Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

I arrived in the US on Saturday Afternoon (22nd Sept), and as I type this I am in a manhatten shop called “Destination Motherhood” where my wife is buy maternaty wear. This shop has managed to solve the perenial problem of “what to do with a man whilst the little lady is shopping” – it provides a nice sit-down area with comfortable leather chairs and laptops with internet access – are you listening Europe!!!! A man needs a haven of peace in the madness of shopping shopping shopping!!! 

We flew home today from New You; arrived in Dublin at 05:00 this morning. Even after a couple of hours sleep we are still tired. I have managed to upload my favourite New York pictures to the site here. My favourite pictures are those are the night views from my Wifes Manhatten Apartment looking uptown towards Central Park and those of  the “Cloisters” which is an extension of the Metropolitan Museum.

So did I enjoy New York ? Well, yes. I have to admit being initially reluctant to go because of various factors. But once there I had a good time – but like most people there is nothing like the feeling of coming home. New York is a vibrant, noisy, boistrous city – everything that has been said before. But to be honest New York is a “Night City” – one who is best to look at once the sun has gone down with the twinkling lights within sky-scrapers reaching for the heavens. The people – Americans and Immigrants are on the whole polite and friendly, but that is also true of many places I have visited in the world. The restaurants are varied and good – especially around Times Square where my wifes apartment is. The Metropolitan and Frick museums are first rate – although I have to admit they are not as good as the British Museum and the National Portrait gallery in London. The Cloister musuem in Washington Heights is well worth a visit on a hot day and you want to spend a few hours in quiet and tranquility of a medieval garden/cloister.

One thing that has always struck me about America and some other western countries is their lack of compassion for the poor – especially the homeless, alot of whom are suffering from some form of mental illness. It seems that the political parties feel that because these people have no money, power and little if any influence that they can be ignored. This is a real shame. New York has a big homeless problem. You see these poor people with all their posessions in a shopping cart or bag hanging around the major parks and squares (such as Union Square) begging for money to get by on. It is pathetic that Governments and Parties allow this to happen. A society should be measured by how it treats its poorest members and not by how rich and powerful its elite and military complex is. Compared to the price of a single cruise missile (500,000 dollars I read somewhere) how many people could be sheltered, fed for one night? 100, 1000, 10000 ? It should not be left to charity it should be a duty – they are after all citizens.

I am a week into a two week holiay in New-York; and am enjoying myself. The main reason is I am with my lovely wife, who has been seconded to her company branch in New-York for three months and I had not seen her for a couple of weeks. Today we celebrate our second wedding anniversary and last monday it was my wifes birthday.

Anyway I have seen some of the sights – I am trying to spread them out over the two weeks so not to get “fatigued” – like the Empire State Building, Times Square, “Ground Zero”, Clinton’s fort, Statue-Of-Liberty, Brooklin Bridge, The Met, a Baseball game, the subway, the flat-iron building, St Patricks Cathederal. We have seen a couple of plays/musicals: Avenue Q – a puppet based musical with the hillarious song “The Internet is for Porn”, and “Inherit the Wind” with Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plummer (both well past retirement and both fantastic actors).

The best place we have been is the Cloister’s Museum in Washington Hights – very relaxing and a haven of calm in an otherwise chaotic city. The best view – well its the one from the Appartment (26th floor on 43rd street) looking uptown at night. We had a lightening storm that lit up the night sky on Wednesday and the show was fantastic. I will post pictures when I get back.