Thanksgiving & a holiday on my doorstep

Been a while since I've written, but large chunks of the last couple of weeks have been taken up by the ungodly amount of schoolwork I'm currently making my way through. Anyone would think I've come here to study or something.

Anyway, I remember writing when I first got here that I would never stop feeling like a tourist in New York City. We're into December now and I'm yet to begin to think otherwise.

A large part of that is probably down to the fact that I've only just got round to experiencing many of the tourist attractions the city has to offer. Despite wandering past the Museum of Modern Art most weekends and seeing the Empire State Building from campus, it wasn't until last week that I made a point of actually visiting them.

With friends from Leicester visiting for a few days, there seemed no better time than the present, and so we each purchased a $100 CityPass (well worth the cash but poorly advertised) that granted us access to six attractions, including the places already mentioned plus the Top of the Rock, the Statue of Liberty and a couple of the city's other museums.

Perhaps it's odd to do all the tourist attractions having already been here for two or three months but for me it added to what I was seeing. I guess knowing to the city (to a degree, at least) made being up the top of the Ro
ckefeller Center all the more interesting, getting a different vantage point on the area in which I'd experienced so much over the last few weeks. One thing it definitely did was shrink the city; stepping out of the Empire State Building after having been up it, I felt like I had a much better grasp of my bearings. Being that high up, after all, is like looking down on a massive real-life map.

Between trying nearly every fast-food joint in Manhattan (shouts to Wendy's) we also managed to fit in a trip to the State of Liberty (where the views of the city were more impressive than the Statue itself) and two trips to see St. John's basketball at Madison Square Garden: a bug I am definitely catching. The week's only real disappointment was the visit to the MoMA; seeing a bit of van Gogh was impressive but there were way too many pieces of 'art' in there that looked like they'd been done by my sister's year six class.

All of this meant my first Thanksgiving in America was a pretty decent one. Boston Market provided our festive food; a kind of second-rate Harvester in a lot of ways, but without the free salad. My experience of American food being unbearably sweet was also taken to new heights as some bright spark clearly thought it was a good idea to stick marshmallows in with the sweet potatoes. The clue's in the name; they didn't need any more sugary goo chucked in there.

The day itself was largely spent at the famous Macy's Thanksgiving parade. After an hour or two navigating the maze Manhattan had been turned into by the NYPD, we finally found a decent spot to catch the end of the parade. All we really saw was a giant Spongebob and a creepy-looking floating kid, but our morning was made by watching Santa cruise past. My very own Miracle on 34th Street, it was just a shame the little girl from Matilda didn't show up. I guess she was still at Mr. Bedford's.

It was weird to spend days on what felt like a holiday before having to go home and work on essays in the evenings, but I guess that's what this year's been about. Having said that, the 'holiday' part's been well and truly dropped in recent days as finals close in and I turn my attention from a giant Spongebob to a 12-page research paper on genocide.

Midterms? What midterms?

When my history professor began today's class by asking "so who voted?" I didn't expect the overwhelming answer to be "for what?" Even BBC News, over 3000 miles away, seemed to have more interest in America's midterm elections than my college.

Much of the coverage surrounding this month's vote in the US has focused upon the fact that the turnout is much higher among Republicans at midterms compared to their Democrat counterparts.

Perhaps the apparent disinterest among college voters is simply part of this wider trend; younger people tend to vote Democrat and it is the blue vote that has suffered at these elections. Midterms are widely considered a reflection on the incumbent President, and Barack Obama's approval ratings are threatening to fall below 40% for the first time.

Even Democrats themselves are reluctant to associate themselves with the Obama administration: earlier this week, Kentucky's Senate hopeful Alison Lundergan Grimes remarkably refused to admit she even voted for him in either the 2008 or 2012 Presidential elections.

Maybe it has more to do with the fact that this year's elections were not particularly exciting locally. New York had no seats up in the Senate, Governor Andrew Cuomo won re-election with relative ease, and its status as a Democratic stronghold was never under threat. Thus, perhaps the lack of interest was down to a lack of necessity rather than any kind of cynicism.

Of course, it could be that a certain British comic's recent soiree Stateside has resulted in the country's youth becoming increasingly disillusioned with politics, to the point where I'm surrounded by a bunch of American Russell Brands. A grim thought, that.

That said, it's easy to confuse apathy with ignorance and it genuinely wouldn't surprise me if a lot of young voters in America literally had no idea there were votes to be cast this week - or at least the significance of them. After all, the look of disbelief on a lot of faces when they hear we have 'free' healthcare in the UK says something about the information they have access to.

I realise we're not talking about some kind of North Korea media blackout here, but maybe in Britain we underestimate how relatively well-informed our young electorate is kept.

