Hockey, beaches etc.

I'm on the train back to Boston after a tiring but fun couple of days in New York. For a change, as well, my friend and I didn't just crawl around the bars of Greenwich Village - we actually got out and about and did (vaguely) constructive things.

I came in on the overnight flight - they call it the "red-eye" here - from my meeting in San Jose on Friday. The flight was via Los Angeles, which is another city I can add to my list of those that I've flown through but not actually visited when I really should do (think the others are Chicago, Denver and Las Vegas). LA viewed from the air is utterly vast - even as we were beginning our descent all you could see was a carpet of grid-pattern streetlights stetching into the distance in all directions (apart from the ocean of course).

So getting ito NY at half 6 on Saturday morning, having got as usual very little sleep on the four-and-a-half-hour flight, was not perhaps the best way to begin a fun weekend away. I went straight to my friend's flat on the upper west side, and collapsed in his bed (he spent the night at his girlfriend's) for a couple of hours. Breakfast at midday was a slice of pepperoni pizza sitting on the swings in Central Park, which was eminently pleasant while we ruminated on what do with ourselves till it was a decent time to start drinking. It was a gorgeous autumn day, so we wanted to do something outdoors-y rather than go to a gallery or similar, so we decided to go to the beach. We got on a train at Penn station and rode out on the Long Island Railroad to the nearest beach that looked promising, which was Long Beach. Long Beach wasn't a particularly exciting town, but the beach was very nice indeed - acres of fine (clean!) white sand, deserted but for the occasional jogger or dog-walker. The sea front wasn't much to look at (and was pretty shut down), but if this is anything to go by, then places like the Hamptons further up the coast must be beautiful places to spent the summer.

After that it was back to Long Beach town for yet more slices of pizza. Next stop was an ice hockey match. We had wanted to go to a baseball game, but the season was over. Failing that, a basketball game, but the Knicks were playing away, so ice hockey it was - the New York Islanders v the Carolina Hurricanes. The arena was absolutely in the middle of nowhere - we had to get a 10 minute taxi ride from the closest train station, and we mis-judged the timing so that we arrived mid-way through the second period. I'd never really paid much attention to ice hocky before, but it was a really fun game to watch, and the basic rules obvious enough to begin enjoying it straight away (get the puck in the back of the opponent's net). While the scoring rate is low, the game is very fast and end-to-end, like basketball, and the skill of the skaters is really very impressive. It's a very odd and compelling combination of grace and violence - players will glide beautifully around the rink, dribbling the puck and fluidly passing to their teammates, before being uncerimoniously shoulder barged into oblivion by an opposing player. We only saw one actual fight though.

Unfortunately our grasp of the rules did not extend to the playing time - I was under the impression there were 4 quarters, so at the end of the 3rd "period" we slipped out for a cheeky cigarette. A couple of minutes later, everyone came streaming out and we realized we'd missed the final passage of play, which was a little silly. Lots of fun though - I think I could get into hockey.

Getting back to Manhattan proved a trial - there were no taxi ranks or bus stops at the stadium, and every offical looking person we asked about same looked at us blankly, clearly not comprehending why anyone would contemplate going there unaided by a car. The lights of a Marriott hotel were not far away though, so we trudged across the car park and were able to order a taxi there, which took us back to Manhattan after we decided we really couldn't be arsed waiting an hour for a train. The Long Island cabbie really didn't know his way around Manhattan unforunately, so it was left to us to navigate him from the Brooklyn bridge up to the upper west side. You'd think with the numbered grid system it'd be fairly easy to pick up, but no. He really didn't get it, and ended up getting a pretty meagre tip by American standards.

From there, given that it was a Saturday night and we'd been such good chaps so far, we went to a couple of bars to finish with. The second had one of those very exuberant and flirty (and drunk) barmaids that you get over here. She ID'd me, and looked at my passport;

She: "What happened?"

Me: "What do you mean?"

She: "Your passport photo is really good looking - what happened?"

Me: (Chastened) "I was only 16 - it's been a couple of years"

She then made me retrieve the passport from her bra, which was a little embarassing. We did get some free shots for it though.

Today was rather less eventful - we went to see an American Football game in a bar with some American friends. It was the first time I'd ever enjoyed watching the sport - probably because I was with people who cared about the result, and so I cared by proxy.

It looks like this week I won't need to venture from Boston, which will be a nice change. I need to sort out a Halloween costume for Friday, though it doesn't necessarily need to be scary here. The girl who invited me suggested I go as James Bond, which is easy but boring. Others have suggested Austin Powers or David Beckham, clearly going for the British thing. Any ideaas welcome...