Zebrafish

A 5 day bite of New York, starting with a recap from Mexico

After locking ourselves out of our room and breaking in with a hammer and screwdriver and burning my mouth on a taco with what looked like guacamole but turned out to be green chilli. Day two in Mexico and we are lying on a sun lounger with legs and arms lobster red in trousers and long sleeved shirts.

Our first day in Mexico was very windy and we underestimated the Caribe sun in our enthusiam for idling on coral sands and swimming in cyan sea. Playa del Carmen is where Americans go on vacation to party, sunbathe and shop. It doesn't feel yet like we've left the USA.

All the planning, last minute insane rushing about packing lives into boxes, tieing up all of life's loose ends and worrying about what might happen now finally seems worthwhile. The first week we were looked after by Tommy and Johanna in Brooklyn a kind of half way buffer zone for our travels.

NYC & LDN have many similarities, people complaining about rent prices, areas once no go now turning into investment windfalls and squeezing the mom and pop stores out for faceless chains.

Still it has terrific character and a huge hum of energy. From avant garde jazz playing in old sofa tea rooms to glamourous speakeasy bars down hidden alleyways  in the Lower East Side serving wine in tea cups and beer bottles in brown paper bags.

Amongst all the obvious wealth the city looks rather gritty and uncared for. It's subway makes London's tube look clean and organised and besides Central Park Manhattan has very little green space. Still the atmosphere in East and West village and Harlem matches Old street Soho or Brixton but in a uniquely New York way.

I'd been reading Bob Dylan's Chronicles and wandering around Greenwich village, down 'positively' 4th street, Cafe Wha and drinking in the Kettle of Fish where we met up with Marian from London and Jason who I last met in Livingstone, Zambia but sadly not meeting with Elaine from Uganda.

I was also checking out my favourite internet news broadcast, Democracy Now's community studio in Chinatown at 100 Lafayette street and picking up some of the excellent free newspapers such as the Indymedia special on 5 years of the Iraq war and the well known Village voice. Good to see independent media doing well in the US.

Saturday we took the F train out to Coney Island, a smaller version of Blackpool crossed with a larger ugly inner city high rise estate. Tommy and I ate the original Nathan's hot dogs with saurkraut while the two Johanna's got rattled, bruised and shaken on the Cyclone roller coaster.

I was suprised how run down yet kitch the place, although that was also its charm. Dodgem cars, freak shows, shrimp and clam stalls, just mind out for gaps in the boardwalk they could easily put you in hospital. You wouldn't want to wander to far here either or get left behind after dark when the fun could easily morph to resemble a Stephen King set.

We ate well though and I had to try all the local specialities from pastrami and Bronx roast beef bagels, giant burgers, rolled pizza slices,  towers of pancakes and egg cream sodas. Just as well we did plenty of walking too.