We started our trip with stress. Stuck on the M25 for four hours it really looked as though we were going to miss our flight. Thanks to BA staff at Heathrow, though, who opened a separate desk for us and told us that once we were through security we could stop running, we made it. Maybe that kind of stress is good for you though because after the third glass of free airplane wine the LSH was quite relaxed.
New York is familiar to the armchair traveller. A reader or a film lover recognises it instantly. I am desperate to describe everything but keep feeling it had all been done before by writers better than me. I don't remember anyone describing the state of the roads, though, like those of a third world Country. Honestly, they have better roads in Greece (I haven't travelled much) It's all part of the experience as you lurch from bump to pothole, listening to your driver try to book football tickets while he cuts up every other vehicle on the road, punctuating his speech with morse-code blasts of the horn, smelling the steam that rises from underground (what is going on down there?)
As we drove through Harlem I kept thinking, "This is real. Kids really do play basket ball out front and people really do sit on their front steps with their enormous dog," and then the LSH reminded me that none of it is real by saying, "Men in Black!" I'm not sure what it was he saw but it was where the spaceship landed.
After checking in we decided to go to Central Park for the free Film Festival. Writers always describe Central Park as the green lung of the city, which has always made be question the health of the place that only has one lung but I now know what they mean. Things slow down a bit in Central Park. You stand a small chance of taking everything in and being able to stop to breathe.
New York really is a giant movie. The film festival was a scene from Maid in Manhatten. People sat on their blankets eating their picnics, pizzas and free popcorn, reading books, chatting, watching their babies crawl around and even the music playing was a movie soundtrack.
We stopped to take the LSH's first ever selfie.
The film was perfect: Rear Window. I love James Stewart and as it got darker the lights twinkled and bats flitted about and everyone relaxed and laughed and clapped as the film finished. The view from our hotel room window is a little like Rear Window. I just hope we don't witness a murder.
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