As always, forgive the intermittent nature of these snippets…

…

After an uneventful hour-long trip to Heathrow (I swear I saw Ken Livingstone getting off at King’s Cross: he looked in a huff) I’m here now in the departure lounge of Terminal 4, feeling excited. A young lady asked me a bunch of confusing questions which I apparently passed (the other day an Oxfam fundraiser on the street asked me if I was over 21, and I instinctively said “Yes. No. I’m 19.”, so you can imagine my worry that I would unexpectedly blurt out something suspicious at customs), I got some interesting customs forms to fill in (what’s the dollar value of custard creams? And have I ever been convicted of a war crime, or associated with the Nazi regime, and furthermore what is “moral turpitude”?), checked in my bag without hassle, got frisked at the gate (ooh!) and then spent half-an-hour just wandering up and down the departure lounge.

I’ve said it before, but I think I love the Terminal 4 departure lounge. People with bags wander through bookstores and electronics shops and fashion boutiques buying things they don’t really need as a recreational activity. Chain restaurants serve haggard travellers. Men like myself sit around typing ambigiously on laptops and talking to people on mobile phones. Shiny Ferraris and Lamborghinis hunker in the middle of the floor, asking to be won. In stark constrast to the dim interior, outside huge white jetways emblazoned with the logo of the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation dazzle you and baggage trucks dart to and fro.

I think I might treat myself to a nice new pair of duty-free headphones.

 …

Flight is pretty dull, watching House, reading up on New York, inadvertently pouring orange juice in my bag… you know, the usual. There was a ton of cloud obscuring the ground after we got over Wales, but then it cleared suddenly halfway over the Atlantic and I realised that I was seeing this ocean for the first ever time. Strange.

As we neared Canada, I spied a number of weird white blobs in the water below. I couldn’t work out if they were islands or ships or oil rigs. Then I took a photo and realised: Iceburgs!

So I caught my first site of North American soil, and as we came in from the North over NY state I was fascinated by … how American it was. I mean, for starters, there was a lot more forest (in the UK, it would have been cut down for farmland). The roads stretched out and formed themselves into strange cloverleaf patterns. They also marked out the towns and villages in orderly grids. And it looked expensive: big suburban houses, surrounded by woodland. Then we came over New Jersey, and the houses got smaller and closer together. Places to park, by the factories and buildings. Baseball diamonds; nice weather down there. Ooh, sorry, I’m channelling David Byrne again.

So we came down at Newark Liberty International Airport. Through customs, as hair-raising as ever. I bunched together with some other Britons, and we were calmly heading towards the desk when - I hate to stereotype, but she was a big black woman with that sass in her voice who made us jump out of our skin with that unique New York greeting, a greeting that demands “Just how stupid are you?”, so condescending, patronising, and insulting all at the same time: “HEL-LOW! This way, please??!”

To the desk, where my customs form was inspected. ”You were in Japan? What for?” “Uh uh um I was was I was teaching English!” “You know Japanese?” “A little!” But then we talked about how expensive Tokyo was and how  good the low dollar was for me, so I learned that even customs officers are human.

I managed to avoid cavity searches and two lines of customs to get to the transportation desk where I ordered a SuperShuttle (basically a cheap shared taxi) to my hostel. I sat and watched the airport go by, not really feeling as if I was in the US - but then you know, airports are the same anywhere. Spent my first $2.70 on an iced  latte.

The driver appeared ten minutes late, surly and talking on his phone. He led me outside, where it was raining a little, and I got my first taste of New Jersey, America proper. And you know what I thought?

“Wow, it’s just like GTA!”

Well, it is. Kudos to Rockstar for capturing the feel of New York, even if it was New Jersey. The driver loaded me into a van with the other passengers and switched the radio on. It took me a few seconds to realise that this was New York radio. Traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. “Shit, I’m actually here,” I thought.

And so we drove.

I finally get why New Jersey is the butt of so many jokes: the place is a tip.

Fry: OK, I give up. What’s the catch?

Salesman: Oh. No catch. Although we are technically in New Jersey…

[Later, back at Planet Express]

Fry: Not even one place remotely livable.

And then: ohmygod that’s the Empire State Building.

I was happy to take the train to Manhattan, but my sister recommended the shuttle, and I’m glad I took it. You get such a good entry into the city: through the Holland Tunnel, into the (surprisingly rundown) areas of Lower Manhattan, and driving through, it hits me just how mindblowing this is. I’m stunned. It’s all true. All of it. Taxi cabs. Drains venting steam “like the whole damn city’s ready to blow”, to quote Tom Waits. News box thingies. Skyscrapers. Surly men in vests. Signs saying “FINE $250″ and “ONE WAY” and pro-life billboards. Baseball. Madison Square Garden. 35th St. 5th Avenue. The Village. Barnes and Noble. Brooklyn. Subway. It’s all here.

Anyone in the world with a TV has been raised on the myth of New York. We’ve seen the photos and the films and read the books and played the video games. We’ve built up a picture of what it’s like, and actually going there is like stepping into that picture. It’s insane. It’s unbelievable. It’s like a Harry Potter fan discovering that Hogwarts exists and that you can go there by bus. It’s like a Christian actually getting the chance to meet God. It’s all true.

So I get to my hostel, which has an unassuming entrance but inside is clean and pleasant. I was worried about security and jerk roommates, but my roommate has left his iPod Touch out on his bed, which means I could steal more from him than he could steal from me, and he’s also reading Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, so he must be a nice guy.

View from the window:

So: shit. I could live here, it’s that awesome. Now to hit Times Square and Fifth!