feel a tiny bit apprehensive when you are faced by 14 hours on a plane in 4 days with a baby sitting on your knee. A baby who doesn't have his own seat in the plane and who would much rather get down and crawl and play with toys etc. So I take my hat off to my flying perfect angel who sat happily all 14 hours, sleeping some of the hours and playing and looking out the window the other few, but without even one minute of distress, upset or boredom. On both flights the unlucky passenger who had been assigned the seat beside me looked suitably horrified on discovering that they would be sitting beside a toddler for 7 or 8 hours. By half way through the flight their horror had turned to mild praise for his behaviour and that again had turned to inspired congratulations, mixed with more than a little surprise by touchdown each time. Pudge was a true ambassador for the flying tiny people of the world. Well done Pudge (or should that be 'Way to go!'?)

CANADA

Eastern Canada looked quite different from I expected. It was very flat, very empty and covered in little ponds and lakes (photo to follow once the laptop comes back from the laptop hospital!) I guess I expected it to be hilly for some reason! It looks very pretty though.

AWESOME WATER

I fly a lot. I fly all over Europe, but that means I always fly above land. Last Saturday I flew across the Atlantic for the first time on a crisp, blue, perfect day. From Glasgow to Halifax in Canada took exactly 4 hours in total, the other 3 hours of the flight were above Canada and the United States. I was struck by the immensity of the ocean for the first time in my life. Before, I have often sat on the edge of the Atlantic or the Mediterranean looking out towards infinity but I have never actually seen it all the way to the other side. I felt much smaller crossing an ocean than crossing land, if that makes any sense. Suddenly the parts of this planet we humans control seemed small and insignificant compared to mother nature. It was truly an awesome experience.