Yes it rains in New York as well.....

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  New York City, New York, United States
Saturday, August 16, 2008

I am trying to remember what I have done as I have been brief on the blogging. I have been lazy see... OK well on Thursday I had another action packed day. I managed to get a subway card which is £12 unlimted for 7 days which is great value! I decided to head down to the LES (lower east side) and to an exhibition they have on at the south sea port centre. It was called 'Bodies' and if you have seen those human dissection things by the German guy then you will know what I am talking about (but he had nothing to do with this one as they so proudly displayed in large letters on the door; its was more tasteful than him I think). It was basically a display of human anatomy and pathology which was quite apt for me! Now they say start your children young and teach them more complex names and words as you go because they can take on more than we realise..... So at the first dissected model a father marched up and started call 'come here, no come here now! Now what's this here?' to his 10 year old boy...

Brooklin Bridge

. 'um, its um..', 'it's the hamstring! You know this.... Now this is the pronator muscle'. This surprised me, not least because he had the wrong name of the supinator muscle, but with the way he was getting his son to learn anatomy at 10. Next was a mother and daughter of about 5 or 6.... 'now this is the Achilles Tendon... oh and here's the patella tendon', I let that one go as well...... the one that had me laughing out loud though was the detailed intrucate explaination of the action of the thigh muscles from a father to the one year old he was carrying....

I also met some medical students there who were a bit jealous of me studying at Mt. Sinai. Apparently it is the best medical school and hospital in the state and one of the best in the US ('students would kill to study there').... I'll take their word for it but it sounds quite encouraging. I then had a look around the port area which was very nice and had a cool beer in the sun overlooking the Brooklyn bridge.

Then I came home (on rush hour subway, packed and then a three piece mexican band including double bass decided to squeeze on to sing 'la bamba' to us) for a little nap lol and the good weather ended somewhere between me falling asleep and waking up to thunder and heavy rain. Well this eased a bit and so I decided to risk going to the free open-air concert

Cat on Head

. Of course as soon as I stepped off the subway the rain started to fall and when I had finished the 20min walk (it was tricky to reach by subway in time) I was drenched, absolutely drenched! But I decided I was getting there now that I had started and I WAS staying until the end. So I sat on wet chairs in the rain to watch a rock opera band called the East Village Opera Company, whom I had never heard of, play Nessun Dorma and some Handel to thrashing guitars. It was actually very good and worth the soaking of my beloved Time Out magazine and almost destruction of my guidebook. It was also worth it to catch a glimpse of a man walking around central park with a cat on his head on the way home!

Yesterday, I really didn't do anything much at all, the lack of sleep really caught up with me and I thought I'd better catch up before I actually have to do something on Monday when I start at the hospital. I did go out briefly and I was planning on going to a free concert but the rain emptied down again and it put me off after the night before. Instead I ordered pizza online (its very easy here you click send at you get a Domino's large for about £5 in about 5mins- obesity they call it hmmm) and had a beer in.

I'm finding the language here a barrier more than I imagined..

Rock opera

. I mean a lot of people (like the pizza guy) don't speak English; luckily I had enough Spanish left in me. But then there are the people who do speak English (and one's for whom I am sure it is a first language) but I still can't understand what they are saying. Usually when they are being grumpy to put it frankly, they can't be bothered to talk properly. Most people are nice but the rude ones seem to try hard at it; mostly the ones with guns I find.

Today the sun returned with a vengeance, I went downtown to a flea market, which was actually not bad. They shut off part of 6th Ave and have various stall, I bought some cheap CDs. Now this was almost the highlight of my trip (it made me think of my Mummy). A man at a stall I was looking around was picking his nose. OK whatever, but then some American woman started saying in Nan's fashion 'he's picking his nose, yes he is, he is picking his nose, NO! NO! NO! That is disgusting, can you see he is picking it...look!!!' and started pointing. That was funny.

Then I went up to the Cathedral of St. Patrick, which I think is the Cathedral of NY but I'm not sure as there are a few others. There just so happened to be a wedding and so mid way through my look around the start playing a wedding march and a bride appears

Uke

. Still the organ was quite good and it's a very nice church, no St. Peter's though J. I hopped out while the vows started I didn't want to be part of the mass of tourists thinking its OK to be a part of someone else's private day!

Then I headed past 'Music Row' which is basically a whole load of music shops with everything you could ever ask for (except what I asked for of course). It was very good lots of great guitars. When I was asked 'can I help you Sir?' I could not help but say 'if you can lend me three thousand dollars, yes'. Rubbish, but I just had to. On the way to the row there had been an accident where a cab had hit one of those rikshaw things, the guy sprawled across the bonnet was clearly dead but that didnt stop people going right up and sticking thier heads in and having a good nose. I walked on by with the thought of it being a good reason not to take a ride in one.

Then I went for lunch (for the first time in a restaurant) in a nice Italian place and had very, very nice pizza (yes Pizza again but Domino's doesn't count as pizza) with a bottle of Peroni. Then I went back over to East Village Music in the dodgy bit which seemed a lot nicer this time when lots of people were about. They were open this time and indeed had the tenor ukulele that was not on 'Music Row'. It was £50 so now its in my room! The guy was very nice as well. OK then I came home for bit of a rest before I venture out to a blues club later if I can find it...... wish me luck!

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