Greetings from a rather hungover Strutt in NYC.

Yesterday we got up at a reasonable time, and I went off to get a haricut whilst the lads went to central park. The spanish hairdresser said my hair was 'Bushy', got spot Sherlock! I wanted to tick another box so went to have a bagel, which was very nice. We then went up the Rocafella centre to the top observation deck, which was outstanding. The views were amazing! From there we went down to Battery Park Park (With the dodgy handbags) for the ferry ride to liberty park. It was raining and it seemed to make the Americans go crazy, they were really struggling getting the ropes in and out and one of the border police went mad at one poor bloke shouting "YOU ARE TRESSPASSING, YOU ARE TRESSPASSING!" when he was just obviously trying to ask him where to line up, ha ha. We got on the ferry and it was very choppy, and while we were struggling not to fall off the ships horn went off in my ear which made me scream like a girl. Liberty island was amazing, the ferry dropped us off and we got a good walk round the green lady. The weather then turned amazing so we loved it, and the all points west festival was not far away so we listened to that, we heard Duffy quite well. We stayed there for ages and tried to get a ferry to Ellis island but they had stopped (Sorry Megs, I wanted to get a few pics for you!)

When back onshore, we trekked to find a Hooters, which was quite good. Some of the girls were nice but our one wasnt very impressed when we all ordered the cheapest things on the menu. In New York they are very very funny about tips, you have to tip everyone to do everything. Tip the barman every time, tip in Subway, tip in McDonalds, and at resturants its 20% for good service, and in the nicer places its roughly 40%. If you tip 15 you think the service is bad and we heard that when somebody did that once with a bloke in a big group of people she came and gave it back and said "You obviously need it more than me!". You are even supposed to leave a few bucks a day for room service! It is just a stealth tax really.

We then went back to get ready, and left for the meatpacker district at about 11:30. This is the very trendy part of new york. There was lots of gays and smart dressed people around. We found a rather low key bbq bar and had a few drinks, then went to this really trendy small bar (The bouncer was only admitting girls at the time and berating a guy "What you wanna be mixing with guys? Gimme a break") In there was great, the music was good and it was very lively. We got quite drunk, and managed to chat to a few people. We managed to meet a few girls and chat to them (In a friendly way), but they were quite snobbish, and idiots rele. They insisted they knew more about England than me, as I thought Bromley was in London not Kent. Hmmmm. There was an upstairs bar, with the bouncer just admitting people he liked and pretty girls. He left his post so me and Scott made a bolt for it up there, but alas he caught us and sent us back down it was very embarassing but I was amused. We got home for about 330/4.

Anyway I am not sure what we are up to today, probably just taking it easy, but i fancy wandering round central park etc, as we have pretty much done and seen all the important things. We are off to Miami tomorrow morning, which I am stupidly excited about, and there is a beach party till 5am as well so I imagine I will be even more hungover then but happier still. I have s*** loads of pictures but my batteries are in my room on the 5th floor so I will put them on if I can in Miami.

Missing everybody back home lots.

Strutt

x x x