Day 7 - Tues 21 Oct 2008

After putting off the one breakfast meal I knew some day I had to experience, I succumbed and chose the pancakes with bacon, butter and lashings of syrup; at first thoughts probably the most unhealthiest breakfast meal I've ever had although the most calorific! I don't even think the "goodness" of the accompanying banana made even a slight dent in the amount of sugar that was implicitly within the three-high pile of thick foamy-like textured pancakes that were served up.

However, it was consumed with relish but ultimately I completed the meal wondering exactly what the fuss over pancakes for breakfast is all about. They were edible, that is for sure, but I am not convinced I could eat them every day at that time of the day - though maybe they're a good hangover cure?

The American History of Natural History is the plan for today; the advertised 94-foot long blue whale in the Hall of Ocean Life is too tempting to resist; though if a meat-eater, I wonder how how tall the pile of pancakes with bacon would need to be for a whale at breakfast time to keep it from going back for seconds?

In the bagel shop, there is a tv in the corner at the front that is flicking through various news articles, political or otherwise. For some reason, the broadcasters feel that there is a need to punctuate the news reels with details of horoscopes...apparently my horoscope for the day reads..."Let someone bask in the spotlight a while. Sing the praises of other people".

Now, me...I'm not someone at all who believes in horoscopes and all the associated horoscope in any way shape or form; maybe because I've got a scientific mind? Who knows.

However, this IS the perfect time in my trip now that I'm well in to it to thank a few people whom without their input, advice, help and patience this trip would never have occurred; or, if it had, then not in the same relaxed "stress-free" way that it has.

Firstly, I must thank my mum and dad for all the help they've given me and the never-ending support they have provided - and continue to provide - for this trip, despite a few hick ups along the way when planning. My dad's selfless driving me to the airport on Day One where any delay on the roads could've got him in to trouble at work took away the potential stress of trying to use public transport to travel to and across London using buses, overground and underground trains; the time one requires transport to work as it should do for even a few hours will invariably be the same day when there will be a major hold-up - Sod's Law dictates it.

My mum; well what can I say; without her I would never have got packed or as prepared to leave for the airport as it turned out to be. Also, as I was staying at my parents' house the few weeks before I left for New York, my mum cooking good-quality food helped free up a lot more time in which I could prepare and organise for my trip as well as being a significant step up from the "healthy but slightly dull" food I typically cooked for myself when living in Reading.

I made the decision to go travelling completely by myself and I am still surprised to this day that at no point in time from anyone I know have I heard any comments questioning my decision to travel; not from friends, family, work colleagues, no one! Not that I feel that I need any "green light"-approval from anyone to do whatever I want to (after all, I've managed to live with only myself to answer to for several years since I went to University at the age of 18) but it is still nice to have left England with everyone's blessings and good wishes.

It's also made the path over the last few months since the start of June when I handed in my notice at work more straight-forward and stress-free so I thank everyone I know for respecting my decision to travel and providing me with invaluable advice where they could as to where they feel are nice places to travel to, what sights there are out there to see and experience etc; something I knew absolutely nothing about before I started planning my trip. I now know about (and have almost completed my visit to...) New York before heading off across the continent, at which point I will look back on the advice given from friends and family on that area of the globe to try and minimise hassles and maximise the time I spend there.

Given I have had a few years where I've been work-committed and with a "safety-first" policy, which probably translates to being in my own comfort zone of sorts. even deciding to pack in my job was something most people - let alone myself - probably never saw me doing whereas for someone else no one would've batted an eyelid!

To then break the typical circle of "leave one job, shortly after go into another job (probably very similar) job" and to make a relative leap of faith in to the unknown and to think "actually, what is there to stop me going travelling for a few months - I don't particularly enjoy the english winters anyhow!" surprised myself and once I'd got the idea in to my head I couldn't let it go - I would have always been wondering "what if..." had I not gone through with it. That I had a limited time period to sort every aspect of the journey out is neither here nor there in my eyes; as long as I had a plane ticket leaving England and a few nights' accommodation booked in my first port of call - wherever that may be - I was going travelling and that was that!

In executing the rough idea into a firm plan was time-consuming to say the least, but the fun is often found in the research; plans can always be changed regardless how much money (a lot or a little) has been paid up front.

That one of my close friends Liam kindly dedicated some of his own time to help me move back to my parents' from Reading where I rented a place was an exceptionally kind gesture, even more so given that evening didn't end until 2.30am the next morning - and poor Liam was due in work the next day whereas I wasn't! That him and his family have very kindly assisted me with another issue I needed to resolve before I left again shows his unfailing generosity. Thanks Liam, you're a star.

Finally, a general thank you to all my family and friends who I will miss on my travels whilst they are probably working in the week (and maybe weekends!) whilst I go and see things I know a lot of them would love to go and see first-hand too; I will try and live the dream for you whilst I'm travelling and try to keep you updated on this blog. I won't forget how you've all helped me out.

Unfortunately, after a subway ride and walk to the Natural History Museum and subsequently realising that as the Museum was a massive four blocks' long, I decided to visit another (smaller!) museum for the day at which my CityPass would gain admission to and give a discount on the audio tour; the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In terms of art on show, the following caught my eye; Yves Tanay's My Life, Black and White 1944 and The Satin Tuning Fork 1940 were more my type of art than a lot of other stuff on show, whilst there were two truly huge works by Stephen Hanning (Kaaterskill Falls for Frank Moore and Dan Hodermarky 2005 and The Oxbow: After Church, After Cole, Flooded (Flooded River for the Matriarchs E.&A. Morgan), Green Light 2000 that impressed, the latter being a contemporary interpretation of the Connecticut Rive made famous by another American artist, Thomas Cole, in 1836.

