Gone to America

So I’m here, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I arrived last night at about 8:30pm, local time. The weather is lovely, warm, sunny. If I stand on the deck I can see the Chrysler building, and if I jump I can see the Empire State (there’s a house in the way). Everything’s in Polish around here! This is the building.

My window is top right. I’ll certainly be trying that Thai Restaurant at some point.

I started on Friday morning, with an emotionally wrenching farewell to my parents. As I stood on the ferry and watched Dun Laoighaire vanish over the horizon, a thought occurred to me: I should downgrade my mobile phone account options. I stood as close to the back as I could to try and catch the last bit of signal, and called O2 Customer Services. The nice lady tried to put me on hold, but I explained that I was rapidly sailing out of coverage and she rushed me through. Goodbye Ireland.

The drive to my sister’s house in Frodsham was uneventful, although apparently English people are quite shocked when you tell them you drove on a motorway on your own with only a provisional license. Of course, In Ireland we do it all the time – you just have to make sure you take your L-plates off. Very law abiding people, the English.

Eleanor and Jim put me up admirably, and gave me exactly the relaxing weekend I needed to decompress after the boozy excesses of the pre-leaving period. I repaid their hospitality by trouncing them at Word Yahtzee and borrowing money for the train. I left there early on Monday morning, somewhat refreshed. And just a word of advice – if you should ever find yourself having to change trains at Manchester Oford Street station – say, to go to Manchester Airport – bear in mind that they don’t have any lifts or escalators, and you probably shouldn’t have any heavy luggage with you. And it’s true what they say – all of the trains were late. All of them.

Not disastrously though. I made it to the airport in plenty of time, and flew uneventfully to Philadelphia, where I breezed through immigration with my impressive array of paperwork. They did destroy the suitcase, though. I would have unlocked it if they’d asked me! I was a little concerned when I saw the plane that would be taking me to New York. It had propellers – honest to God propellers!

But it got us there all right, and flying in to New York at night in a small plane is something I would highly recommend. Manhattan all lit up is always spectacular, but this view was truly… well, it’s happened – I’ve run out of vocabulary. I succeeded in confusing the taxi driver, but eventually pulled up outside. I was greeted warmly by new flatmates, Marilyn Teorey and Liza DeGuia.

That’s Marilyn on the left – she’s the sound editor who knows Drew. Liza is trying to break in to broadcast journalism.

My body was telling me it was 1:00am, but we had to go and get my bed. I don’t think I acquitted myself very well in the carrying the large, heavy, awkward object up the stairs stakes, but they were very forgiving. Then I slept. Now here I am. I really have absolutely no idea what the shape of my life will be here, but I suppose I’ll be finding out!