Are We Bearly There Yet?

Sebastian is a loyal teddy bear and travelling companion. He stays with me through illness and nightmares and never complains when he gets flung out of bed. When I take him travelling he usually stays in the hotel room, but on a recent trip some of his friends insisted that he get a few outings.

Here's a picture diary of a trip to New York City.

Ouch!

The St Patrick's Day Parade Saga, in which Sebastian watches the parade, roams the West Village (he's bear-hemian), discovers the green cocktails, overindulges in green beer and suffers in the digestive sense.

Despite this temporary setback, he pushed through the hangover to triumph as one of the last finishers of the half marathon (little legs, you know)

He wrote some postcards.

He made friends with the NYPD who let him pose on their car, and a clingy toy soldier at FAO Schwarz.

He bought his first souvenir.

Became all cool when hanging around the business hotspots in midtown.

But when he went to Times Square he rediscovered his childlike wonder.

Yes, all of this sounds a bit crazy. But on our forthcoming trip, Sebastian will be keeping everyone update via twitter. So, for minor bits of news and a heads-up whenever this blog gets updated, follow him here!

A random snapshot of a visit to NYC, 1 July 2003

Our second day began with a rather mysterious phone call at 5am, which cut off before we could see who it was. During the remaining couple of hours of sleepy time, many weird dreams involving cheese tap-danced their way into my head. I embraced the feeling of triumph upon managing not to scald myself in the shower, even if there did follow a manic search for my deordorant (there follows, in my notes, an insulting paragraph on American deodorant, which I have excised to spare controversy!).

We proceeded to have an uncharacteristically unhealthy breakfast of both a muffin and a cinnamon cake-thing. After much vigorous tooth-brushing, we set about organising a central America-compatible mobile phone [NB: I was on my way to a summer in El Salvador at this point]. Ironically, it took four phone calls and two editions of the Manhattan yellow pages to get the right number.

What to do? We decided not to go to the Stock Exchange, having been warned about the queues. So much to see, by boat, bus or subway - the world is our small, not very fresh oyster. Time for a few words of spontaneous prayer, watched by a sceptical Dodo:

"If I die on this trip, dear Lord, please don't let them Fed-Ex me home. I saw Castaway, If some courier gets shipwrecked, he'll be eating me for weeks. Except... that didn't happen in Castaway."

Eventually we decided to wander along to the Empire State Building via Greeley Square. I gave the lecture on Horace, as was my duty, but since we were heading East on 34th, "Go west, young man," just confused the issue.

Looking at the Empire State Building, 1 July 2003

How would it have felt to be part of the construction team? From New Jersey, its midtown surroundings look like mere foundations of buildings yet to stack up. The Empire State Builing towers above them all, delicate and elegant, but it looks lonely up there.

From the top, the whole of New York City's five boroughs are visible, and a couple of dozen miles beyond on a clear day. I think I would worry more about those clear days than poor weather. Even with the crush of summer tourists, the top of the Empire State Building can seem eerily quiet, especially after the noise of the city at ground level. Each day, for months on end, to ascend to the manmade world's highest point and to see the entire metropolis spread out below?

On one level it must have been awe-inspiring, to see a unique view and to be among the first of millions. However, I suspect there must have been an equal sense of isolation, in a very real sense departing the city before the main rush hour and remaining quite separate from the life of the very city they were working to serve. The story could have been written by a modern-day Victor Hugo, a thousand Quasimodos in the world's greatest belltower.