After the fiasco at the customs desk, we were looking forward to meeting americans who weren’t total arseholes, my friends at university had led me to believe they did exist. The first experience of the Big Apple was on its subway system.
Having only briefly spent time in London, the majority of my prior experience on subway systems had come from that of Glasgow’s ‘circle’. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of Scotland’s second city’s subterranean sweat-fest, the moniker of ‘circle’ is fully deserved. It consists of two circles, an inner and an outer. There are fewer than twenty stops. Therefore, when faced with probably the largest subway layout in the world, it was quite a leap.
Akin to Glasgow’s underground, there were a few characters who obviously shared my passion for day drinking, only they had made a lifestyle of it, in New York I think a couple of them may have introduced some crack into their daily diet just to spice things up. This made for an entertaining, if not slightly intimidating overture to our time in the city, the thought that ‘holy shit, anyone on this train could have a gun’ didn’t exactly put me at ease either.
When we arrived safely at our destination of 42nd street, we found the temperature to be unacceptably high, the streets to be outrageously busy, and the buildings to be utterly enormous. I had been told to expect there to be a lot more ‘bigger’ people in the states, on account of the gargantuan portions served up in their restaurants, and the prevalence of high fructose corn syrup in their fuzzy juice.
High fructose corn syrup for those of you, like myself, who had never previously heard of such a thing, is an ingredient which is apparently as addictive, if not more so, as crack cocaine, thus, it is illegal as an ingredient for foods produced for the British market. I fucking loved it. Anyway, when I surfaced from the subway, I caught my first glimpse of these ‘bigger’ people. Now while I myself am hardly fit, these people made me look like Kate Moss after a month’s hunger strike. They were colossal. First stereotype ticked off, we made our way to the apartment we had rented.
Space is at a premium in New York, unsurprisingly, so our ‘six-man’ apartment comfortably slept two. The location however was amazing, just along the road from Times Square, right in the middle of Manhattan. Wasting no time, we thought we should venture out into the blistering heat and have a look about. I’ve been on holiday to hot places, but my christ, 46 degrees in New York feels like 70 anywhere else. I was formally of the opinion that shorts in the middle of a city look daft, but after that, I wouldn’t bat an eyelid at someone walking down the high street in their pants. It was totally ridiculous. So as I exposed my near-translucently white calves to the city, it did nothing to stop me pishing sweat from every orifice, it may have scared some children though.
My first delight of many in America came a mere hundred yards into our excursion when I discovered there was a Five Guys Burgers and Fries between our flat and Times Square. I had seen a video on YouTube a few months previously with the most enthusiastic fast food reviewer I’d encountered in my short life. He was raving about the place, so to see one in the flesh was enough to get my belly rumbling even in the intolerable heat. My friend and I ordered a burger each and a small fries, which meant you only got 17,000 chips instead of a billion.
This was also the first time I had discovered flavour shots. Having been a fat youth, and now as a fat post-adolescent (I’m reticent to describe myself as an adult), fizzy drinks are one of my very favourite things. Imagine your favourite fizzy beverage with an infusion of fruit flavoured syrup, meaning you could get such outlandish concoctions as raspberry Coke, or blueberry Dr Pepper. Upon making this discovery, I struggled to refrain from a Begbie-esque ‘YAAAASSSSS’ in the restaurant. Naturally I got the two things I mentioned, both in large, which I immediately sussed was an error. I exited the shop with 17,000 fries, a double burger, and roughly six litres of fizzy gash. Minted.
Me and my friend found a step in Times Square and set about spanking our mountains of food. I’d say we managed about 15% of the chips after the burgers, which were fucking unbelievable by the way. I guzzled as much of the fizzy gash as I could without expectorating an effervescent plume over the surrounding camera wavers in the square. Admitting defeat, I gave the remaining 12,000 chips to a homeless guy and we made our way onwards, weighed down by the obscene volume of tucker now residing in our stomachs.
We had a stroll to central park, and upon discovering its roughly twice the size of Scotland, conceded that we wouldn’t venture its entire length that day. We resolved to return to our two man shoebox and shower before hitting the town. Taking the risk that my legs might jellify, I put on jeans and a t-shirt that I thought would disguise my profuse perspiration, which it did, for all of the time it took to get down the stairs to street level.
I was ready for my first night in New York. Or so I thought.
A drunk abroad 