Thursday 2nd December 1999

The usual humdrum of work was made only slightly more tedious by the absence of e-mail due to our mail servers being out of action. Left work and high-tailed it into Ulm to drink beer before jumping on the train to Frankfurt.

I arrived in Frankfurt at about 9.30pm 'ish and met up with Herr Larkin at his place. We had a swift beer before going out to a club called 'Cookies'. It was an OK club, it served alcohol and was teaming with chicks from Germany, England and oddly enough New York! Ryan and I just spent the night sat at the bar necking JD and Cokes along with a few Vodka Red Bulls. We had a bit of a boogie later in the night with a gang of people and the next thing I remember is waking up on Ryan's couch at 5am and crawling over to my bedroom for a few hours more sleep.

Friday 3rd December 1999

It was the usual "Oh shit Herr Steele we're so facking late" cry from Ryan's bedroom. We both bustled around and got our shit together and just made the tube connection into Frankfurt airport. I really didn't feel like flying. I felt like rolling up and dying, I felt like sleeping for the entire day, I felt like emptying the contents of my stomach into a toilet...just not flying.

What didn't help at all was the grilling I got from the airline chick at the check-in at Frankfurt airport. She wanted to know what a Brit. was doing in Germany flying to America. She wanted to know how I got to Frankfurt, when I told her it was by train she wanted to see the ticket. It was, suffice it to say a verr heavy experience. Anyway, I eventually got past her and through passport control. I picked up a couple of bottles of wine for Vicki and then got to my boarding gate.

I produced my boarding card at the check in bit and walked five metres to produce it at the gate. In these five metres I somehow managed to lose my boarding card and it took me a good ten minutes of searching every pocket...three times, before I eventually found it in the pocket I first thought it was in, yes...I was trashed from the night before.

Uneventful flight - a shedload of Vodkas to help me sleep and then woke up about an hour away from New York feeling very, very, very dehydrated. Cab from the airport to 59th and 1st where the Conran shop is and met up with Vicki. The Conran shop was pretty much like a bombsite. The builders were still in big time, half the stock hadn't been delivered and everybody was in a mad panic. Vicki took an early finish and we snuck off for drinks in a bar around the corner. We just had a couple of beers to pick me up from the flight before heading down to 3rd Avenue to have a mooch around the Diesel store. Fan-facking-tastic is the only way to describe the place. Between the two of us we spent over a 1000 dollars and still left behind a load of stuff we'd liked to buy. After shopping in Diesel I was feeling a little sleepy so we took a cab up to the apartment so that I could dump my bags and take a shower.

We were staying in Eastgate Towers which was on 39th and 2nd. It wasn't so much a hotel room as a suite, with it's own kitchen and stuff [ not a patch on the next hotel but that comes later ]. I jumped in the shower and felt slightly more human, although not much. We decided to go out to get some food. The first place we went to was being arsey because we didn't have reservations. The next place was a seafood place and after a quick look at the menu I decided I didn't want seafood - so the two of us ended up in a Thai restaurant around Madison or Lexington Avenue. It was OK but nothing too special and the night was a little tricky as I was severely suffering from jetlag and kept snapping at Vicki, who was being nice and understanding and didn't snap back.

Saturday 4th December 1999

Since I was still working on Germany time I bounded out of bed at 5.30am and just mooched around trying not to disturb Vicki. I read the NY Times and found out which cinemas were playing the Bond movie and also checked out the ad's for places selling laptops around the Manhattan area.

Vicki got up at about 7'ish and we wandered down to the Conran Store where we said our good-bye's until lunch and I hooned it off for a spot of breakfast in a Diner. Feeling satisfied with my breakfast I wandered down to Central Park and watched people skating around the ice rink. I then wandered up to the memorial for John Lennon who was shot just outside Central Park [ Dakota Buildings if you must know ] 19 years ago. From here I went down to look at the Hans Christian Anderson statue thing, and the Alice in Wonderland statue also. They're pretty funky.

I left Central Park and went for a look around some of the shops before making my way back to 1st Avenue and going for lunch with Vicki. We went to a place called Boxers, or Oscars or something like that. Amazingly enough the place served Stella! It's the first place I've found in America that sells the drink of the gods. Maybe the yanks aren't such a bunch of retards after all. So needless to say a few pints were drank and Vicki went back to work while I plucked up the courage to jump on the supposedly shady NY subway system.

