"I wanna be a part of it..."

How you doin'?

So I am in New York & it's hot!

I arrived at noon local time yesterday. After the obligatory hour going through immigration & baggage claim I got myself on a train into town. I met a very nice couple from Rugby whilst waiting for the train.
Then before you could say "woah, there really is steam coming up from the street" I was at Penn station. I called Hyde (which now sounds really odd as I've been calling her by her real name) to forewarn her of my impending arrival. Then I walked through the city to her place. It took me about half an hour & it was blazing hot. It was a cool introduction to the city though & gave me a chance to get my bearings. I walked past Madison Square garden & the empire state building. It was all kinda surreal.

I arrived at Hyde's and quickly dealt with the oddness of seeing somebody you know pretty well but have never seen before.
I am still amazed by her apartment. It's way up in the sky & the views are spectacular. I'm sure I'm doing Hyde's head in with the number of times I've mentioned it. We hung out for a little while & went for a little walk round the neighbourhood. Hyde took me to Grand Central Station which was ace. Obviously I've seen it in the movies but the concourse there really is quite grand (pardon the pun). It's not Euston, I tell thee!

After some TV & sitting about, it was time to go out for the evening. We met the delicious Hammer & the three of us went for dinner. It was really cool & we spoke of many things, including some of the characters in our blog world.
We then went to the infamous Cheers where it was Karaoke night. I had a fantastic night, I met all the various Cheers folk that reader's of Hyde's blog will know & love such as Irish Bird, Pumped up & Thursday Girl. We were also joined by a couple of Hyde's other friends. Hyde sang Alanis Morrisette's "You oughta know" & Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a place on earth". She was great though I know that I have yet to hear her at her best as that sort of music isn't her speciality. I sang U2's "One" & Radiohead's "Creep". I sang pretty well & I got a wonderful reaction from the people in there. I was getting high five's from complete strangers, it was ace! Actually I have to say that everybody I've met has been very welcoming & super friendly.
Hammer left us but we weren't done yet, no sirree!
They were shots, there was the guy who peed on Hyde's hand once, there was a duet from Hyde & myself which was fun even if it was an embarrassingly cheesy song & there were several more drinks.
I was pretty wrecked by the time we headed back to Hyde's place. I had been up for 26 hours at that point though so I did reasonably well.

This morning Hyde very kindly left me to sleep on her sofa when she went to work. I woke about 10 & felt like utter shite. I had a smoke & decided to go back to sleep, which I did for another couple of hours. I went out at noon & still felt crap. I took a walk to Times Square where I bought The Boy some goodies in the biggest Toys R us I've ever seen.
I then wondered down Broadway a little & then hung out in Bryant Park with some ice cream in the glorious sunshine. It's been 80 degrees here today. I mosied around some more seeing the Trump Tower amongst other things. Then it was time to visit Cheers again so that I could watch the Leeds vs Preston game. Hyde came in towards the end of the game after finishing work. Then we came back here to chill for a while.
Tonight we are going out to get "fucked up". Wish me luck!

So, what of Hyde herself? She's bloody lovely. She's certainly a character & has an obvious lust for life. She is also clearly well loved by all the people in her life & it's really not hard to see why.
Right now I need to chill a bit before the night out. Tomorrow I am gonna start doing some tourist stuff & take some pictures.
I don't want to come home & say "What's New York like? Dunno, I was drunk!", do I?