(!) and our immersion in the 'real' New York nearly became too real as a man
started following us. We began walking faster and faster, heading towards the
nearest subway station and only felt totally safe when we were back under
street lamps and among stores such as 'Stella McCartney's'. Surely no one
would mug people near such an establishment?
Not completely deterred from 'going native' we spent several evenings in
genuine 'locals' establishments. These included a bar in Soho that could have
been the set of Cheers, were it not in the wrong city. Regular patrons had
their own seats at the bar - I wonder whose livers we saved that evening by
sitting at the bar ourselves? - and the barman wandered round showing his
holiday photographs to various customers. We also visited a diner described
as a 'cop and taxi driver' place where the service was not exactly 'silver'. This
included smearing the jello topping from our cheesecake onto the inside of the
glass fronted refrigerated counter, and leaving it there to drip off. However,
the food was good and inexpensive. The only disappointment was that we did
not see any cops, unless they were undercover. There were taxi drivers
eating there and this was handy when we decided that we were too scared to
walk back to our hotel.
Along with the 'real' America we also got a few snapshots of the 'unreal'. At
the end of our first full day in the city we decided to go to the cinema and beat
our jet lag by staying up late by US time - very late by British time, which was
the zone we were still stuck in. We bought tickets to see Love Actually in
Times Square and then went for an excellent meal nearby at Joe Allen's. On