Chadstone, Melbourne Friday 22/8/14 5am
4am, Brooklyn NY, Sat 23/8/14.
The official day we booked our accommodation on line. Shame we arrived 5pm on Fri 22/8/14! Thankfully our host John had the apartment just about ready, so he met us with his sisters and mother in this beautiful tree lined street in the heart of Brooklyn.
http://www.housetrip.com/en/rentals/234837
Sleeping is a bit all over shop obviously after being awake for 30 hours. Long haul flying is the most exhausting thing you can do whilst sitting on your backside doing nothing, unless you work in the public service. LAX was surprising clean and massive of course. We didn’t have much of a break before connections so they had a heap of very friendly staff positioned all over the place guiding us to our gate. To put the scale of LAX into perspective, we flew from gate 150 and walked approx. 2km to get there.
Ok so we are finally here..a dream for Lynda and I and for me personally a life long quest. The caustic New York humour and attitude has always appealed to me as has the cauldron of different cultures, the architecture and art. It’s hot and sticky right now but incredibly quiet. If you’ve ever seen any Spike Lee films (Joints), this is it right here. Beautiful brownstone buildings, streets with every food imaginable and little grocery stores packed with every non-organic food you can think of. Driving here last night there are huge conglomerations of project (commission) flats, graffiti everywhere, condemned buildings, big cars with big men in them pumping rap music at “11” and all this offset by stunning African Americans at churches dotted all the way through Brooklyn.
We are in fact two of approx. five Caucasian people walking around this Caribbean Quarter of Brooklyn right now! The only white man we saw between JFK and Brooklyn was riding a bike, and we cheekily thought he was probably leaving having been chased out! There are a lot of nail couture shops where the women can get their hair braided as well. Last night we went straight out to get some food once we got settled in. We went to a Chinese takeaway which had a security counter similar to a bank! We ordered and stood on the sidewalk people watching. There was a bookshop over the road that was closed, but it had a TV in the window which had on continuous reel, speeches from black leaders and the sound coming from speakers out into the street…really loud! There were a couple of young black guys watching and it seemed a perfect soundtrack to the streetscape of Brooklyn. Everywhere you go there is rap music blaring from cars, big, expensive cars…and inside those cars are young men with an agenda! What that agenda is, I won’t be enquiring. Simply a case of “no probs Champ, good luck to ya!”
Most of my favourite films of all time just happen to be shot in NYC. Number 1, Taxi Driver. There is a seen in Taxi Driver where De Niro’s character Travis Bickle goes to his local grocer, says hello to the owner and sets about buying some supplies. Whilst surveying the fridges, a drugged up black man enters with a gun and threatens the owner to hand over the money. Travis thinks momentarily as to whether he should get involved, but given he is carrying a Magnum 44, chooses to intervene and shoots the robber in the eye. Not good. Anyway the owner tells a now panicky Travis to move on and assures him that he will take care of the bloody mess. After Travis leaves, the owner grabs an ice pick from behind the counter and proceeds to curse and strike the corpse in an uncontrollable rage. Those corner shops are everywhere in Brooklyn! We went into one on the way home and it was fascinating. There were shift workers, police, a drunk old man talking to me without wanting a response, and a middle aged white guy with a cane and the best Brooklyn accent accompanied by a couple of black mates and all three were definitely up to no good! The people watching here is going to be the highlight for sure.
Sun will be up soon and this combination of jet lag and anticipation is something I will just run with for a few days and enjoy it. It was similar a few years ago when we hit London so I’m not going to fight it. We have 16 nights here. The apartment is everything we wished for. Our host John is wonderful and is only a phone call away if we need anything, so all is in readiness. The Brooklyn Bridge is 2 subway stops or 1 mile walk from here so that might be first stop. That is…after I get my bag! Yes that’s right, I thought there was another reason as to why I’m in my jocks right now (nice visual)! My bag didn’t arrive so they’ve found it and hopefully will be delivered this morning. Anyway Lynda’s managed to get back to sleep which is good because she was struggling a bit. NYC no longer a dream. Can’t wait to get started. Cheers.
