Today I learned not to assume that information gleaned from a 2007 New York guidebook will still be accurate. After taking a stroll in Central Park first thing and finding myself caught up in a continuous stream of runners – more even than on Hove prom on a busy day – and belatedly realising it was the Race for Life – I had breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien, where yet again I was assured there was wi-fi, only to find that it wasn’t accessible by my laptop. Being deprived of the internet, I resorted to scouring my 8-year-old guidebook and discovered that there was a weekend flea market on Canal Street – just my kinda thing! The fact that it was some distance away in Lower Manhattan didn’t bother me – I had all day to explore, after all. So I took the subway down there and half an hour later emerged on Canal Street and Broadway, expecting to find something bohemian and crafty like Camden market, but seeing around me nothing but cheap souvenir shops. There was nothing to do but ask – so I accosted the nearest cheap-souvenir trader and asked him where the flea market was. To which, inevitably, he replied that it had ceased to exist some years ago… DOH!!!
Walking a bit further down Broadway, I found myself unexpectedly on a very clothes-and-shoe-shoppy stretch - so what else was there to do than window shop? The only problem with that was that I would fairly inevitably succumb to the lure of the gorgeous shoe shops on that strip and end up with yet more fabulous footwear. Which is what happened. So there. ;)
On the journey back to 86th Street, I happened to get into a carriage on which ‘Gypsy Joe’ and a female chanteuse, dressed as wookies (of course!), were entertaining stony-faced passengers with ‘You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Wookie’. They made me smile and made the journey go much faster, so I gave them my loose change and initiated the applause at the end of their song. I do love a good busker, me!
I was back at the apartment by early afternoon, as I’d been invited to go with my brother, sister-in-law and nephew to the last New York City FC match of the season. This new soccer team’s home is the Yankee Stadium, home also to the New York Yankees baseball team (who fortunately weren’t there this afternoon as well…). I haven’t been to a football match since my brothers and I went to see Oxford United play QPR in the Milk Cup Final many, many years ago, and found ourselves unaccountably seated at the QPR end... Oxford won, but you wouldn’t have known that from our muted cheers, kept low so as to avoid antagonising the enemy… A tense game, that, as I recall… :-/ Anyway, it wasn’t a great match for NYCFC this evening – they lost 3-1 to the NE Revolution – but it was a great experience for me, even if it didn’t quite have the feel of a British Premiership match. I can’t quite put my finger on why, except it all seemed rather more orderly and polite than we’re used to in old Blighty.
Tomorrow I’m back on the open mic trail – but let's not jump the gun... :)
Walking a bit further down Broadway, I found myself unexpectedly on a very clothes-and-shoe-shoppy stretch - so what else was there to do than window shop? The only problem with that was that I would fairly inevitably succumb to the lure of the gorgeous shoe shops on that strip and end up with yet more fabulous footwear. Which is what happened. So there. ;)
On the journey back to 86th Street, I happened to get into a carriage on which ‘Gypsy Joe’ and a female chanteuse, dressed as wookies (of course!), were entertaining stony-faced passengers with ‘You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Wookie’. They made me smile and made the journey go much faster, so I gave them my loose change and initiated the applause at the end of their song. I do love a good busker, me!
I was back at the apartment by early afternoon, as I’d been invited to go with my brother, sister-in-law and nephew to the last New York City FC match of the season. This new soccer team’s home is the Yankee Stadium, home also to the New York Yankees baseball team (who fortunately weren’t there this afternoon as well…). I haven’t been to a football match since my brothers and I went to see Oxford United play QPR in the Milk Cup Final many, many years ago, and found ourselves unaccountably seated at the QPR end... Oxford won, but you wouldn’t have known that from our muted cheers, kept low so as to avoid antagonising the enemy… A tense game, that, as I recall… :-/ Anyway, it wasn’t a great match for NYCFC this evening – they lost 3-1 to the NE Revolution – but it was a great experience for me, even if it didn’t quite have the feel of a British Premiership match. I can’t quite put my finger on why, except it all seemed rather more orderly and polite than we’re used to in old Blighty.
Tomorrow I’m back on the open mic trail – but let's not jump the gun... :)
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