My blog seems to have been a little inactive of late…to avoid an epically long post that would give War & Peace a run for its money I won’t try and fit in the last month and a half now, but will try and catch up over the next week…
A few weekends ago a group of us road-tripped (is this a word?) down to Philadelphia for the day. I’d heard mixed things about Philadelphia, basically coming down to the fact that the central historic part is entirely pleasant, but that if you head too far in certain directions you wouldn’t be coming back again…my experience was that the first part of this was true, and the second part…well, I don’t know because I didn’t have the balls to insist that we divert our tour into these ‘other parts’.
The parts of Philly I did see, however, were pretty sweet. The Liberty Bell and Independence Hall were pretty historic and thus enabled me to put my history nerd hat on for a bit. The city is also known for ‘Philadelphia cheese steak’ sandwiches which are pretty much explained in the title…I didn’t quite go for the true experience of having the preferred choice of ‘cheese’ as this ‘cheese’, called ‘cheese wizz’, came from a huge tin, and, I don’t think, had ever seen a cow in its life…
We also went to the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art where, apparently, some parts of the Rocky films were filmed (being an uncultured baboon I have never seen any of the Rocky films). From what I’m told Rocky runs up and down these steps, so inevitably we did the same…I think I may have run a little too fast as near the top I tripped and nearly planted my face into prime Philadelphia concrete.
The most noticeable thing was that despite Philadelphia being the sixth most populous city in the US, it felt almost quiet and subdued compared to the raging metropolis of New York – this was in part due to the layout of the city, but even so it certainly made an impact.
I’ve also now celebrated my first American thanksgiving. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but truth be told it was genuinely a great experience. About fifteen of us got together at an apartment on the upper east side and basically talked, ate, drank, played games and watched the ageless and glorious ‘This is Spinal Tap’. It was, to quote the language of America, ‘awesome’. The fare was excellent – one of my friends served up a massively impressive turkey and this was accompanied by all sorts of joy – the most unique thing to thanksgiving was pureed sweet potato with marshmallows on top! It tasted good, but in my reserved British way it was quite a peculiar experience!
Thanksgiving also gave me an opportunity to reflect how fortunate I’ve been to find such a great group of people to socialise with – God is truly great!
One thing I’ve heard about New Yorkers is that they are the only people who get frustrated, rather than excited, when a film crew arrives in their city. I struggled to really believe this until a couple of Sundays ago when I was almost prevented from reaching the restaurant I was trying to get to by a (very bossy) film crew. Apparently they were filming something with Robert de Niro and Brad Pitt, although I didn’t see either of these two men. But anyway, I was walking along Union Square West, continually trying to cross the street when, at every opportunity, some gimpish crew member told me to stop. In the end I found a slightly less secure spot and politely ignored these said people, because otherwise I would never have had my lunch – which would have been a true travesty! Certainly this film crew were immensely irritating, but even so I did feel the sense of excitement of walking through a major film set. This was especially the case when, after lunch, I hung around a bit to see if I could see anything exciting, and saw the filming of a scene where a stuntman was deliberately hit by a taxi cab…
Talking of films, I received a forwarded email relatively recently asking if any British people would be interested in being an extra in the film ‘Wall Street 2’. It asked any interested individuals to send an email with basic info and a recent photo. After some thought I replied to the given address in this email, thinking that I might as well try, considering I had nothing to lose. Later, whilst at work, I noticed I had a voicemail on my phone and low and behold it was a casting agent from the above film asking if I would still be interested in said opportunity. I rang him back, and said I was; however I had to be available all day Wednesday of that week, which I couldn’t do – it was a little gutting, but I was still chuffed to have received an offer. The casting bloke offered me the consolation of ‘maybe next time’ when I told him I couldn’t make the day, so perhaps…
I’ll finish now, but before I do, I’ll highlight the article below which is defo worth a read: http://nymag.com/news/features/62374/
