Sep. 28th, 2005

US... Eh?

Sep. 28th, 2005 12:06 pm
webofevil: (Default)
Aaaargh. America, land of bright shiny colours where nothing fucking works.

Sorry. I had to try and use payphones to make international calls yesterday. Won't be doing that in a hurry. Quite apart from trying to get the damn phones to work, at one point I went into the news booth in Union Square and asked the guy if I could get a phonecard to call Britain.

"No," said the man sternly.

"I want to call the United Kingdom," I said.

"... No," he said again.

I was laughing by this point. "So I can't call England from the States?"

He frowned, and thought for a minute. "Maybe," he said, and handed me the correct phonecard.

All this across the street from the man sat outside Virgin shouting threateningly to passers-by, "Spare a quarter for my MENTAL DISORDER?"

This was a far cry from the placid tranquility of Brooklyn's Prospect Park, where I'd been the previous day. Created by the man who designed Central Park, it's far more like being in the actual countryside; it's sunk quite low in the ground, so no buildings (well, maybe one) loom up around you and remind you where you are. The south of the park is almost entirely lake, which you can mostly walk around, apart from the most southerly part, which is fenced off. Only at one point does the fence stop, and you can walk up to a small concrete area by the water's edge, where someone has optimistically placed a couple of benches so you can sit and take in the view. Optimistically, because anyone prepared to take in the view there would have to be completely comfortable with being entirely surrounded by rats. They scattered when I approached, but a few moments of standing very still were rewarded with their reappearance, at least twenty of the bastards from all directions, sniffing and scavenging, mostly around the benches. I could see them scurrying through the greenery all around me as well. This may not be quite the tourist-friendly image Brooklyn wants to project. Apart from that, to be fair, the entire rest of the park is quite beautiful. I can safely say "the entire rest of the park", as it's not very well signposted, and I ended up inadvertently exploring the whole thing.

I have left my imminently-married friends to their own devices, and am now staying with a friend of theirs. His apartment is on 14th Street, along from Union Square, and the view from his rear balcony includes the Empire State Building. Amusingly, on my first night there, the view inside his apartment included a mouse. "Shit," he said, "I thought this was my first apartment where I hadn't had a mouse problem." I couldn't tell him I suspected that it isn't him they're after. Time to load up on Salvador Dali books again (second review down).

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