So what do you all think Roger is thinking ?

Thanks to my friend Col from Hull for this excellent picture!

New York day 2…….

Its been a while since i was in NY, 2 years i think, it used to be my second home! I've known my friend Brad who lives here since 1999 we met through Rogers music and have been good friend for the last 10 years!

I was an usher at Brads wedding 3 or 4 years ago. I had made and brought him a Dark Side of The Moon Yhamakee for his wedding, we both wore one and It went down a storm at the wedding and everyone knew i was Brads “pink floyd friend”

I woke around 9am and left the apartment around 10. Walked down to Union Square and did a bit of shopping and then walked over to see a friend who works in one of Brads stores. I met up with my friend Paula for lunch and she took me to a great place a couple of blocks from where she works on West 20th St. It’s an old church that used to me a nightclub called Limelight, it was a pretty infamous place and became a bit of a drug hangout and got a real bad reputation from what i can gather. They've turned it into small gift stores inside and in the back there's a great make your own salad bar and a nice little sandwich place. Its the kind of place you'd go to buy a gift and get something either hand made or something that you wont be able to find in the rest of New York. It was quiet inside and i really hope it takes off  and doesn't close down due to not being known about!

Paula had a salad and i had a caprese baguette, it was great to catch up. I've known Paula for the last 10 years and with the exception of last year (and soon this year) id been at her place for Thanksgiving dinner for the last 6 years!! as i said, NY used to be my second home!

I walked back to the apartment via a few stores and got back around 2pm. Chilled out for a couple of hours before making my way over to the meet up place just across the street from Madison Square Garden. On the way i called in to the Hotel Pennsylvania to meet my friend Jason, he had flown over from the UK yesterday just to see the two MSG shows. We got to the meet up around 4:30 and Renate and Eric were there already.

After 30 minutes or so the place was packed!! We had all met up here since 2002 and it was kinda tradition to meet up at this bar before the shows now. if its fine then they open the rooftop patio and its a great place just to chill out and drink, eat and people watch over the edge onto 33rd street!

RON and Col arriving                 Paul, Natalie and I                    Thomas, Myself and Thomas’s son

   

Col, Renate and Myself                     Jason and Emil                               Mark, Kami, Maria, Thomas & Beth

   

A good friend of mine Thomas in San Diego wasn't able to make the show tonight but he sent his sister along instead who sent him a message back!!

It was also Ron's birthday today and Beth had been out earlier in the day and bought a cake, after a few problems with the manager at the bar not wanting us to bring outside food in we arranged that we could open the cake, add the candles and do the happy birthday thing but we wouldn't eat the cake on the premises.

Ron opening his Birthday card

    

Rons birthday cake

We stayed in the bar till around 7:15 before all of us making our way over to the venue across the street. We bumped into the “homeless man” Brent outside the venue and had a good chat with him.

Took a great panorama made up of three pictures inside the venue after the show:

More pictures from the meet up here:

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New York day 1…

Maria, Renate and i took a cab into Manhattan from JFK. I was staying with my friend Brad, Maria was at a hotel 2 streets away from me and Renate was at a hotel on the west side of the city.

My friends Brad and Julee had had a baby girl Milla 8 months ago and this was the first time id got to see her.

 

I took a walk down to my friends UPS store (he owns  seven Manhattan UPS stores) and dropped off a box that i had been carrying for the last week. Jens had ordered some shoes for his girlfriend and when they arrived they had sent the wrong size so i arranged to send them back by UPS but hadn't had chance to take them to a store to drop them off since Boston. Brad and i hung out for an hour before i headed back to the apartment and wrote yesterday blog.

Milla is adorable and hardly ever cries.we sat and watched TV together and Julee introduced me to  Yo Gabba Gabba, what a shame i wasn't in town the night before as they were doing a live show at Radio City Hall! so upset that i missed it,lol

We ordered Chinese takeout for dinner and just relaxed and chatted till i went to bed around 10pm

Goodbye Boston, Hello New York……

I hardly slept at all last night probably got an hours sleep in total, just kept waking up and couldn't get to sleep at all. We got the hotel shuttle at 9:30am, we had checked in online for the Jet Blue flight to New York so didn't have to be there real early. Got to the airport around 10 and sailed through security, got a couple of Yoghurt Parfaits at the Starbucks and sat in the departure lounge waiting for the flight.

I slept pretty much all the way to NY and remember waking up a couple of times and the turbulence was pretty bad and for the first time ever i felt a bit ill on the flight! It was only 5 minutes to landing and by the time we touched down i felt better.

Goodbye rainy Boston                                          Hello rainy New York

   

My friend Renate from Switzerland was flying into JFK 10 minutes after our arrival so we took the air train over to terminal 8 and met her off her flight, then Maria, Renate and i shared a cab into New York.

