New York - A Night to Remember

I feel a magnetic pull draws me back to this city. It's like I was born in the wrong life and belong there instead. It was my third visit to New York with my Dad and I was thrilled to be back in the city I'd fallen in love with. Walking around Broadway on a warm summer night was chaotic. I was still jet lagged and my surroundings were completely surreal. I stood for a moment to take it all in. The steam pouring from the man holes was unbearable in the already over whelming heat; I always thought the movies put it in for effect but really it's from the busy subway below.

We were heading towards a comedy club, or at least we hoped. Earlier that day a local approached us and sold us a couple of tickets for a gig. I was apprehensive at first but there's something about New York that makes me impulsive. After all, everyone else seemed so casual and at ease. Just one more reason why I keep returning to this inspiring city. As we walked to the club the smell of roasted peanuts and fried onions from the street stalls was thick in the humid air. My attention rested on a Latino-American guy running the stall, rushing to serve the sea of waiting faces. He was small in height with a thin build and his soft brown eyes looked tired with dark circles beneath. His forehead was creased with sweat as were his clothes but he didn't seem to mind any of these things. He looked perfectly content. I painted my own picture and thought perhaps he was from a deprived country and grateful to have a job in the big city. On the other hand maybe I was being naive and he was a local just getting by. New York is so big, anything is possible.

Walking away from the bright lights down a shady side street, I noticed a sign above a hidden doorway with two sturdy looking bouncers outside: our venue for the evening. We went down the dimly lit stairway into a basement-type room and I thought that such a place would be a great place for a horror movie. Considering the shabby surroundings, it turned out to be a really good show. It reminded me to never judge a book by its cover. I took a particular liking to one comedian; pale faced, bleached blonde hair and extremely camp. He was effortlessly funny and on a role until some drunk in the audience thought he would try and be the comic and threw some insulting comments his way. Of course, the comedian completely humiliated him but not in the humorous way I expected. He started telling us that his long term partner had been a victim to bowel cancer and on the day of his operation to remove the tumour there was an agonising wait for him to come round. When he finally woke up his first words were, “is it a boy or a girl?” We were astounded that after such a painful situation, this man was able to make a joke and the audience laughed off the tense atmosphere. He then concluded his story by saying, “if I can get through that awful time then you can throw whatever crap you want at me and it won't knock me down! I’m stronger than that.” With that, the whole crowd leapt up and applauded such a brave man.

I left the comedy club feeling inspired to never let the small things in life get me down. We decided to have a few more drinks and visit the bar opposite, a very confusing Scottish bar with an Irish barman wearing a kilt. Like true New Yorkers my dad and I were in the habit of sitting up at the bar and we got talking to the barman who told us about himself and how most tourists and locals presume he was actually Scottish as they can’t tell the accents apart. Chatting to him in such an electric atmosphere with the band playing in the background and the bar packed behind us was an amazing experience. The night couldn't possibly get any better but with that thought, a guy with dark hair and big brown eyes appeared next to me with a huge smile. He took my breath away with how handsome he was and when he introduced himself I was intrigued to chat to him. He had a southern American accent and told me he was from South Carolina, worked as a welder and played for a baseball team in his home town. The more we talked the more I enjoyed this aspect of New York; meeting new people and finding out about their lives and how we really are worlds apart. At the same time I was sad because living in a city like this is something I long for. Something so different from what I know.

I lay in bed that night with a mixture of emotions. I felt happy that I was in the place I loved the most but I was filled with dread at the thought of leaving the next day and returning back to normality. It had been a great evening and I was slightly annoyed with myself for feeling that way. Perhaps it was just alcohol flooding my mood but six months on I still feel the same. It truly was a night to remember.

Written by Michelle Turley.

Michelle's full profile can be found here.

Showing a Foreigner How to Be

Margueritte invited her father to visit for a weekend on his way through to China but he misheard, or mis-decided, and put down a hotel deposit for a week. She cried about it into her pillow the night before he arrived. What was she going to do with him for seven heat-soaked days? He hated the heat. She hated the heat – no, she didn't, she hated him in the heat. Sweat would gather in angry dens above his eyebrows and he wiped it like he was organising a bank job. And he bitched about it.