I discovered that a place called A&J's near Brooklyn Bridge were doing a pretty good deal on laptops, so onto the NY subway for a bit of a mooch. The NY subway system is pretty easy to get around on after experiencing the London, Berlin and Frankfurt attempts.

So I got to this place and convinced the salesman I was buying his product.....we got as far as the check-out desk when I was about to hand over my credit card and close the deal. For the first time in my life I felt a moment of doubt. The cash girl was sooooooo close to taking my credit card when I said "NO". The reason I said this was due to price creap. The laptop was $2299 which isn't that bad. However, when you tag on the international warranty and the American tax it approaches $2700 which made me jittery. Anyway, I left promising to think about it and be back soon.....I never quite made it there again.

I jumped on the tube back and stopped off at Central Station to buy a "So you wanna buy a laptop" type magazine thing. I then mooched back to the hotel, watched some trashy American movies and read my magazine.

Vicki phoned and I met her in the Oscars/Boxers place [ If you're ever in New York it's on 1st and ummm 61st. Where we had lots of beers and went home :)

Sunday 5th December 1999

Since my jetlag was now pretty much taken care of I stayed in bed for a while watching Jerry Springer, the programme kills me, and then one of those TV judge things. I then consulted my "So you wanna buy a laptop" mag. It seemed that on 5th and 39th [ I was staying on 2nd and 39th ] there was a Sony Vaio [ on which I compose this right now ] which was $500 cheaper. Needless to say I popped along.

Enter Stage Left Steeley: Hey there my good peasant, could you explain why this Vaio is $500 more than you advertised?
Idiotic Computer Seller: Well, if you sign up for compuserve for 36 months then you get a $400 rebate and if you buy the machine here you get a $100 rebate........errr you're European right....well you need an American address for all this
Moi: Right, thanks
Arsehead: Would you like a demo.
Me: [ To quote Cartman in Southpark ] Why don't you lick my balls mother ficker

So that was the morning wasted.....Met Vick for lunch at a Chinese restaurant on 1st and had some fun, but I'd still rather she didn't have to work :(

After meeting the V-woman I took the subway down to ummmmm the place near to the place where the ferry leaves for The Statue of Liberty. Caught the ferry over. It was fun until I had to queue for the stairs up through the Statue of Liberty. It was full of fokin arse-heads. If you go to St Pauls then you pretty much climb climb climb. If you go to the SOL then you pretty much wait, wait, wait.....and why is this????? Oh, that'd be because the Balcony on the outside of the SOL is about 2ft wide, so there's a natural thingy......jam or whatever you want to call it.

Okay, back to Downtown on the ferry and up to mid-town on the tube. On 1st and 62nd there was a cinema showing the Bond movie.....well it would be rude not to. The movie was a typical Bond film in so much as I sat down and watched the start of the movie, and then returned to the real world 90mins later. Bonkers,

After Bond I helped Vick in the Conran shop for 30 mins or so, and we dined in an Italian nearby....where we had good fun and I attempted to remember the Bond movie. We had a table by the window and there was this lunatic just stood in the middle of the road. The cars were hooning by him/her [ we couldn't work out the gender ] and tooting their horns and stuff. But the maniac just stood there oblivious to what was going on. At one point a cop car drove past and I was sure they were gonna nick the maniac, but they didn't bother. I suppose that if they went around arresting all the maniacs in NY then they would be a trifle busy. After the Italian I went back to the hotel and Vicki went back to work.

Monday 6th December 1999

Had a bit of a lie in to prepare myself for a hectic day of shopping. I'd read in some magazine about a shop over on 8th which supposedly has some verr funky clothes. So I went for a walk over there but couldn't find the place. It was supposed to be on 8th and 51st but there was just nothing that fitted the bill knocking about around there. The next place on the list was Barneys which is a verr cool department store. I took the elevator [ lift ] up to the Prada floor because I needed to buy some stuff for the Conran shop opening party the next night. I decided on a hoopy body-warmer type thing, a rather sleek silk shirt, some black baggy trousers and a funky pair of shoes.

