Bookmarks for June 25th through June 27th

These are my links for June 25th through June 27th as bookmarked on delicious.com:

New York Diary

Within minutes of going through customs (all those questions make me
nervous!)  I had hooked up with my travelling
companion at Newark Liberty International Airport Train Station. A name
longer than its actual size warranted. We had landed almost
simultaneously, different carriers. Someone had warned me Continental
would be ‘crap’, but I’ve nothing but good things to say about their
handsome and friendly staff. Plenty of food and drink was made
available, quite unlike my previous experience on a transatlantic journey
ten years ago with Air Kuwait.

The New Jersey air was hot and humid, tropical even, the remnants of some storm fizzling out over the area. I
was, of course, wearing the wrong clothes. Newark Airport’s neighbourhood
isn’t the most attractive, so I focussed instead on the people on the train and
their accents, so familiar from the TV series I used to watch. The guy
checking the tickets was a real character. In his early 30’s, but the
demeanor of a 50 year old. Pants three sizes too big for him. He must
have checked our tickets three times during the twenty minute ride into
Penn Station, meanwhile talking ball (the Yankees playing the ‘Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim‘) with the passengers. ‘Next stop: Secaucus‘.

I’m apprehensive about going places I’ve never been, which is odd for
someone who was sent off on daytrips to London or Zurich on her own at
the age of 16 and who’d already been to Brasil, Canada, Indonesia and
parts of Africa before that. Somewhere, somehow I lost a lot of
confidence and though getting to the hotel was dead easy, I was glad to
have someone with me who’d been before and could at least navigate the
grid.

Our hotel, the Chelsea ‘Star’, didn’t deserve the accolade. Hostel-type
bunk beds in a tiny and smelly room, but at the price we paid and at
literally a stone-throw away from Madison Square Garden we couldn’t
really complain. I think we went on a recce immediately, but nothing
even hinted at the U2 concerts that were taking place at the MSG that
week. It was the start of the hockey season and they were decking the
hall with blue and red bunting, in honour of the city’s Rangers. We
picked up our will call tickets for the U2 shows (The lady at the box
office was both funny and helpful. Service, what a great concept) and
were told that 30
dollars we could see that evening’s game from the ‘good’ seats. Yes,
excellent nosebleed seats, no doubt.