She put bottled water, apples, milk and a melamine mug in the room's fridge, then wondered if he'd prefer a bowl. She told him there was cereal over here and he'd said, I don't want any of that fish porridge shit. She replied, no Dad, they have cornflakes, and then he said, 'cause I hate that fish porridge.

His plane was due at five in the afternoon and she made sure she was late. He was standing underneath the McDonald's arch with a bag of fries.

'They have something called a bul-gog-i,' he said as she kissed his chin.

'How did you buy those?'

'A woman behind the counter told me I was handsome.'

On the train he pointed out how many people were using their phones. She explained that they were watching television and he leaned over a boy's shoulder to see and the boy inched away and he followed until both of them were squeezed in the doorway.

He didn't like the pavement. Of course he didn't; it had the nerve to be broken and uneven, making his wheelie suitcase (beige because he found black dramatic) bounce into his ankles and trip him.

'What's all this rubbish outside for?'

'It gets picked up every day. You just put it next to the road when you want it gone.'

'It doesn't look very good.'

She remembered how much he hated rubbish. Recycling in particular. Plastic bottles most of all. He hated spending money but he always bought expensive lemonade because it came in glass.

Margueritte installed him in his room the way she would put a book that had disappointed her on a shelf. Perhaps a book written by a great author who had, with this story, missed the mark.

He picked up a pillow and smelt it. She showed him the shower with its swivel head and massage spigots; remote for the A/C and TV (the same one); and the goods she had packed into the fridge. He asked what the mug was for and she put it in her bag.

'What are we having for breakfast?'

'Whatever you want. There's a bakery down the alley.'

'Do they have cereal here? You know how much I hate-'

'I know, Dad.'

He wanted her to show him how the TV worked and the first channel she found was porn. He watched for the longest moment like he didn't recognise what he was seeing. Then he asked if there was any sport. She said, baseball. He said no.

She told him they would visit the river, fish markets, palaces, BBQ restaurants. She wanted him to try live squid and rice cakes because it would make him part of what she had built. If he got food poisoning he might leave early.

He took off his polo and his torso was already glistening.

'Are you hot?'

'I just can't stand this kind of humidity. How do you do it?'

Margueritte turned on the A/C. 'Just keep this on.'

'It's like stepping into a rainstorm.'

'Yes.'

'Does it get better at night?'

'Not usually.'

'It doesn't get better?'

'No.'

'Jesus Christ, how do you do it?'

She pointed at the A/C.

Lara has never had a bulgogi burger. It's all about the little things...

Blessed Are Those With (Numerous) Voices

As we cut across the meadows from Argyle Place to Greyfriars through an avenue of parched autumn leaves, I found myself wondering if I knew my friend beside me. Kim Jongwook was deeply moved by the clear daylight making colour-thick clouds around us.

“I don't think I will miss Edinburgh,” he said.

I smiled, my hands kept for warmth in my pockets. A moment later he corrected himself. “I mean, forget. I won't forget Edinburgh”

“It's okay.” I said. “I knew what you meant.”

And though I did at that moment understand him without the parameter of being correct, it did make me doubt how well I knew this fine man. For two days I had wandered with him over the city, discovering more of my beloved Edinburgh as we went – the sphinxes on the roofs of the Scottish National Bank and Gallery, the stained glass and vaulted ceilings of St Giles, the fearsome and divine St Michael hanging from the roof of the War Memorial in Edinburgh castle.

Although his English is much better after six months in Australia, Jongwook still speaks with a Korean rigidness, his sentences formed as if they come pre-packaged to him. From beyond his language he leaps a great divide toward me and I am grateful for it though still I wonder – is he the same guy as he was at home?

I guess I'm obsessed with doubt. In a rare moment of clarity two years back I looked over my work, comparing it to its character, and realised that the neurosis and paranoia that make up my darker side are parallel with the motivation of every one of my characters – generally they are consumed and fixed by not knowing. Whereas I have to live with it.

What does this have to do with my friend Jongwook? Well, I caught myself wondering if I really knew because I only knew him through a language foreign to him. I found myself wondering – would that joke be something he would say if we were speaking Korean?

Jongwook is a funny guy and is great at finding the comedy in his fish-out-of-water situation. It is this patience and resolve I admire. When he visited my girlfriend's parents, Jeff (Lara's father) used a crude euphemism for going to the toilet and Jongwook didn't know what the expression meant. Jeff, I'm sure, would have explained it with one of his wide, face-brightening smiles, sly old silver fox lecturing in BS that he is. Later that week at Jeff's local, in front of the neighbours, Jongwook stood up after his schooner of lager and delivered straight-faced to his guests and their friends the following charmer:

“I have to splash my boots.”

