So, we descended the Empire State and began planning the wedding. No date or definite plans as yet, however here’s a sneak preview if you’re interested… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ChbqaTIs8

 

Then a hot dog for breakfast, before a horse and carriage ride around a snowy Central Park. Our horse’s name?

 

Chance.

 

 

 

 

 

Following Christmas lunch at a McDonald’s, and buying a Barack Obama woolly hat, we decided to visit the Central Park Zoo to share our good news with the animals, a la Rocky and Adrian…

 

 

A walk through the park followed, reading the bench plaques as we went towards Strawberry Fields and the Dakota but more importantly the San Remo, where Sigourney Weaver’s apartment was in Ghostbusters, plus some streets full of Brownstones that also looked strangely familiar. The rest of the day included a few celebratory drinks, a visit to Madison Square Garden, and a cracking Chinese meal including… you guessed it, fortune cookies.

 

Boxing Day, still no bags, and off we went to the Statue of Liberty – a dream come true for me. Especially wearing the foam crown. Ellis Island was also an incredible experience, I searched for my forefathers on the database to be avail, but the coincidence to beat all coincidences came on the boat back, as we boarded ‘Miss Liberty’ with the real Miss Liberty in the background.

 

 

The World Trade Centre was a surreal experience – not because of the eerie life losses or rebuilding taking place, but because we saw the same French couple that had been sat next to us in the McDonald’s and stood by us at Liberty Island.

 

The rest of that evening was simply brilliant, we got soaked on Wall Street, had ten beers at the Heartland Brewery at South Street Seaport, and the most perfect meal at Les Halles, the Brasserie owned by one of my heroes, Anthony Bourdain. The steak tartare, made tableside, was especially good.

 

Then, we returned to the hotel to find a bottle of champagne had been sent by our families, plus one of our bags had finally been delivered. Although, a couple of things, including two of Lisa’s Christmas presents, had been stolen. Unbeknownst to me, William (http://www.jonathangreenbank.com/archives/57) had been employed as a baggage handler at Heathrow.

 

Our final full day took us uptown on a bus tour to Harlem, Bloomingdale’s, and Serendipity – although it wasn’t meant to be, the three hour wait put paid to our lunch plans, instead heading for Katz’s Deli which unfortunately is best known for the scene from When Harry Met Sally (please don’t think that Meg Ryan was omnipresent on this trip) when instead it should be best known for its amazing sandwiches and the overall experience of eating there.

 

Walking through Little Italy, then Chinatown, I found a business card for the Good Luck Car Service and we walked the Brooklyn Bridge as the sun was setting and everything was right with the world. We even found the Ghostbusters headquarters – now a fire station – before arriving at the Spotted Pig, a wonderful gastropub serving offal and fine ales, owned by Jay-Z amongst others. There we were served by a lookalike of my old flat mate Doug.

 

Still, the best was yet to come.

 

After hours of searching, Lise found the ring of her dreams at a jewellers in the Diamond District, next to the exact phone box from which we’d rung our parents three days earlier to share the news. Eddie made the ring, Seymour cleaned it, and I sang Beatles songs with Reginald Dollar, the coolest Coolio impersonator you’ll ever meet. He tried to sell me a wedding suit before divulging the details of his lawsuit against WalMart.

 

 

 

You had to be there.

 

But we weren’t for much longer. With a heavy heart, and a missing holdall, we returned to JFK, to be upgraded and be offered $100 compensation. On the plane back I watched Julie and Julia, a great reflection of what it’s like to write a blog you think nobody reads, and upon return the second bag turned up – with more stuff missing out of it, therefore BA are currently dealing with our complaint.

 

Jetlagged for the remainder of the month, enough of the Fortune Tellers’ tales had proven true – seeing an engagement ring on my hand around thirty; crossing the water and having a good time; coming into money, and getting good news on December 17th.

 

New Year’s Eve brought with it an entirely new chapter…

The flight was a little late, but the bad weather meant we had had another couple of days filled with concern and uncertainty, so an extra hour was irrelevant.

 

 

The first thing that many of us do is check the films that will be shown: I flicked through the inflight magazine and found a lookalike of me and Lise before turning to the film listings. Anyone aware of the new procedures on BA transatlantic flights will know that such excitement is ameliorated by the ‘on-demand’ service, offering about forty films to choose from. My appetite was whetted when I saw the listings, particularly one movie I’d been waiting to see for ages following a recommendation from the highly skilled builder of this very site, who knows me better than most people on this earth, and said that 500 Days of Summer could have been written about me.

 

It didn’t disappoint – the central character Tom’s Joy Division t-shirts, hopeful romanticism, love of The Smiths, and basically his whole personality, was reminiscent of me, and the narrative jumped back and forwards as well as any of my stories. But what really stuck was a quote towards the end of the film, something that stuck with me and was to resonate loudly later on during the trip.

 

                        “If Tom had learned anything, it was that you can’t ascribe

                         cosmic significance to an earthly event.

