Following a few days in New England, we headed back into New York city for the weekend. The commuter train from New Haven trundled through lots of towns on the edges of New York, before eventually going underground, then pitching up at Grand Central Terminal. A few blocks walk along 42nd Street, and we reached our hotel, the Hilton New York. A room on the 35th floor gave a pretty decent view of (some of) the city, and you could just about see the lights of Times Square. Being a posh Hilton, doing anything more than breathing the air was obscenely expensive - despite having a "free" breakfast included, we were still expected to leave a 20% tip on the $50 "cost" of the breakfast - a nice scam.The following day, we woke up to pissing rain and virtually no visibility whatsoever. Arsenal were due to play at 10am, so we headed to Nevada Smiths to watch the game. Given the result, I wish I hadn't bothered - another spineless display from Arsenal. In the pub, it was amazing how many people were there (it was packed at 10am when the UK games kicked off), all wearing various Premier League team "jerseys". There was a good Arsenal contingent there, as well as a surprising number of Fulham fans. There were lots of football songs being sung throughout - with lots of strange accents used in them, and in the ways that people were describing the game. "That's a cock sucking call" was said a few times - just weird. Warren Barton was the TV studio pundit for the coverage of the Arsenal game - sadly, with the sound turned down, we did not get to hear his perceptive analysis!
On walking out of the pub after a(nother) depressing Arsenal display and result, we almost bumped into the Kaiser Chiefs, who were playing a gig that night at a venue a couple of blocks away. All very English - bumping into an English band, after watching a football match in the pub - all in the middle of New York.
We seemed to divide much of the time in New York between the SoHo and Greenwich Village area; and Midtown. Staying in Midtown meant a fair bit of walking around that area - at around 5pm on Saturday night, we were in Times Square, which was like hell on earth. Very busy with very, very slow moving and dithering people. Even late on Sunday night, the place was packed - MTV were doing something with a famous person in their studios, so there was a huge crowd outside watching. The whole city seemed to be rammed with Brits as well, all most weird. 
After a weekend in New York City, we headed off to Hoboken in New Jersey, to stay for a few days. In reality, this is about 10 minutes (at a quick time) from Manhattan, but may as well be a million miles away in many respects. Being in New Jersey, it is not in either New York City or State, so it is not on any of the transport maps, and is generally not considered by New Yorkers. Getting on the train there was like going back to the 1970s, although the brown, cream and orange decor didn't help there! The main street of Hoboken had lots of independent shops and restaurants, and a generally slower pace of everything than Manhattan.
So, despite Hoboken being a decent enough place to live, eat and shop, we found ourselves heading back into Manhattan every day, for more excitement - it seemed crazy to have New York so close, and not to go there. We did the MoMa, Top Of The Rock, Central Park, and all of the standard stuff - then concentrated on buying stuff (despite the rapidly worsening exchange rate). It was getting colder and colder by the day, so indoor activities started to take over the agenda. It was a great few days in New York, but eventually the cold was setting in so much, it was good to get back to London - relatively warm at a whole 10 degrees.
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