It was only when I was in the changing room looking at myself [ and thinking [ to quote Cartman ] dude you look like one serious Uncle ficker ] that I decided to look at the price tags. The body warmer was $1020 and the entire outfit ran to $2600. Now I realise that Egg have been more than generous in giving me a 15000 pound limit credit card [ 11500 GBP spent on it and rising right now ] but even I can't justify paying that much cash to get some togs for a party. I put them back on the shelf and left feeling very depressed.

After leaving Barneys I just kinda wandered around a bit killing time until I met Vicki. It was raining and cold and I was bored. I started feeling sorry for myself and thinking " yeah this is great, I fly to America to see Vicki and because of one fick up after another she has to spend her whole time working and I have to spend my whole time alone. Superb". Anyway, I had an hour to kill so I chose to spend it in a battle cruiser [ boozer ] which I can't remember the name of, drinking Guiness. Vicki and I dined in Boxers/Oscars again where I drank Stella and we generally had a hoopy time. I felt a little better after this and decided to spend the afternoon in Macy's buying gifts for friends and family. I bought myself a nice warm jacket for ski-ing and generally living in Ulm, I bought some ski gloves and a bag for my cousin Mike. After leaving Macy's I walked toward the hotel along 5th avenue and wandered into Comp-USA which is another computer shop. They had the Vaio that I wanted [ DVD drive and floppy ] for the same price as the store near Brooklyn Bridge. I grabbed some shop assistant chap and.....

Me: Ho my good man, I would like to purchase this little baby.
Salesdude: right ho my good punter, however you may wanna take a peep at this Fujitsu model. It's $200 more but it has a wacky P3 processor in it.
Me: Oh, ummmmmm, ooooooh flashing lights [ in a Kiki stylee ]

So I had a bit of a play around with the Fujitsu but the mouse was kinda like a round disc that you moved sort of like a playstation controller. Hmmm, this description is pretty sheize but it's the best I can come up with. In my opinion the pointing devices on laptops can be graded as

1st The IBM thinkpad nipple
2nd The general trackpad which is on most laptops
67th The pointing device employed on the Fujitsu.

I played with the Fujitsu a while longer and came to the conclusion that I could probably live with it. So once again I'm stood at the checkout about to draw my credit card when once again, a sudden pang of doubt hit me. I was about to lay out $2500 dollars for a laptop that I only thought I could live with, rather than actually like. Once again I told the shop dude that I wanted to think about it some more and left. He wasn't a happy cat.

Vicki and I ate dinner in the Tapas bar on 1st and 59th where the people made excellent Margerhita's. Wasn't as good as Jason's and mine but they were definitely a close second. So we had a few of them, and as usual Vicki went back to work and I went back to the hotel.

Vicki came home at about 2am, I said "Mwwmmmaaa hi sweetie" Vicki left at 6.30am, I said "Whhhaaawwhhh a good day babes"

Tuesday 7th December 1999

So it's the day of the party and to quote "The Smiths" I haven't got a stitch to wear. I decided to return to Saks on 5th and find something there. I bought a funky pair of Prada shoes and a nice black Calvin Klein shirt. I also bought a funky little mans handbag type thing which is verr nice. However the people that have seen it usually comment that $180 is a trifle excessive for a handbag. I would agree with them but you know how it is when you're on a shopping roll and the credit card is flowing freely.

So I emerged from Saks laden with goods and thought "Bollox to this, I came to the States with the intention of buying a laptop so I'll be ficked if I'm going home without one". So I went back to the store where I nearly bought the Fujitsu. I marched in and collared the same guy from the day before [ since they work on commission ] and declared that I wanted to go for the Sony Vaio. $2500 later I emerged loaded down with bags from Saks and a new laptop. It was a verr verr expensive day.

So it was time for the party and Vicki bustled in late after a heavy day on the shop floor. We got ready and grabbed a cab down to the store opening. You remember when I first arrived and said the store was like a bomb-site.....well I suppose I saw it slowly transforming over the next few days but the end result was pretty spectacular. The shop looked fantastic and Vicki and I wandered around looking at stuff, drinking champagne and gin. Even though I'd been in the shop twice a day since I arrived in NY I'd never really had a chance to look around. They have some of the most delightful things in there. Most of them can also be found in Fulham Road - but they had a very sexy desk and chair [ If a desk and chair can be regarded as sexy ] and some verr hoopy lamps. These lamps are the ones with the funny red dots on, Vicki has told me the manufacturer several times but I have a memory like one of those things you do that thing to flour with......oooooh flashing lights. What's that? Oooh.

