NYC

On our last day in New York, we wandered down to the lovely and shaded Bryant Park where we had drinks and Lisa took the photo-opportunity to get some snaps of the Chrysler Building which to my mind looks like Flash Gordon just parked it there.  The story I like about the Chysler Building is the one that concerns the race to be the world’s tallest skyscraper.  

In 1929, this was New York City’s Woolworth Building, but a race developed between the builders of the Chrysler Building and the Bank of Manhattan’s new tower on Wall Street.  Each building team kept up with each other as floor followed floor in the race to be the new focal point in the New York skyline.  As the two buildings neared completion, it was evident that Bank of Manhattan was going to win – just.  It was a mere 2 feet taller than the Chrysler.  It was at this point that the sneaky Chrysler architect had his team construct a spire within the building itself.  It was 180 feet tall, and when it was carefully put into position, towered over its’ competitor.  Of course, the Empire State Building snatched the record away from the Chrysler just over a year later, but it’s still a good yarn.

NEWSFLASH:  Caro went for a sh*t!  As you may recall, she had been dodging the inevitable since our arrival at The Hotel of Insignificant Toilets, but there’s only so long one can continue a poo embargo before nature steps in.  I had no idea how she’d held onto it for so long, speaking for myself I can't go a few hours without unloading a decent shit but Caro was holding onto it like it was the Elgin marbles. (I assume it was about the same weight and consistency by the time it left her system).  So after making an announcement that she was “going in” she armed herself with a magazine and warned Lisa and I to stay well clear. 

The next thing we heard was "Symon!  Help!  Help!"  Yes, she'd had a toilet incident.  Whatever it was that Caro had dropped was well and truly wedged round the U-bend and I was called in to save the day.  For the squeamish amongst you, I should make it clear now that there was no visible poo.  Should the situation have been different, Caro would have found out exactly what the limit of my love is, as I checked myself into another room and left her with floodwater rising round her ankles.  However, if there is one thing I know about, it is how to handle a blocked bog, so I filled it with hot water until we heard the Happy Sound. 

(GLORRRRRP)

Which means our little brown friend had made his way to the Atlantic after all. 

And that was that.  Well, sort of.  Look, it gets complicated here due to a cock-up.  I'll go into it in a minute but basically what it meant was we would be saying goodbye to Lisa Brown, but only for about 12 hours and goodbye to New York, but only for about a week.

The reason for the confusion dates back to our time in Hawaii.  It was there that Caro called United Airlines to fix our date for leaving the USA via our ticket to Frankfurt from Miami.  She told them we would be leaving in mid-September.  This perplexed the United guy who said, "But aren't you in the USA now?" Caro replied that we were.  "Do you have a visa?" he asked.  Caro replied that we didn't.  "But you only have ninety days," the guy explained. 
 
Caroline replied that our travel agent had told us that since we would be leaving the US, then re-entering, we would get a SECOND lot of ninety days upon re-entry.  This was why we planned on going to Canada midway through our trip. 

The United Guy explained that this was a huge lot of sh*te (I don’t think he used those exact words).  Panicking, I spent the next two days on the phone to The British Consulate (who didn't know), Tourist Information (who didn't know) and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (who claimed they didn't know). 

In fact, the INS conversation was so unspeakably unhelpful, I'll write it down: 

ME: So, we're in the US now. We were told that once we leave and re-enter we get another 90 days on the visa waiver scheme. 
INS:    No mister. 
ME:    Okay - so we can't do that.  Can we apply for a visa while we're here? 
INS:    No mister. 
ME:      Okay - so - look - we need to stay for longer than 90 days? Is there ANY WAY we can do that? 
INS:    No mister. 
ME:      (Becoming exasperated by the somewhat Jesuit replies.) Well, how about this: I go to - say - Cuba - then re-enter? 
INS:    No mister. 
ME:    What if I go back to the UK - then re-enter? 
INS:    No mister. 
ME:    What? Is it a length of time thing? Do I need to be back in the UK and out of the US for, like a month? Ninety days? A year? 
INS:    No mister. 
ME:    So what you're telling me is that once I've had my ninety days in the USA, there is NOWHERE ON EARTH I CAN GO for HOWEVER LONG, I can NEVER go back to the USA. 
INS:    No mister. 
ME:      But that's ridiculous! 
INS:    Look mister, I don't know what you want, but I can't help you. 
ME:    (Sarcastically)  Thanks very much.  SLAM!!!

(Note:  I didn’t actually say, “Slam!”.  That was me putting the phone down.  Although it would have felt pretty good, I’ll admit.)

There's always some arsehole like that.  They sent me off in completely the wrong direction, when in fact, they were the people who should have been able to sort me out. Two days later, I called again in desperation, got a different operator, who clarified the whole thing for us in about 5 minutes. 
 
Simply put, you can't be in the USA for more than 90 days without a visa and side-trips to other countries do indeed as part of those ninety days - the clock does not re-start when you re-enter.  So in order to extend the 90 day period, you must return to your country of origin.  Our plan was to fly to London, then head up to Edinburgh before coming back to New York to liaise with Sue, my ex-wife and my nephew Luke for a few more days of sightseeing.

Back to London!  I wondered how they’d been getting on without us.