The Danes go home….

Maria and i took a taxi to a hotel near the airport where we were staying for one last night before flying to New York tomorrow. Lars, Jens and Thomas headed out in a taxi to get some breakfast.

The hotel was a good 10 minute cab ride north of Boston, managed to check in early and just laid on the bed and did my blog for a couple of hours before speaking to the guys, finding out where they were and taking a cab back down into Boston.

They were al sat in a bar around the corner form the hotel, Jens was sat there with his foot up on a chair, a beer in his hand and couldn't have been happier! We all joked how Thomas and Lars would have some fun at the airport pushing Jens around in a wheelchair. Whilst the swelling had looked to have gone down a touch the bruising was now coming out and it was black and blue both sides of his ankle.

My friend Glenn was coming down from Portland for tonight's show and he called to say he was half an hour away. We met Glenn in 2001 when he came over for Gilmour's shows in London, id driven up to see him 4 or 5 years ago one time when i was in the US but Jens hadn't seen him since 2001. He arrived with hi son Ryker who he was taking to the show. We all headed to the reception of what had been our hotel for the last 3 nights and sat and chatted in the lobby till it was time to say goodbye to Jens, Lars and Thomas. There were a few tears shed and i was real sad to see the guys go, we'd had some great times over the last 3 weeks and all 3 really are great guys, I'll miss them on the rest of the tour that for sure.

Maria, Glenn, Ryker and i met up with Mat and Drew who had been to all the Boston shows so far and al walked across the street to pick up some tickets and head inside the venue. I’ll do a review later for the show but suffice to say it was another cracking show which i saw from the front rail.

We met up after the show at the same place we had the night before but now there was only 4 or 5 of us in the group. Glenn headed back to Maine and we headed out for a drink before Mat and Drew left Maria and i in the bar, and then there were two!! We got a cab back to the hotel via McDonalds as Maria hadn't eaten all day and was craving junk food! We went through the drive through in the cab and all the cab driver seemed to be worried about was his credit card machine had stopped working and kept asking us to make sure we had enough cash to pay him! Even as we went through the drive though he shouted “ don't spend all your cash, my credit card machines broken, i need you to pay me cash”

Night out in Boston

So it was a night off last night, no show to go to. We all agreed it would be good to head out and have some nice food in a real restaurant for a change! Thomas and Maria arrived at our room around 7pm and we headed out to walk over to the North End area which is Boston's Italian district. It was real busy and we were thinking we may have to wait an hour to get a table at most of the restaurants. We passed a few places and walked past Mike Pastry’s, the line outside was real long and id guess there must have been at least a half hours wait just to get through the entrance into the shop!

We headed further down the street and found a nice looking restaurant with an outdoor patio to the side along with a roof top patio and indoor tables as well. After asking how long it would be for a table of 5 we were surprised when the hostess said about 10 minutes! the place was packed!! 15 minutes later we were seated outside on the patio. 20 minutes after that we were seated at a table indoors! it was freezing outside so the waiter arranged for us to go inside.

Outside on the patio.                                 Table inside

 

We ordered a very nice bottle of red wine that I've had before when I've been in the US, its not cheap but Lars, Jens and i were sharing it so that made it a bit easier. When it came and Lars took a sip he loved it! It is the smoothest red wine I've ever had.

Lars and Jens had pretty much decided on the 18oz Lamb porterhouse steak, however, when our waiter told us the specials he said they had a Bison ragu on the menu tonight! Bison has been on Lars’s list of food he wants to eat for a while so they were both now totally stuck as to what to order, they chose the Bison in the end, I had decided on having the Caprese and then the Taglatellia as a main.

Lars went out for a cigarette and did his usual scary face at the window and Thomas joined in this time! (click on Thomas’s picture for a larger version to see his scary eyes!)

 

Our waiter did the rounds around the table and Thomas asked for the dish that had Octopussy in it! We all just busted out laughing and explained to Thomas it was indeed Octopus. The waiter came round to me and for some reason the words that came out of my mouth were not what i was going to choose. I’ll have the veal T bone with the Truffle mash and truffle oiled onions i said!!

      

It was great to just sit in a nice place and eat some decent food, we all agreed we should have done this a little earlier in the tour instead of the greasy cafe breakfasts and burgers for dinner!

We headed back to the hotel and called at Mikes Pastry’s on the way so that Maria and Thomas could buy some and see the store, it was their first experience of Mikes. Maria and Thomas then took a cab back to their hotel and Lars, Jens and I headed back to our hotel.