The party was a fantastic evening and I met loads of cool people. The party was also being attended by the press with photographers from Vanity Fair and the NY Times. Vicki, Mark, Giseppe [ sp! ] and myself had our photographs taken. I have no idea if they actually got published but I seriously doubt it as I'm as photogenic as ummm an un-photogenic thing. Met up with Terence Conran who totally snubbed me, the arrogant arsehead, but his wife was really cool.

It was during the party that Vicki and I got chatting with Michelle [ he's a French bloke that's second in command after Terrence ] who expressed deep regret about the delays in the shop opening and the fact that Vicki and I had hardly seen each other. A little later we spoke to.....ahhh sheize man, forgotten his name but he was a very cool person, from Yorkshire of all places.......who was the manager of the NY store. He also expressed regret about Vicki having to spend the whole time working. He then said to us that if we could both swing the extra time off work and the flight changes then he'd be happy to pay for us to stay in a hotel in NY. That was cool, the only downside was that neither Vicki's nor my ticket were transferrable. So we sidled back up to Michelle and chatted to him for a while during which time he agreed to pay for Vicki's new flight home. Which was cool. I had to buy my own ticket but it was only $400 which was well worth it for an extra 3 days in NY.

We also chatted with Mr Goto [ sp ] who runs the Conran Shop in Tokyo, along with his assistant who's name I have also forgotten. It was cool to meet Mr Goto [ pronounced go - toe ] as he's a good friend of Vicki's and she's told me loads about him and he also looks after her when she flies to Japan. She'd also told him lots about me and showed him my photograph. So we had a bit of a chat and I suspect next time Vicki goes to Japan I'll accompany her.

The party started drawing to a close at about 9.30pm and we were all arranging to go to Pravda down in Soho or Greenwich village [ can't remember which right now ] but Vicki's days of late nights and early mornings caught up with her. She was like a zombie at the end of the party, and I don't really think it was due to the alcohol.

After spending ages waiting for a cab in the freezing cold we decided to sack it and nip next door for a Margarita after which we emerged into the cold night and managed to hail a cab.

Wednesday 8th December 1999 [ 19 years after John Lennon's death ]

The two of us had a late morning recovering from the party, and Vicki catching up on sleep. I popped down to McDonalds to grab us some breakfast whilst we both packed in preparation for checking out. We were both due to fly out at about 6.30pm but after the nights drunken discussions we weren't too sure. We decided to take a cab down to the shop and just check that it was cool. We bumped into the store manager who said he was happy to pay for our hotel, and we also met Michelle who again said it was cool to book some more flights. So we did.

The next hotel was verr sweet. It was on 37th and Lexington which is close to the Empire State building. We had a bedroom with two double beds and cable TV, a full kitchen, bathroom and living room. If you looked out of either the bedroom or the living room you could see the Empire State which was lit up different colours every night. It was, to put it bluntly, sweet.

Anyhoo, before checking into our new hotel Vicki and I went over to Central Park for a bit of a mooch around. This day was the day that 19 years ago some arsehead killed John Lennon [ there is a conspiracy theory that it was set up by the CIA because Lennon was encouraging the peace movement and stuff during the Vietnam war ]. On the anniversary of Lennon's death people always gather around the "Imagine" memorial in Central Park to sing Beatle's songs. So Vicki and were lucky enough to be there for that.

We went for a wander over to the Dakota buildings to see where the guy was actually killed but we couldn't find them. We asked the doorman of some swanky hotel where John Lennon was shot. Before he had chance to reply, a guest that had happened to overhear the conversation interjected with "In the head". He was American, and he had a sense of humour - uncanny. Anyway the porter eventually gave us some directions and off we popped for our morbid bit of sightseeing.

Whilst walking back through Central Park we stopped off and had a massage by some Orientals which was pretty funky, and then we grabbed our bags from the Conran store and took a cab up to our new hotel.

