America, home of the brave, home of the Ethan. I arrived at JFK and witnessed some crazy shit. The girl ahead of me in line got detained, then the lady in the line next to me got cursed out for crossing the yellow line too soon. All non-residents were having their finger prints scanned and mug shots taken. It was pretty welcoming. I was welcomed at the airport by my friends John and Allison Haselbauer, who whisked me off to their nice brownstone apartment in Brooklyn. We went out to a cool restaurant with a live band on the patio and had some beers as I regaled them with stories and got the low down on life in the big apple. The next day I went to the US Open, completing my personal grand slam minus the French. I saw a couple great matches and pictured Kramer as the ball man and George stuffing his face with ice cream. That night we had a bar-b-q in the back patio garden, then I was introduced to the Flight of the Concords, a great show featuring a couple of kiwi's. On Friday I met John at work in the afternoon and we wondered around the city. We checked out the Main Library, where we checked out the reading rooms and pictured Bill Murry and Dan Ackroid running down the steps after seeing a ghost. We had a snack in the park, then went to Grand Central Station, where I reminisced on when Matthew Broderick arrived for a unexpected adventure in The Freshman. We then stopped by the Seagram Building for a drink at the bar. After chatting for 10 minutes I realized that we had a heaping bowl of hard boiled eggs in front of us. I didn't know what to say or do. I finally stuffed a couple in my pocket and asked for the bill. We proceeded to the MOMA where we discovered it was free Friday, and made it past the line nazi with our eggs. We met up with Allison there, and basically embarrised her as we took pictures of our eggs and moon walked all over that house of art. We walked through Rockefeller Center as the sun was setting, then went out for Indian in the Village, ending our night with a drink at KGB. We started my last day with bloody Mary's on the patio, then beer and hot dogs for brunch. Walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and past Ground Zero and all the conspiracy freaks. Hopped the subway to Central Park, which was wonderful, and also the location where Rick Moranis was attacked by an evil dog in Ghostbusters. In about an hour and a half we saw out of control kids on roller blades, a UFO, a crazy singing Indian ( http://www.skthoth.com/splashpage/ ), a kid brain himself on the Alice in Wonderland statue, and had a drink at the Boathouse. We ran by the Guggenheim and saw all the scaffolding, then went to Washington Square to see the real freaks. Then we met up with friends Cat and Brad for a few drinks at some local watering holes. New York is great and so diverse it didn't really feel like I was in the states. It was really cool to see my friends in their new life out there.
