010 - wed 10/05/2006 - new york

our legs were tired. the subway had been very kind to us, but we had seen a lot of new york on foot. long days of walking were adding up. we grabbed our books and headed for central park, which was much quieter than on the sunny weekend. since the weekend, it had generally been overcast with more or less no rain. i got through a big chunk of my book, which i'd picked especially because it was set in new york. the more i read of it, the less i like it, but i really liked the first book i read by this author so i'm going to see it through. its about a precocious child genius dealing with the loss of his father in the 9-11 attacks. if it sounds bad, well... its not handled with a light touch. basically it has the subtlety of sam newman. its called extremely loud and incredibly close. read his other book, its way better.

we wondered through a fair bit of central park. we kept the literary theme going by eating lunch - at borders. you know, the bookstore. we had been burnt so many times by bad coffee, we were beginning to understand the appeal of places like starbucks. in melbourne perhaps i take for granted that most places where you order coffee, you're gonna get a decent coffee. perhaps the appeal of starbucks is that at least its reliable, even if its average. that probably is exactly its appeal, which is pretty obvious i guess.

so then we went on a sex and the city bus tour. as mentioned earlier, suz has recently become a sex and the city nut so this tour was always going to happen, just like the letterman thing. the bus was, of course, mostly girls, so within 30 seconds of the bus pulling away from the curb the guide started with inevitable 'so how did she drag you along today' jokes and the 'so fellas, have you even seen the show' gags. she seemed to get it out of her system. the bus took us past a lot of sex and the city sights, most of which i recognised too, whilst playing scenes on screens in the bus. we sat on carrie bradshaw's front stoop. we drank cosmos in aidan and steve's bar. we ate cupcakes from magnolia bakery. we learnt a lot of fun facts. it was a good tour.

the bus dropped us off outside the plaza hotel. we walked down and took a photo of trump tower. money money money money.... money. some people gotta have it, some people really need it. we went in and had a look around. the man has his own fragrance now. god knows what it smells like - like him? we were tired. we grabbed something to eat, went home, read books more, fell asleep.

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