We just chilled for a while and then went for a walk over to Times Square to have a look around. I suppose Times Sq. is a little like Leicester Sq. in London except bigger, brighter and well, as far as I could see not actually a square. At one point Vicki and I were on the big TV display thing that is on the side of one of the buildings in Times Square. That was quite good fun. Whilst there we had a look in the newly opened Virgin Megastore which is enormous. I bought 3 DVD's to play in my new laptop. I opted for The Matrix [ as all geeks do ], Austin Powers 2 "The Spy Who Shagged Me" and Southpark the movie. It is Southpark that I've spent most time watching - it is in my opinion an absolute classic. I love this movie more than ummmmm, beer.

On the way back from Times Sq we stopped off in a bar called Houlihans which is located beneath the Empire State building. Vicki had a Margarita - I chugged a beer.

Thursday 9th December 1999

Our plans for this day were to take a helicopter ride around Manhattan and scale the Empire State. We accomplished both. The helicopter ride was pretty impressive but lost a little because I seemed to have a camera pressed to my eye the whole time. The pilot did some whoopie turns and we all had fun. The were 6 of us in the helicopter and we were all British, except for the pilot.

To prepare us for the arduous trek to the top of the Empire State we ate Buffalo wings and I drank Guiness.

The lifts were very busy in the Empire State so we had to queue for quite a while but it was well worth it. The lift starts off by going 1...2...3 but then as it accelerated it read 5....10...15 and as it gets really going it is 20...30...40 and you just stand there thinking "no way man, we can't be going up that fast" When Vicki and I went up it was a fantastic sunny clear blue sky which gave us excellent views over Manhattan. We kinda hung out at the top for a while going ooooh and ahhhhh and that sort of thing. We managed to work out where our hotel room was and then went back down to ground level.

We took the subway down to Canal St to check out the fake watches and stuff. I utterly disagree with buying fake stuff but what with me being a complete hypocrite and all that bought a fake Oakley watch. It has one of those cool faces where you have an hour and a minute hand but the whole of the display is an LCD which counts the seconds - I'm sure you must have seen them. Vicki went mad and bought 3 watches. The fastening mechanism on my watch is a bit shady and it needs adjusting. The windy uppy thing on one of Vicki's watches came off in her hand about an hour later - and the next day the hour hand of another of the watches became disconnected from the clockwork mechanism and just kind of moved around as you shook the watch. It was quite amusing but we decided if someone asked the time you could say "well it's 25 past something". At $10 each what do you expect, but I suppose the moral of this tale is that counterfeiting is bad news kids - don't do it.

Since we were just around the corner from China Town we wandered over there for dinner and I had the most revolting Chinese meal of my life. Taxi home as neither of us particularly fancied the subway at night. I'm sure it would have been fine but it really wasn't worth the risk.

Friday 10th December 1999

We started today in The Conran Store. Since Vicki had been working there she got 40% off and we bought a few gifts and stuff for people. I bought Hannah [ Roddens little girl ] an accordion which is so noisy it's gonna be hilarious. I bought a few other odds and sods for people and we went to get some lunch.

I had my haircut as I wouldn't get another chance before Christmas and then we went for lunch. Well, beer actually but it's the same thing.

We then decided to go our separate ways to buy the surprise gifts for each other. I got Vicki a hat that she'd wanted from Armani and a little Pokemon toy for no reason whatsoever. Our prearranged rendezvous point was back in Jimmy Walkers, home of [ as far as I know ] the best Buffalo wings in NY. We were both goosed from the days shopping and so we both decided to just stay in Jimmy Walkers and drink an obscene amount of alcohol.

Saturday 11th December 1999

Since we were definitely leaving on this day we repacked our stuff and dumped it in the place where people dump their stuff in hotels and went for a wander over to Grand Central Station. They were doing a laser show on the roof of the station which was quite cool. There were also a few cool stalls set up there and Vicki bought a couple of gifts.

After Grand Central Station we went to Rockerfellers to see the tree and the Ice rink before heading back to the hotel to grab a cab over to the airport. We had a last couple of beers and cigarettes in America before boarding our flights and leaving. Uneventful flight, a few drinks but not too many. Arrived Frankfurt at about 8am.