It took some convincing to get Lea to agree to go to New York for her birthday #firstworldproblems, but within an hour of arriving we were already vowing to never, ever leave Manhattan…for the next 4 days. I guess you could say: ‘it’s my kind of town’…but I think that’s Chicago. Either way it’s a hell of a town!

Desperate to fit in after struggling in Montreal we went straight to the most touristy place we could find, the Terroir bar on the high-line! An amazing spot to sit and watch the sun set over lower Manhattan and New Jersey. Having had some communication issues in NY NY last time (the “hard cider” v “hot cider” incident of 2013), James jumped into his first order with confidence, “one 5 brothers lager please!!!!”. “Ummmm….Do you mean the 5 boroughs lager…sir??”  May as well have been wearing a fanny pack.

On our first full day on the island, we’d planned to wander North to Central Park and the Met (for roofies rather for than for the art), but, as James was lined up for coffee and Lea was lined up for bagels, we both got alerts on our phones telling people to take cover up near 58th St. Taking comfort from the “it happens all the time advice”, from the locals we confidently strode out into town…due South.

It turns out this decision could have been way more dangerous as, after wadnering through Midtown and Alphabet city, we ended up in the lower-East side where we started to feel a little less welcome.  Luckily, however, we stumbled across the Williamsburg bridge and after climbing it for safety, decided we may as well get off the island for a day and head to the surprisingly easy to get drunk in, Williamsburg.

While drinking in a dive bar, counting beards, our discussions started to become simultaneously deep and in equal parts meaningless (comments like ‘it’s easy to see how you can feel alone in a city of 8 million…” didn’t help), and prompted Lea to comment, “I feel like I’m in a Woody Allen movie right now…”. To avoid such depth, James continued to get stuck into the many, many IPAs on offer, causing Lea to joke: “If you have anymore of those I’ll have to start calling you Skippy…” (NB: Not a racist thing against me being an Aussie, but because the beers are very hoppy.) Now back to making pointless puns instead of having a real discussion we were ready to move on with our holiday / move to the next bar.

As winter was coming, there was hot ciders on offer everywhere, but although we were careful to avoid them we still got ourselves into a genuinely confusing moment at a cheese shop when ordering that most difficult of meals, a cheese sandwich:

Lea: I think I’ll have a grilled cheese.

Server: The grilled cheese comes with tomAto

Lea: OK…I’ll get the grilled cheese please.

Server (some time later): Sorry I cAn’t find one without tomAto.

Lea: Ummm…what? I feel like this is another Woody Allen movie?

James: Right??

Now back onto Woody again, it would take James asking Lea to pose on people’s stairways with all their Halloween decorations for Lea to suggest we were “stooping” to another level to bring things back in order.

As well as bonus Brooklyn, we ended up at a bonus Speakeasy (out the back of a coffee shop that Lea thought seemed strange to have a giant bouncer) on a Tuesday night, had a bonus Friends experience as we wandered past the Friends building on our last day just before bonus Kudrow in the JFK lounge and on our plane!! (But more on that in our bonus extra post to come.)

Lea’s XXth birthday was perfect, despite being (what we thought was) our last full day in the US. My embarrassment in buying bubbles at 9am was offset when others walked into the liquor store and were offered “the usual”; we had mimosas by ourselves on the hotel roof under the sun, looking at the Empire State building; had an incredible lunch at 11 Madison Park; recovery drinks on the high-line; Mexican dinner; Avenue Q (Broadway); post show drinks at a dive bar before champagne under a full moon.

Our holiday almost over, we could finally address the elephant in the room (not a political comment, frequenting both dive bars and Michelin starred restaurants in the same day we were very careful to avoid such talk particularly given some of the packages that had been delivered around town), the exchange rate was not 1:1 as Lea had been using for conversions for 3 weeks, but closer to 1USD:1.5AUD.  Plus tip.

Tipping = an antiquated system of making goods and services appear cheaper than they are and which may lead to: death by starvation due to servers being unbearably attentive to the point you don’t get time to swallow between “how’s everything?”s; feelings of inadequacy as your bags, food, drinks are left within sight but slightly out of reach, but you know you’re not capable of getting them without help from someone random Arts student that’s been assigned to aid you; the flu, consumption or other illness from the disgusting, green, shrivelled $1 bills constantly handed back and forth; a broken nose from sitting at a table the hostess told you to sit at after having bought drinks at the bar and leaving the extra “thanks for doing your job” money with him instead of with the girl who somehow has ownership of the table you’re now seated at and has decided to make sure you realise you’re the most awful person in the world.