 

                        COINCIDENCE – That’s all anything ever is. Nothing more…

                        Nothing less.

 

Coincidence.

 

                        Tom had finally learned – there are no miracles.

 

                        There’s no such thing as fate.

 

                        Nothing is meant to be…”

 

Now this knocked me a little, as events such as the proposed strike and weather problems plus the fortune teller’s predictions, made me more certain than ever that this was all meant to be, but I watched the heartwarming UP instead of worrying about what I’d just been told by the narrator of an Indie flick.

 

We were on our way.

 

Suddenly, things went wrong upon landing, however. Our bags had not accompanied us on the journey, and so we travelled to the hotel ‘light’ but safe in the knowledge that at least one would be joining us soon enough.

 

Times Square was its usual buzzing self, and aside from the bags balls-up, everything was looking good. At Planet Hollywood we were even sat under Sly and Slimer, having noticed memorabilia from Big and Ferris Bueller (two of my favourite films) and West Side Story and Grease (two of Lisa’s) on the way to the table.

 

 

 

The following day brought with it some amazing experiences – The top of the Rock for the most amazing views, the sun was shining, a bus tour, then a fantastic Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. The biggest coincidence of Christmas Eve was that our tour guide on the Downtown bus, looked a little like me. Albeit a lot cooler, with the necessary knowledge and accompanying Queens accent. Then, one of the old Rockettes was a great lookalike for Lisa’s mum, and, after the show, we had our photograph taken by the spit of Barbra Streisand.

 

After a wonderful meal at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, we returned to the hotel, still no luggage… but It’s a Wonderful Life! was on TV.

 

 

No luggage meant no presents on Christmas morning, so, wearing pretty much the same clothes as the previous two days, we set off for the Empire State Building nice and early.

 

Now when I said that things were meant to be, every hope was pinned on us getting to the top of the Empire State. If you’ve seen An Affair to Remember you’ll get what that means, if not, go and see it. Sleepless in Seattle is, in my opinion, a little less relevant, however, both could be said to have relied heavily on chance, destiny, fate… and both inspired what happened next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You really couldn’t make this up.

 

Another strange month, culminating in a life-changing few days in New York, more of which next time.

 

But the twenty two days before our departure was event-filled and offered yet more – as if it were needed – evidence that my seven ladies were telling the truth.

 

The month started with a trip to a self-help guru training day, all very useful, and the journey there brought chance encounters with two very influential old tutors who had sat themselves (separately) in the same carriage on the train there.

 

The following day, on a different train entirely, I met an interesting family who themselves showed a sincere interest in what I was writing in my little notebook about (them) and proceeded to borrow my phone, discuss Christmas spending amounts, and comment on my niceness, whilst swigging Stella from a can. What intrigued me about this meeting was that they now have my phone number – long story – and I wonder to myself, will this development come back to haunt me?

 

It hasn’t yet.

 

This was the day I also completed a ‘mental toughness’ questionnaire, and I was not entirely surprised to find out a couple of days later that I had the lowest possible ‘mental toughness’ score, one category of which looks at how ‘in control’ you are of your life. Every participant receives a ‘coaching’ report full of useful advice for improvement – I will be looking to follow this over the next few months and check my progress….

 

Perhaps the highlight of the start of the month was the World Cup. I prayed that England might get paired up with Algeria, the land of my fore fathers, and just as Derren Brown suggested might happen, my wishing came true and the two countries will play each other next June in South Africa. I immediately began collecting information on Algeria, though planning a sojourn there this year proved problematic when BA advice suggested nobody travel there unless it’s absolutely necessary… However, I also found out that one of their squad plays for Blackpool.

 

 

All the above, and following, was played out against the backdrop of a rather uncomfortable domestic situation in the flat above that which I recently moved into, the woman there, in between drunken-sounding screams, sounds as if she could be the two-faced individual / one who likes a drink that the fortune tellers warned me about?

 

A school trip encouraged me to consider converting to Judaism, and a TV drama was aired about someone whose life is dictated my fate and numbers, meanwhile hands came back in to my thoughts for a reasons that will soon become very apparent. And, at my grandma’s ninetieth birthday – the age I was told I will also live to – we discovered that two of my relatives were buried together, nine days apart, over a hundred years ago.

 

 

However, the main reason that all of this paled into insignificance during December was because the proposed trip to New York was put into serious doubt ahead of the planned strike by BA cabin crew during the period our trip was booked. Days of uncertainty, waiting for contradictory press statements, were nightmarish, given what was in store, but all the while I kept a secret security inside myself that told me everything would be ok.

 

You see, whilst most of the fortune tellers had foreseen me crossing the waters and having a good time, others had seen the year ending on a high, and a couple had suggested I consider living abroad, one in particular had been adamant that I would receive very good news on December 17^th.

 

Lo and behold, an announcement was made on December 17^th that the strike ballot was illegal and we would, after all, be going to New York…