Saturday 3 March - New York

We were lucky enough to stay overnight at the apartment of Carly Bristow (no relation to Mark, as in Bairstow, just to let you know) and George Tan, two secondees from Sydney. Their apartment is only 13 blocks from Libe – that might sound like a fair way, however in the Manhattan street grid, the street blocks are only approximately 25% of the size of the avenue blocks so it’s not far at all, particularly in the overall context of NY city. It was a nice change from Libe’s apartment, which has an uncomfortable bed with a drafty airconditioner (which sits directly above the pillows on one side of the bed), a shower with a limited supply of hot water and very noisy neighbours upstairs who might be nocturnal.

I'd been left hanging by Dad’s messages regarding the Cats game in Darwin. I’d woken up to a series of messages giving me updates throughout the game, the last two reading “about to go into extra time”, and then “ring me in the morning”. Yada yada yada... it wasn’t until 3pm that I found out the result.

Although it was only 7 degrees celcius today, it felt warmer than that. Obviously it wouldn’t in Oz, but it’s all relative. And all we were relating it to were some near-zero to sub-zero temperatures experienced recently, so we weren’t too far from breaking out the thongs and boardies.

First stop was the Rockefeller Centre, which pales in comparison to the Empire State Building really. It has an observatory but we didn’t make the trip up there. Nothing special. The best part of the Centre that we saw there was the public ice skating rink in the plaza at the bottom.

Late afternoon involved a tour of the UN Headquarters, located in Midtown on the shore of the East River. The highlight of the tour for me was an exhibit on women’s rights and discrimination around the world. It was very moving, and really showed that we’ve still got a lot of work with human rights. The other highlight was the Security Council room, where some of the world’s most important decisions are made... although some may argue that the UN’s decisions are effectively made in the White House. The Security Council has 5 permanent members – US, Russia, UK, China and France – while 10 other countries rotate through the remaining seats. The utopian view would be that the Council would not have any permanent members. My opinion – in particular – is that I’d like to see the US and UK roll off it one day but I fear their own pride, particularly the US, and motivation to be seen as the world’s most powerful countries, will prevent them from doing so. I doubt there is a more hypocritical country than the US with regards to international relations at the moment, although Australia, by extension of its support for most (if not all) US foreign policies, are not too far behind. The US keep pushing for certain UN resolutions to be binding on one hand, yet on the other hand refuse to comply and recognise other resolutions, and regularly apply their veto power. Hopefully we can get there one day where the utopian ideals are recognised. Anyway, it was well worth the effort to get down there.

After dusk, me & Libe braved the incoming cold and took a walk across the famous Brooklyn Bridge. The bridge is the most southern bridge heading off the east side of Manhattan, however the fact that it may not be the most central does not mean that it doesn’t provide magnificent views of Manhattan. If you can’t feel alive looking at the view from here, you never will. I’ll let the pictures to the talking. We walked most of the way across it, getting to the point where the land of the Borough of Brooklyn appeared below us, and turned around from there. Happened to take a 1,000,001 photos on the bridge too... plus a few videos.

Chinatown for tea – Peking Duck. Although good, won’t be in a hurry to have it again. Do prefer normal roast / BBQ duck actually.

Beers with a large portion of the Oz & South African secondees followed at Sutton Place on 2nd Avenue near 53rd street, which seems to become almost a local for a few of the secondees, especially Barrel, who seems to be on a first name basis with a few of the staff. Particularly the female ones. Funny that...