Something I have learnt in this past week is what "type" of artists whose works I like and which artists' works I don't rate too highly. As described in a previous day's notes, I quite liked Giorgio de Chirico's works and here in the Met was his The Jewish Angel 1916; compared to a lot of other works in the galleries in all museums I've been to recently this again appeared to stand out from the others.

In the Met was a Cubism gallery, within which although the works displayed (such as Pablo Picasso's Still Life with a Bottle of Rum 1911 or Georges Broque's Still Life with Banderillas 1911) detail (suuposedly "complex arrangements of intersecting planes, letters and fractured objects" I do wonder whether this style of painting was just an excuse to not bother with the finer detail that some of the aforementioned works have in spades. Though from the audio tour narrative, Picasso and Broque essentially had that particular style "sewn up" as their own, in that they were the masters in the style and could thereby push the genre forward in whichever direction they chose to.

Another work of "art" I was sceptical about was more to do with the subject matter than anything else...as it depicted a woman being burned alive, at which point (so goes some random story associated with it...) some bats flew over and urinated on her so as to douse the flames! How this can be called art is beyond me.

However, the Norwegian gallery gave me back any faith in art that I may have temporarily lost, with Jonan Christain Dahl's The Eruption of Vesuvius 1824, View of Dresden from the Road to Meissen 1822 and his Copenhagen Harbour by Moonlight 1846, the works probably comparing with Giorgio de Chirico as my favourite artist of the last week.

In the Musical Instruments section were two of the stunning few Stradivari cellos, one of which was the Piatidorsky-Batta from 1714, subsequently named after the Dutch cellist Alexandre Batte (1816-1902) who purchased it in Paris around 1836. Both very nice.

As time was getting short for another appointment later in the day, a brisk walk was needed through Central Park before a subway to the hostel and a quick turnaround down to Madison Square Gardens where the New York Knicks were due to play Boston Celtics in a pre-NBA season basketball match up.

Two hotdogs (the taste is becoming addictive!) had kept me going through the day and this was followed by a "Soda Cup" of Coca-Cola and a large box of popcorn as the evening food whilst watching the game.

Madison Square Gardens itself is quite vast, though plans are afoot for an upcoming redevelopment of this famous venue. As it was a pre-season (friendly) game with nothing bar pride and gloating honours at stake the stadium was understandably half-full but in terms of an event parents would be keen to take their children to watch it was by far and away a more "family-friendly" atmosphere than football or rugby back in England were but, given the lack of a competitive "bite" in the stands coupled with it being a friendly game the atmosphere was quite flat.

Any aggressive or inappropriate language or gestures are prone to get you thrown out of Madison Square Gardens whereas in England if that philosophy was adopted, there would probably be very few spectators left to watch the game!

Also, I wonder whether its the attention span of the American public being incredibly short or just another method to justify the price of tickets and to prise better deals out of sponsors but during the game there were a number of "non'basketball" events "held" during timeouts and at the end of each quarter that added absolutely nothing to the game itself but assists in keeping the fans entertained when no action is going on the court.

I have nothing against the Knicks' cheerleaders doing a routine at least a few times during the evening, but some of the other events I am not convinced about...

a.) Section volleyball; two sections of the crowd are given 15 "soft" volleyballs and for 30 seconds hit the balls back and forth in the air between the two sections with whichever section that has fewer balls in its area at the end of the time concluding in a free t-shirt given out to every fan within that section! Sport? Hardly. Entertainment value - minimal.

b) Musical chairs: Four random crowd members are given a basketball each with three soft chairs having been wheeled on to the playing surface. Music is played, the "contestants" dribble their basketball round the chairs, music stops, all four dive for the three chairs...you get the idea.

c) Knicks Notes: Anyone from the crowd can text in a message to be flashed up on the main screens at half-time; some guy called Barry wrote a message asking "will you marry me Grace?"; camera on big screen then cuts to him in the crowd, down on one knee proposing. All ends happily ever after.

d) Old School Dance Cam: The music is selected through the loudest of crowd applause at one of three various tracks, then camera cuts to particular individuals within the crowd doing their best / worst ad lib dance routines.

e) Season Ticket Shootout: Random crowd member gets to shoot a basketball from the halfway line; if he succeeds in netting it, then gets a season ticket; if not, he moves to the half court line and tries again, this time for a half-season ticket...etc.

f) Variation on a theme of above: 10 crowd-members get to have one shot each from the halfway line; if they successfully shoot it, they get $1,000 in cash. Sport? Hardly. Entertainment? Marginally, given its obvious only one at most will succeed (none did!) and at least three of the remaining nine will end up on the floor!

In terms of the basketball played, the Knicks fell behind from early on and never really looked like coming back in to the game; the halftime lead to Boston of over 20 points was insurmountable for the Knicks and although they got to within 7 points at one time, they eventually went down 90-101.

My conclusion - get rid of the non-sport stuff and just keep the basketball game and the gorgeous cheerleaders - who have to perform a routine of some sort or another in every break in play!

The other thing of note was that in most sports where the players' numbers are shown on the back of the shirts, the numbering sequence begins at 1, even if it then goes up to 99 or more. However, one of the Boston Celtic players had a number "0"! Strange; next thing, there'll be numbers used such as 33 1/3 (after the Naked Gun movie title) or fractions, or maybe even the infinity sign?

The popcorn was decidedly "moreish" and after living in New York for only a week I can see how my waistline could quite easily expand in no time at all; all this sugar and salt can't be too healthy, regardless the number of bananas and other fruit consumed to negate the effect. My diet today of pancakes with bacon, butter and syrup, one large and one regular hotdog followed by popcorn and a litre of Coca-Cola could quite easily be the unhealthiest day's food I've ever consumed! Let's hope I add some nutritional value in the coming days.