 

At first i thought Jens was dancing!! however when he actually went down onto the road i knew he’d fallen. There was a small pot hole in the road just by the curb and Jens hadn't seen it and twisted his ankle straight in it as he stepped off the curb! he fell straight down, don't worry Thomas and I managed to make sure the box of Cannolis were fine! The box landed flat on the road!

He hobbled back to the hotel and it had clearly swollen up like a balloon by the time we got there. The girl in the hotel reception was very nice and went and got some ice wrapped in a towel, when she returned she went a bit pale after seeing his ankle and we were more bothered about her passing out that we were about Jens!

Jens’s foot at the hotel:

 

His foot was getting bigger every second and we could see it swelling up more as we stood and looked at it! he made it up to the room, iced it and elevated it on the bed. We were all just thankful that it happened the day before he was leaving and not the day he got here! Lars asked him if he needed anything or needed the TV turning on or anything else and was talking to him like he had an hour left to live! Jens shouted “I'm not fucking dying you know”,lol

 

Woke around 9am this morning, had a shower, packed my case, went downstairs and had 3 boiled eggs and two slices of toast for breakfast! Felt great to eat some “normal” food for breakfast again. I then headed upstairs and found Lars eating his last connoli, i remembered i had one left in the fridge!! Ugggghhhhh it had to be eaten! that's it though now now more sugar for me!

Jens’s foot was still badly swollen this morning, he hadn't had a great nights sleep at all and could hardly walk on his foot when he got out of the bed! Lars went downstairs to get the luggage trolley for us all, during this time Maria and Thomas arrived at our hotel. Getting the luggage down was the easy part, getting Jens down was going to be the hard part! until we thought of the luggage trolley!!

Moving jens to the reception

The receptionist gave us a bandage and i did my magic on his foot! I wrapped the bandage pretty tight to keep compression on it and said if your toes start to turn blue then we’ll slacken it off. Sure enough after 5 minutes we could see it was on too tight, Lars wanted to leave it on and see how blue we could get his toes  but we slackened it off for him.

        

 

Click below for more pics:

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The great snore off!!

So who snores the loudest ? You decide!

Click on the comments and say 1, 2 or 3.

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Mikes Pastry’s…….

So the day before yesterday before going for breakfast we called in to Mikes pastry’s, its a very well known store in the Italian area of Boston known as the North End. The area is full of Italian restaurants and pastry shops. Until 5 or 6 years ago i had no idea what a cannoli was! an Italian friend of mine in Brooklyn NY took me for a cannoli one day so its all his fault!!

Mikes Pastry’s

It has to be the largest cake shop I've ever been in. Usually the queue is out of the door and half way around the building however we walked straight in and were served within 2 minutes! We have a fridge in our hotel room so Lars and i both stocked up on a box full as they would keep for a few days. Its now 3 days later and the fridge is bare!

We ended up back here last night after dinner, the queue wasn't too bad and id guess there were 25 people in front of us.

Cakes as big as a bottle of beer!

 

There is another store across the street called Modern Pastry and Mikes and Modern are the main two stores that sell the pastries, there's always a line outside of each store.They are in competition with each other and some swear by Mikes and others by Modern. We were pretty happy with Mikes and didn't get a chance to sample Moderns, maybe next time.

3rd day in Boston..

So after the show last night we all went back to a bar for a few drinks, i wasn't too bothered for drinking so had one with everyone and made my way back to the hotel. Half an hour later Jens came in and was saying how we really need to catch Lars snoring tonight.

The bar we headed to after the show

    

Lars was having a cigarette outside the hotel so when Jens and i heard the door in the room go we both started snoring our heads off, Lars thought he’d got us and as i peeped out of one eye i could see him firing up his camera, just as he pointed it at us and jumped up in bed and said GOTCHA!! his face was a picture he couldn't believe it. We were all then fired up for recording the snoring. We were all in bed and all had our cameras at the side and wondering who was going to go to sleep first. I heard Jens snore first but it wasn't too loud, then i must have dropped off asleep myself.

Woke around 8am (jetlags definitely gone now!) and messed around on the laptop for half an hour then fell back to sleep till 11. Soon as i woke up i heard Lars snoring away and recorded the clip that i put on my blog. Tonight's the last night i have to put up with it so i only have one more chance to get Jens!

Had a quick shower and headed out to get some breakfast/lunch around 1pm, found a little bar down the road and had a turkey club sandwich. Wandered back to the hotel and found out they had a gym in the lower level of the hotel, i was so bummed, we leave tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to get an hour in in the morning.

Jen’s went off to look for some nail varnish and Lars went to get a new suitcase. I went for a walk around Boston common, through the gardens and then wandered back to the hotel where i am now and its about 6pm in the evening. Were all heading out to the North End in an hour for a relaxing Italian dinner.

   

   

Boston Common Panorama

 

Boston sights album:

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