Washed out

New York City - 1: Laura - 0

I landed at JFK yesterday to a glorious evening. It was a tad colder than the UK but the sun was shining and the view of Manhattan's skyline was as amazing as I'd remembered it. Admittedly this time I was sharing a "SuperShuttle Bus" with a driver who sang (badly) along to the merengue on the radio, and a rude French couple (is there any other sort?) who refused to let the man sat next to them put his bag by their feet. And a British girl who kept threatening to be sick.

I dithered about going out to get my bearings once I found my hotel, but decided a good night's sleep would sort me out for the morning.

My hotel room is tiny - but clean and very central. It's hard to tell what the weather's like from inside as the window is very small and looks out onto a brick wall. Oh yes, nothing but luxury for me.

Because of the time difference, I woke up bright and early this morning, stuck the TV on, vaguely noted something about some sort of storm, jotted down a few addresses of things I wanted to see, and decided to go to a cafe for breakfast. On getting to the lobby, it became painfully apparent it was raining. Lots. Suddenly the idea of "leaving the umbrella in London" seemed like one of my worst decisions to date. No worries. I'm sure they sell umbrellas in NYC. And indeed they do. $7 later I was the proud owner of a Nice Purple Umbrella.

As the day progressed, it appeared I was in fact the proud owner of the world's first Incredible Leaking Umbrella (patent pending).

I decided to try my luck on the subway. I remembered it confused me last time, but I am a savvy Londoner, utterly au fais with the tube. I could conquer this!

I couldn't.

And I have to apologise. Because New York's subway system has been designed by a moron. Several of the tube stations have the same name. Meaning I thought I was on 23rd Street on the 1 line or the red line or whatever the fuck it is. In actual fact I was on the Broadway Local line. No matter, actually, this was good too, and I could walk from Cortlandt Street. Until, without warning the train didn't stop until we were well into Brooklyn. Construction work, apparently. Still, at least I've been to Brooklyn.

So why am I apologising? Well, the subway has clearly been designed by someone with no sense of direction, no logic, no attention to detail... In short, it was probably me. I probably invent / use a time machine at some point in the future, pop over to NYC and design a really fucking awful / half-hearted attempt at public transport. So, sorry about that.

Anyway, sod transport. I love walking. I'll walk!

Some point around midday, the Incredible Leaking Umbrella (patent pending) gave up its (somewhat tenuous) grip on life. Still, the weather was incredibly awful, so I can't really blame the brolly. I'm no wuss when it comes to rain; I lived in Bristol for three years. But this was a proper storm - I could barely edge a few inches forward before getting blown back again, flaps of broken umbrella and spokes of metal barely missing my eyes.

It was at this point, a mere 50 metres from Abercrombie and Fitch that I decided that this was actually quite dangerous. I ditched the idea of Abercrombie, ditched the brolly (which was no longer a brolly so much as a sheet of semi-waterproof material with a few useless pieces of metal dangling dangerously), hailed a cab (tried to explain to a not-exactly-fluent cab driver where West 31st and 5th Avenue was) and came back to my hotel.

Everything I was wearing was absolutely soaked, so as I write this, I'm stripped and wrapped in a fluffy towel, and wondering exactly how much of a waste of the holiday it would be if I didn't re-emerge from the hotel room.

Total expenditure today:

$10 breakfast
$7 brolly
$24 weekly subway card
$20 taxi fare...

... and nothing to show for any of it! And it's only 2 p.m...