Let It Snow...

The first alarming discovery on waking up on the Monday morning was that we'd missed breakfast. The adjustment time we had needed to get used to the five hour time difference was obviously no longer an issue since we'd quite happily slept in. Alison had wanted to find the NYC Tourist Bureau or whatever it was called and as luck would have it this was only a couple blocks away. It wasn't much in terms of what we were looking for, but by venturing out in that direction we did find a Starbucks (yeah, I know, direction not really an issue in this respect) from where we were able to get breakfast and were served by a Ben Affleck lookalike and/or wannabe. While we were eating breakfast, it started snowing.

Through a bizarre mixture of accident and design we stumbled upon the Rockefeller Centre and Radio City Music Hall. The Rockefeller Centre is quite impressive inside. It's ornate and distinguished without seeming obscenely opulent, in contrast, to, say, Trump Tower, which came complete with its own indoor waterfall just for the sake of it. But Trump Tower was a bit further on.

Between the Rockefeller and Trump Tower, on our itinary if not geographically, was St Patrick's Cathedral. As Catholic Cathedrals go, it was average - nice stained-glass windows, which is what I always find most fascinating about churches - but otherwise mostly of the mundane. What was special about it was the way it was tucked away behind skyscrapers. Living in the UK I'm used to seeing Cathedrals and Churches dominate their surroundings. Here that was so not the case.

There was very little to see within the Trump Tower when we got there, apart from the opulent waterfall, and we ended up leaving it by a different exit so that we could angle across to Bloomingdale's. Using a different exit may not sound like anything important, but it'll become important in a day or two so tuck it away in your memory for the time being.

Bloomingdale's was, well, Bloomingdale's. Posh department store, bored me stupid, that kinda thing. It was the one place in the whole of New York that I visited when all I can say that I gained from it was being able to say that I'd been there.

We then struck out Northwards, in search of somewhere to eat and somewhere to buy a mobile phone, or should I say cellphone? A few blocks up (could've been quite a few blocks up, I'm really not sure), we found a caf�-diner with the name eat here now. So we did. It was good, too. At this point I started to get used to the idea of proper American burgers. After lunch there was much negotation between us on how much more time we were going to spend looking for somewhere to get a cellphone. Immediately after this negotiation we headed for Central Park.

We hit the edge of Central Park right next to the Zoo. Not much further up there was a road that headed into the Park, so we went along it because hey, logic, right? It seemed the best way to get into the Park itself. You're with me on the logic, right?

Central Park was designed with several sunken 'traverse roads' criss-crossing it, to allow traffic to get across the park without spoiling the views across the park itself. Yes friends, we trudged along the sidewalk of a busy road in driving snow across the width of Central Park without actually getting to see much of the park at all. I think it was about two thirds of the way across, if not more, before we were able to get out of the traverse corridor and up into the Park.

At this point I'm at a loss as to how to describe it. We wandered through Central Park. The Park was covered in snow, and for most of the time we were in the Park it was snowing. It was one of those special moments that doesn't go very well into words and that you're not sure you want to put into words anyway. This account of the AFT seems to have been a bit too much of a list of what we did and saw, and that's never been what keeping my diary has been about. I'm more about telling the anecdotes, and, when occasion demands, scrutinising my feelings. So I'll just leave Central Park to your imagination.

On leaving the Park we were both cold and needed warming up. Have a guess at which popular All-American chain we called upon to provide us with sustenance?

This Starbucks, as we'd started noticing with one or two others that we'd seen, had a "Question of the Day" up on a board. Today's question in this particular establishment was "Who was the voice of Darth Vader in the 1977 film Star Wars?" Not much of a poser for me, or for Alison. On providing them with the correct answer I countered with a question of my own, namely "How many Starbucks are there in Manhattan?" The staff thought the answer was around 200. I have no idea what the exact figure is. Anyone who does, answers on a postcard please to the usual address.

While in Starbucks we formulated plans. I still needed a cellphone. Okay, still wanted a cellphone, but as I am sure Anne will atest, in this context there is very little difference. Alison was looking for a new pair of casual shoes. I've probably omitted to mention this so far. Neither of us knew how to best further our cause (although I had some vague idea involving looking for mobile dealers online from an internet cafe if I found one) so we resorted to heading for a place of comfort and security. No, not there, remember we were already in Starbucks.

No, we headed for the Toys R Us in Times Square.

When we left the Times Square subway station we spotted a sizeable shoe store. Skechers, to be precise. Half an hour to an hour after entering this store, Alison's quest for a new pair of shoes was over. Opposite the shoe store, almost as if fated, was an internet cafe. Here I was able to, amongst other things, use the store locators for the two mobile networks that I was pretty sure would serve my needs. There were two stores (one for each network) that were only a few blocks apart so we figured we'd go and search them out later. Then we went for a look around Toys R Us.

Times Square Toys R Us is cool. It has a huge ferris wheel in the front of the store that is designed to call out to the big kid in all of us, just like the carousel in the Magic Kingdom at Disney World/Land/City/Island/Planet. It has three floors, full of toys at American Prices. For the most part, a toy that costs �xx in the UK will cost $xx in the USA. That's quite a bit cheaper. However, sadly lacking was the Lego Set that I had been hoping to get the chance to buy whilst in New York.

So then on to the cellphone stores. As we were navigating the subway system towards the upper-ish reaches of 3rd Avenue, we realised something. You remember earlier when I said there was some negotiation, which resulted in us abandoning the search for cellphones for the time being and heading into Central Park instead? One of the stores was only two blocks further up from the point at which we stopped. Bah is all I can say to that.

In the end I bought a prepay cellphone from Cingular Wireless. It cost the same as one would have done from T-Mobile, but the staff were a lot friendlier and circumstances suggested that things would work out better with a Cingular phone than a T-Mobile one. Naturally one of the first people I texted was Julie, my friend in Newark (in New Jersey, not in Lincolnshire - or Nottinghamshire for that matter, thanks Tarka) who we were hoping to meet up with on Wednesday.

I got a reply from her saying "Who is this?", to which I replied "Gareth, of course."

The next text said "I don't know a Gareth."

Arrrrrgh. I had the wrong number for her. This threw a spanner in the works, to say the least. Right now there was nothing I could do about it.

We ate in a chinese restaurant called China Fun. All of the waiters were wearing aprons with the name of the restaurant on them in large friendly letters. All of the waiters were also wearing frowns that suggested they possibly didn't know how to have fun. It was an amusing contrast of concepts.

Back at the hotel I took steps to keep this account of the holiday up to date, and was constantly distracted by the film Sabrina, that Alison was watching. This was the original version of the film with Humphrey Bogart, not the remake with Harrison Ford. It was a good film, but with the US quota of ads inserted at regular intervals it seemed to last forever. Still, it did have a happy if somewhat predictable ending. Awwwww.