The bright lights of Brooklyn

Arriving into New york Penn Station was hectic as the underground access is the other side of the departure board for commuters. The hurried feeling was amplified by the pretty good latin buskers giving a high octane rendition of Mambo Lao (we only felt inclined to sing along once the crowds were behind us). I felt just like, and was in fact identical to, those annoying tourists I always swear at under my breath on the tube in London. I have no problem with them being on the underground, I just always wondered why they insist on traveling at peak commuter time, now I know it probably just didn't occur to them just like it didn't to us. Anyway I hope this is not the start of some morphing process - if I start stopping at the top of escalators to chat and begin using one of those air hostess bags with a pull out handle please get me some professional help.

Despite the station being busy it wasn't too bad as the underground is not as packed as it is London and the trains are actually air conditioned, something I was incredibly glad of given the heat. Again this is a worrying sign as environmental implications of city wide air conditioning are pretty mind boggling and something I am sure I have railed against in the past - lets just hope I don't charter a private jet home!!!!

After our trip to Delaware I am convinced that many of the cultural differences in terms of attitudes to the environment are a product of the vast amount of space here in the US. When people have such big gardens (I am talking out of the city now) and you can frequently go sizable stretches without seeing a house just an hour from New York it seems crazy to think resources are finite. Where there are landfills here they tend not to be away from anyones house - we are pretty backed in in the UK.

It also has to be said the people are incredibly friendly and lacking in cynicism, something I have found it hard to adjust to. However being just out of New York we have also only been exposed to the more lefty bohemian end of the spectrum here, a bubble that is not representative of the US as a whole.

When we reached Brooklyn we had an enormously friendly welcome, on exiting the underground a man threw up right in front of us on the pavement (no carrot pieces surprisingly). He checked himself out in a car wing mirror while doing this, probably to check he was heaving in a way that looked cool.

We stayed with some really awesome friends of the family (despite their slightly dodgy taste in hobbies - see below) and did some sightseeing the next day before heading off north into to NY state. We walked the mile across the Brooklyn Bridge, pretty good but crowded and undergoing some refurbishment meaning that views were only really possible on the second half of the bridge into Manhattan. This brought us into town close to ground zero, the old site of the world trade centre, which was about as interesting as any building site in London (not very). Although there are quite a few guys hawking photos of the buildings on fire - good to see an opportunity for commerce is never missed!

We also made it to trump towers for a photo opp though I unfortunately left all of my Trump dollars at home.

 Me and my mate Hans, the slightly dodgy hobby I referred to above! This mannequin was massively creepy, making you jump every time you came out of the toilet 

 getting back to my American roots

 Amazing twisted tower, must have cost a bomb to build

 cyclists on the Brooklyn Bridge

 Russ I wish you could have been there with me (can I stress that Fi is still alive although not in any of these pics)

first american mammal, City Hall (apart from dolphin in Delaware Bay)