Yesterday I got up at 5.00 am, got the train to London and the tube to Heathrow, flew to New York, got a cab into the city, checked into my hotel and settled in my room. Long day. But it's only five o'clock over here although ten in my head and the fibres of my old body. Old body is right. I should lie down; I should rest.
Bugger that - I'm in New York City. I'll go walkabout, take in some of my old haunts from 2005. So I walk 15 blocks up Park to Grand Central Station, and take a look in there. Absolutely thronging, still absolutely grand. Then I go back out on to 42nd Street and walk across, past the New York Public Library and Bryant Park, down to Times Square. I go to the spot on West 42nd Street to see if the internet cafe where I used to blog is still there. It isn't. I run into Morgan Freeman. He's standing just outside Madame Tussaud's and everyone is taking his picture. I walk back down Seventh Avenue, stop for a coffee and Cheese Danish along the way, and then walk back east on 34th so that I can look at the Empire State Building again.
And all the time I'm on these New York streets, and I love it. The noise, the vibrancy, the talk: every kind of New Yorker and visitors from every which where. They're sharing their conversations. It's buzzing. By the time I get back to my hotel, I'm even more exhausted - and on top of the world. What a place.