When Jeff related the story over Skype he said it went over like a brush fire. The neighbours shrieked, Jeff snorted his beer, Lyn (Lara's mum) would have made one sharp, high note. And I can just imagine Jongwook walking to the bathroom, a bashful smirk cowering below his nose.

I wonder if this is truly my friend. Or at least, I wonder how much of him I don't know. I want to be able to share the jokes that would come to him as his language bubbles and froths out of his mind. But I can't. It is the first metaphysical conundrum of the language barrier that I believe holds up to scrutiny – that your personality can't fit into the slim usage of an unnatural speech.

Until then I'll comfort myself with the man's friendship. In the end, it's all I need anyway.

Daniel East may be rowing back to the Antipodes, but his heart will always be in Edinburgh.

The Art of Something Beautiful

Having an espresso in a bustling piazza and watching the world go by is one of the oldest of clichés in the book. Tradition dictates that we go on to discuss how peace and equilibrium can be found in the busiest and most unlikely of places and although many a lost soul’s story starts with this quest, that isn’t how I started my travelling days. My story begins in a rather dingy, unremarkable pub in Cardiff. My friends and I had gone to the pub because it was the day the smoking ban had been introduced and we needed to know what it felt like; an olfactory assault of stale beer and sweat which, as evangelical smokers, we took to be an affront. Only beer could save us so we sank pints and toasted the demise of the tabletop Marlborough packet. Not many good things come from a sentence that starts with a drunken slur of “You know what we should do?” but that is exactly what happened.

The answer to this question started as a trip to Europe but as the pints sank we became more ambitious and added Australia and New Zealand to our plan. If you'd asked me at that point why I wanted to go travelling and what I wanted to achieve, I doubt I could have told you. The hunt for adventure and stories to tell was enough to guide me. In fact, if you had asked at that point about drinking an espresso in a piazza, I probably would have admitted to my desire to watch fabulously stylish Italian women walk past and the roguish Italian men riding Vespas. I was convinced that all of Italy was like something out of a chocolate advertisement. I daresay that in my mind’s eye, the entire scenario included a floppy haired man playing the cello somewhere nearby whilst I drank.

I found Rome to be every bit as romantic, inspiring, passionate, exhilarating and artistic as I dreamt it would be. The Roman Forum drove my imagination insane with sights, sounds and smells and filled my head with a hundred quotes from Shakespeare to Monty Python. The Pantheon immobilised me. I stood with my hand resting on the wall, almost as if I was trying to channel the centuries of violence, pomp and solemn religious fervour. Chocolate advertisements and clichéd stories, however, were surprisingly scant amongst the crowds of bumbagged tourists. They descended in their multitudes upon the Fontana de Trevi and the Spanish Steps, in numbers that made it impossible to achieve that postcard perfect photograph. This is the Italy I saw as the café owner brought me my coffee. She asked if I too was a tourist and I proudly replied that I was travelling with my friend. Her reaction was remarkable; she was positively overjoyed and cooed with delight at my choice to visit her bustling home. She caught my attention by announcing that she would pray to God to protect me as I travelled through Italy. I don’t think a stranger has offered to pray for me before or since and it struck me that Catholicism, so scarce in Cardiff, ran so deeply through the pulsing veins of Rome. I thought about the nuns walking down the streets in Rome attracting reverence and respect, rather than the odd and fearful looks they would draw in my native Cardiff.

My fervent host dutifully furnished me with more coffee as I thought more about the differences between nations. I asked myself what we would do with the Colosseum if it were in England. Would we also use it as a roundabout? Would it replace Swindon's magic roundabout?

I drank many more espressos in cafés and watched as Rome unfurled before me. Not the Rome I was expecting - the street-playing cellists of my dreams were remarkably few - but I think that’s the wonder of travelling. Each country we visit conjures images and expectations and while some of them are met, others reveal themselves to be dreams. I found that taking the time to see a town, city or country for what it is, and not what you expect it to be, can take you by pleasant surprise.

Written by Cate Hopkins

See Cate's full profile here.