NYC

Do I need to explain Brownie to you again?  I think not.  Look, just turn to the Hawaii section if you’ve forgotten already.  But if you can’t be bothered, I will just say that her personality comes WHOOOSHING into the room with a force that knocks small men to the ground.  (And I am not a large man.)  She's a woman of boundless energy, especially when it comes to shopping, drinking and laughing at unfortunates.

I love Brownie to bits.  There, I've said it.  And I was looking forward to seeing her again, but with nothing like the passion of Caro, who had already spent a couple of days going over and over her shopping schedule and marking all the Prime Spots on her New York fold-away map.  

She arrived at 1am, having come straight from work.  Even so, she was bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm. "I can't BELIEVE we're in New York!!" she kept saying.  I think I fell asleep long before she did. 

The thing about Brownie is that, much like Caro, she is not a morning person.  Many's the time I have gone to the shops back in Edinburgh and come back to my flat in Hanover Street at 3 o'clock in the afternoon to find Caro and Brownie still rolling about in their pyjamas.  

However, bearing in mind that they had only the weekend together in New York, they both made a concerted effort to arise and I was stunned to find them both dressed and ready to go before 11.  We ended up in a Times Square deli having breakfast and feeling very New Yorker-ish with our pancakes, syrup, hash browns and eggs.  Then the fold-out map was produced and a Plan of Action announced. 

I'm not going to bore you with details.  Let me just say this: Bloomingdales, Macy's, Gap, Urban Outfitters, Manhattan Mall, other shops that I can't even remember, several miles and a couple of sore feet later and Caro had bought some Origins facial stuff.  Brownie had bought some product too.  But I couldn't believe that we had walked so far and accomplished so little in terms of BUYING THINGS.  Caro insisted that it was merely a "Reconnaisance Mission" and that another strike would be launched before the weekend was out.

That night, we took Brownie up the Empire State Building.  Which is worth it, by the way.  I thought I should say that up front in case you ever find yourself in the horrific queue to go to the top.  It’s the sort of queue where you feel yourself aging whilst enduring it, sort of like a Yes concert, or an Andy Warhol movie.  The interior of the building is wonderful, but it is hard to keep that in mind when you are crowded behind a noisy school group with Caro and Brownie complaining behind you.  (“I’m hot!”  “I’m tired!”  “Who farted?” and so on).  

Still, it is an incredible building with an amazing story.  I had been doing some reading about it on the train to New York – it’s a building with a fascinating history.  The 102-storey building was completed on the eve of the Great Depression and was consequently empty from the 40th floor upwards.  The owners had to have a man leaving lights burning in the floors above that, so that the towers wouldn’t appear to be floating in mid-air.  There were also ambitious plans for the tower to be used as a mooring post for airships.  They tried it once, and after nearly losing the airship in high winds, decided once was enough.

However, the most surprising thing I found out was that a plane collided with the building toward the end of World War 2.  A B-52 bomber pilot, heading into LaGuardia, had become lost in heavy fog, realising too late that he was descending into Manhattan itself.  Desperately banking and weaving, he managed to avoid several other skyscrapers before ploughing into the 78th floor of the building.  He died instantly when his fuel tanks exploded, but the building withstood the impact and the detonation.  Miraculously, there were only about 20 other injuries, including an elevator attendant who was badly burnt.  She was rescued by another attendant who pulled her into another lift, but it looked like it was all over for them both when the cable on that lift snapped and it plummeted to the ground.  

Fortunately the safety brakes kicked in at this point and it jammed just above the basement.  The pair were eventually rescued by a trainee coast guard - the sight of whom caused the badly-burned attendant to mutter, “My god, they called out the Navy?” before passing out again.

Wasn’t that an exciting story?  It certainly helped pass the time while I am still stuck in this queue with sore feet, feeling grumpy and irritable.  However, there are some things you just have to endure if you wish to refer to yourself as a tourist with any sense of pride.  So eventually we got up there, and WOW.  If you don't hear "Rhapsody in Blue" in your head as you look over at the Chrysler Building all lit up at night, then there is something wrong with you.  (Although "The Theme from New York, New York" is an acceptable alternative.)  

Once I'd got my breath back from the view, I elbowed my way through the crowds, took loads of night-time pictures, none of which will come out, and posed for a silly photograph of the three of us being menaced by King Kong.  Again - a tourist thing.