Nevertheless, there's more than a grumble among students out here about the way their country is run. Granted, they might feel like it's an impossible task to fix what many see as a broken system of government, but surely voting is a decent place to start.

I did try to ensure Bruce Forsyth's Strictly message of "you can't moan if you don't phone" was relayed but, despite my best Brucie impersonation, I'm not sure they understood the reference.

The Tip-Off

Rightly or wrongly, various books and films meant I carried some expectations of college sport to America: Remember the Titans, The Waterboy and even Forrest Gump are just three movies that allude to the sheer scale and hysteria of it all.

But in my first two months at St. John's there's been none of the fanfare that's supposed to accompany college sports. The soccer is of a high standard, but it's worlds away from the thousands of people you see filling (American) football stadiums at southern schools.

The only indicator of something similar lay in the impressive Lou Carnessecca Arena, where a seemingly endless trophy cabinet chronicled the university's successful history in college basketball. The arena itself is named after the school's greatest coach, whose teams reached the post-season in every one of his 24 years in charge.

As we entered October, the build-up to the 2014 season began, culminating in the 'Tip-off' on Friday night: festivities held in the Lou Carnessecca Arena to introduce the men's and women's teams and celebrate the season getting underway.

The mammoth lines that accumulated to get tickets for the event on Friday morning confirmed what the trophy cabinet suggested: this is a basketball school.

That night, over five thousand St. John's students filled the Arena for one of the most ridiculously extravagant school events I've ever been a part of. When you consider that Leicester barely manages to attract those numbers to the rugby at Welford Road (the showpiece event in its sporting calendar), I struggled to get my head around the fact that this many people showed up to a pre-season event in America.

Upon each seat in the venue was a free t-shirt, the third one I've received in less than two months of being here. I'm fairly sure that the school could reduce its $50,000-a-year tuition fees by a third if it simply halved the amount of clothing it seems to giveaway on a weekly basis.

But that was only the beginning. As part of the celebrations, a member of the crowd won an iPad whilst cross-country flights and a $20,000 car are other prizes being offered over the course of the season. At Leicester the most you get for free is a half-chicken from Nando's, and even that involves you having to buy a meal in the first place.

We were also treated to a burrito-eating competition more bizarre than Santiago Vergini's own-goal for Sunderland this weekend, in which some poor soul shovelled handfuls of god-knows-what into their mouth in front of five thousand people. But that was just a warm-up to the main event.

As smoke filled the court for added drama, each player from the men's and women's team was introduced in turn, each to a rapturous reception. In England there are tongue-in-cheek references to BNOCs (Big Names on Campus), but those on the basketball team here are bonafide campus celebrities - to the point where rumours circulate about cars being offered as incentives for the top players to go to school here. It's a completely alien world to the British student.

As if enough cash hadn't been spent already, the evening was capped by a performance from French Montana (although he probably cost less to book than the iPad, let's face it). He insists that he's not "worried about nothing" which was good for him because during that debacle I was seriously worried about my ears.

Culture, Comedy and Michael Jackson

With midterms approaching, I took my mind off the ever-increasing workload with two pretty different outings within a week. First we visited the American Museum of Natural History on Sunday, before frequenting Madison Square Garden for a second occasion, this time to see Aziz Ansari perform on Thursday night.

From what I've seen of New York so far, the Upper West Side - where the AMNH is located - is probably the only area of the city that resembles anything like London. The majority of NYC is so far removed from any other city I've seen in terms of architecture and layout, but the white facade of AMNH would not have looked out of place amongst the V&A and London's own Natural History Museum in South Kensington. I guess there's only so many different ways you can build a museum.

Even though I was expecting it, it still hurt a little to have to pay to enter. I understand New Yorkers pay less than ten per cent tax, but I'm struggling to see where that's going. If your taxes aren't paying for healthcare and museums then what on earth are they paying for? And it certainly isn't going towards city sanitation, either.

Nevertheless, the $20 entry fee proved to be well worth it as it included one of those IMAX shows. We intended to see one about space but my mind was changed at the last minute when I realised there was one about Great White Sharks (narrated by Bill Nighy) and so we split up and did our own thing. I'm pretty pleased with my change of heart as now I know that sharks don't have bones. Who knew?

As a tribute to Theodore Roosevelt, the museum focuses heavily upon New York, with a section entirely dedicated to the state itself. This was basically a timeline of NY's history, starting long before civilisation began (the glaciers in 'Manhattan' during the ice age would have reached the top of the Empire State Building, apparently).

So much of the museum is impressive, from the vast array of Native American artifacts to the giant model of a blue whale that hangs in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life. I was beginning to think the place was better than London's effort in every way when it suddenly dawned on me that there was not a single killer whale - picture, video or model - in the place. Shocking.

