It all started about a year ago. I thought it would be good to go to New York for a couple of days and see the TV show Friends being filmed. I found out all about how cheap the flights were and looked up all the places I’d like to see while I was there. I even asked a friend along and he said it was a good idea. By the time I actually found out that Friends was filmed in Burbank near Los Angeles the plan had evolved to a point where it was more about New York than going to see a sitcom taping anyway.
For a year I saved up, but somewhat less money than I had planned to – despite the fact that I had sold my car and cycled six miles to work and six miles back each day instead. My friend dropped out of the idea but my mind was made up, I resolved to go anyway.
So this is the story of my trip to New York. Only ten days – but I just wanted to get a flavour of what life was like on the other side of the proverbial pond.
I was planning to move house the weekend I returned from America, so I had spent the previous weekend packing everything in my house up into a single room. So it was with a mixture of excitement, nervousness and knackeredness that I boarded the train to London. I had agreed to meet my friend Richard there who had kindly offered to let me stay at his place the night before the flight. The train ride was uneventful except for the fact that a girl who looked a lot like Claire from Eastenders but probably wasn’t sat opposite me. At Waterloo I hung around for about ten minutes and went in Our Price to get the new Manic Street Preachers album. Unfortunately, being Waterloo station, it was their price and certainly not my price so I decided against it. After all – I would be able to get it much cheaper in New York!
I met Richard at the station and by this time I was pretty tired and very glad that I didn’t have to spend the next eight hours on a 747. Richard’s mum very kindly cooked up something very tasty, with something even more tasty with custard on for desert. After dinner we sat down and watched Die Hard with a Vengeance on video – specially chosen so that I could watch Bruce Willis run around getting shot at in places I would soon be visiting.
After that we went to bed. It was a bit like Christmas when I was a kid. My mind raced and I couldn’t get to sleep for hours and hours and hours. I just lay there in the dark feeling utterly bored and eager to get on with it. Suddenly it was morning.
This page was last updated on October 17, 1998