2.45am, Friday August 14, ....Aunt K’s

It is the end of my last night in New York, America. I had a great time - S joined Aunt K, her husband K and I for dinner and then S and I went for a sing at Marie’s Crisis piano bar.

What I still love about New York: the amount of people on the train to Queens at 2am. At 1.30am French Roast cafe was still serving food and coffee to a good amount of people. Yesterday a man gave me his Metrocard when he saw me trying to top-up my card. I used his card for the rest of the day.

Today I spent several hours with L, J, and their new son. I finally saw their living quarters in Yonkers, which they have been in almost since I’ve been in Australia, said hi to L’s dad, sister and neices, walked around downtown White Plains (where I grew up) and visited A at work. S and L are very excited about how White Plains has changed, but I still find it a completely uninteresting place, though the area where L and J might be moving to is a nice neighbourhood with a mixture of houses, a part of town I’d never had cause to be before.

Tonight Aunt K and I took K to his first Indian meal and the waiters were excited to recommend things to him. They even brought out a little cup of mango lassi for him to try. We had poori, that great puff of thin-fried bread so astonishing on first encounter.

Marie’s Crisis was a bit of a disappointment. The crowd was singing showtunes that S and I didn’t know. There was hardly any Les Miserables. I’m not up on good old classics like Hello Dolly! And Gypsy. Nor have I seen anything recent. So my repetoire is sadly lacking. S has the same problem.