There was a significant change in dynamic later in the week when we swapped the museum for MSG to see Aziz Ansari's stand-up special. Last minute tickets meant we were stuck up on Chase Bridge, so far up and away from the stage that they literally provided you with TVs to watch the action.

We were doing our best to conceal our disappointment at the situation when we were tapped on the shoulder by a member of venue staff and directed down steps to 'better seats'. That was something of an under-statement, as we suddenly found ourselves no more than thirty yards from the stage at no extra expense, merely because they'd failed to sell-out.

Thus we were able to enjoy the full experience of the peculiar Michael Jackson tribute act Ansari threw on before he performed. Apparently the "best in the world", there was something rather unnerving about it, but I guess that's a compliment when someone's trying to impersonate the King of Pop.

With the upgraded seats it would have been hard not to enjoy the evening, but even from our old seats up where the air was thinning it would have been worth every penny. Perhaps it wasn't quite up to the standard of his previous stand-up specials, but I get the feeling MSG adds a little extra to whatever you're watching there.

Sadly it's back to reality again this week as midterms remind me why I'm actually here in New York in the first place.

The Most Americanest* Day

*I'm not sure that 'Americanest' is a word, but apparently 'most winningest' (as in 'Manchester United are the most winningest team in Premier League history') is acceptable over here so it seems you can do what you like with the English language this side of the Atlantic.

One of the biggest culture shocks of moving to the US has, surprisingly, been the food. Naively, I presumed that they would eat similarly to us Brits, just with larger portions and the healthier foods harder to find. That was okay by me - I've had my fair share of microwaveable all-day breakfasts in my time and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

But what I did not vouch for was the complete lack of orange squash in New York City. I'm not saying I expected Robinsons to have lit up the New York Stock Exchange, but it was pretty tough to hear that they didn't even know what squash was over here. I guess it's true what Westlife once sang about never missing the water until it's gone.

Nevertheless, I was looking forward to giving a staple of American cuisine a go on Saturday morning when we went to IHOP (the International House of Pancakes, apparently) for breakfast food. Besides, NBC's Parks and Recreation has only good things to say about it:

Maybe Leslie Knope likes peculiar blends of salt and sugar and pancakes that taste solely of bicarbonate of soda but it's not for me. I draw the line at those microwaveable all-day breakfasts.

I found out the hard way that the lump of what looks like ice cream on the pancake was actually butter.

Thankfully, it wasn't a case of 'start as you mean to go on' as the day was rescued by a trip to SoHo and the Brooklyn Bridge.

SoHo is basically Oxford Street but instead of having Hyde Park at one end, it is overlooked by the stunning Chrysler Building. In terms of three guys going shopping, I feel like we nailed it - one of us bought a grey polo shirt whilst the other two grunted their approval.

We continued the American theme of the day with a trip to a pop-up replica of the Central Perk cafe from Friends, but a queue that carried on for blocks didn't sound like our ideal Saturday so we settled for some photos of the exterior:

We made our way to the Brooklyn Bridge via Chinatown and although we only passed through, Chinatown was one the most peculiar places I've ever been and somewhere I'll definitely have to go back and explore later on. It seemed to be one massive cliche, with launderettes on every corner and dodgy-looking food being sold outside dodgy-looking shops.

After a bit of a struggle getting access to the Bridge (turns out the logic 'head for the waterfront' wasn't as sound as we first thought), we found our way onto the wooden pathway that overhangs the carriageways.

Thankfully the decent weather meant you could see everything Manhattan had to offer, from the Statue of Liberty and World Trade Center to the Empire State Building. I won't attempt to describe it fully because if I was able to do justice to the views then I'd be working for Lonely Planet instead of writing this. But it is definitely one of my favourite experiences of NYC so far, and that's saying something.

By the time we'd got off the Bridge my feet had had enough of walking and my stomach was still moaning about the IHOP, so we played it safe and called it a day.

America's unhealthy reverence for its sporting heroes

In the week that Derek Jeter plays his final home series for the New York Yankees, it is difficult to ignore the retirement of one of the City's favourite sons.

I'll leave it to those with a greater understanding and appreciation of baseball to do justice to his record-breaking career, but the following pictures of a father's reaction to his son throwing back a foul ball hit by Derek Jeter sums up New York's affection for the shortstop pretty well:

http://abc7chicago.com/sports/video-young-fan-throws-jeter-baseball-back-on-field/319060/

Even my Mets-supporting flatmate lamented the fact that his "childhood is over" as a result of Jeter's departure from the game. In that respect, I guess the only comparable figure in England in recent years is David Beckham, whose retirement was met with universal devastation among people my age back home.

Whilst such a respected career is quite rightly celebrated city-wide, it brought to my attention the sad reality that Jeter's is one that's uniquely blemish-free in American sport. The worst 'dirt' that can be found on him is a late night back in 2003 and some income tax controversy around the same time - but even Gary Barlow's been involved with that.

Of course, tax evasion isn't something to be taken lightly but it is small change compared to a lot of the big controversies American sport stars have been associated with in recent years. In the short time I've been in the United States, it feels as though there's barely been a sports star mentioned that hasn't committed or at least been accused of some sort of felony.

Perhaps most notorious of all is the case of football player OJ Simpson, whose ill-fated attempt to evade capture and subsequent murder trial made international news twenty years ago. To list all of his NFL colleagues that have done jail time would take me into next week, but the fact that Bleacher Report were able to put together an 'All-Prison Team' back in 2012 speaks volumes.

More recently, Kobe Bryant (another apparently universally-renowned figure who my flatmates have "grown up with") was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel employee in 2003. Despite a public mea culpa, Bryant inexplicably walked away with his reputation virtually unscathed and only temporary damage done to his bank balance.

(ESPN)

Even today the news is full of stories in this vein, with the NFL facing controversy in recent months surrounding stars such as Adrian Peterson (who faces accusations of child abuse after apparently whipping his four-year-old son) and Ray Rice, who was videoed dragging his unconscious wife out of an elevator earlier this year.

The debate as to why run-ins with the law are disproportionately high amongst American sports stars is one to be had amongst those more qualified than I, but whether or not the glorification of athletes throughout schooling has anything to do with it is an idea that must have been discussed.

Rather, what's surprising to me is the treatment the aforementioned characters have got in the US press. I always thought that the English could be a little lenient on its stars - dreadful characters such as Joey Barton and Stan Collymore have been made millionaires by sport despite their many misdemeanours.

But compared to their counter-parts this side of the Atlantic, the English press can be seen to enjoy bringing a sports star to their knees amid controversy - and that's something we should probably be thankful for. There's a lot to be said for the idea that John Terry would still be England captain today were it not for the media, whilst Luis Suarez's career in this country ended after a long and bumpy relationship with the press.

(nationalturk.com)

In the States, however, there appears to be a worrying reluctance to blame the culprits themselves for their actions; in many cases, they are put on pedestals above criticism and even above the law.

Of course, there have been few offering excuses for the likes of Ray Rice, but the fact that ESPN have spent the last week laying into NFL commissioner Roger Goodell (here and here) whilst there's a chance Rice may return to action this season is, in my view, ignoring the crux of the issue.

Even more deplorably, the Baltimore Ravens tweeted after the video emerged that Rice's wife "deeply regrets the part she played" in her husband knocking her unconscious.

To see factions of a national press react in this way is ridiculous to me. But then the fact that the NFL has to have specific sanctions laid out for players that assault their wives and girlfriends is testament to the fact that things are different over here.

So whilst it is quite right that Americans celebrate the career of Derek Jeter this week, it should not be done without recognising the sad rarity of being able to toast the retirement of a sportsman who bows out without the blemish of a criminal record.

A long-distance view of Scotland's referendum

The time difference between London and New York has taken some getting used to - by the time I've got home from classes the UK is already fast asleep. Contacting home has meant getting up at the ungodly hour of ten a.m. to Skype family at weekends or interrupting my afternoon to catch them in their evening.

However, tonight proved to be one of the few times the five-hour difference was useful as, whilst the majority of the UK was tucked up in bed, I could keep track of the live coverage of the results of Scotland's referendum on independence.

It's been strange being so detached from such a significant moment in the UK's history. The only way to gauge public opinion real-time was through twitter, but that was primarily made up of abuse aimed at Andy Murray and poor attempts at spelling Alex Salmond's name.

In the event, most of my news came via covertly checking my phone at the back of a class on American government/business relations, but I'm pretty sure that the politics department at St. John's should have been encouraging my interest in the subject rather than limiting me to a risky glance at the BBC News webpage every fifteen minutes.

I guess that goes to show the surprising extent to which Americans have let this major news story pass them by. I know they are notorious for being a little self-involved, but I would have thought that they'd have been a touch more interested in a decision that could affect their 'special relationship' with the UK. I suppose that for them, no fighting means no fun.

That is not to say, however, that the story hasn't made news over here. It's been all over the major news channels but I'm fairly sure the overwhelming feeling this side of the Atlantic is concern for the well-being of Will and Kate rather than any genuine opinion on the stance of the Scottish people.

In fact, it was mentioned in all three of my classes on Thursday, and in the first I was asked for my opinion on the matter. After giving what I thought was a carefully considered response, the professor genuinely replied: "Let's move on, you're the only one that cares anyway."