Frozen Apple

This week I have mostly been in New York, which proved to be a stark contrast to the tropics with a record 27 inches of snow falling in 24 hours over the weekend. However before I managed to make it into New York I had to put in some penance in New Jersey in the middle of nowhere in a shithole called Warren. Nobody knows where Warren is, I asked my mate in Manhattan if it was far from there. He thought I ment Wayne, which it wasn't, but it begs the question who the bloody hell is naming towns in Jersey? Did the founding fathers of Jersey just name the towns after their first born, (I can imagine Wayne and Warren being popular names in Jersey).
Having seen the locals in action on a Friday night at the Tap Room bar in the charming local hotel I was staying at, I have a sneaking suspicion there is a fair amount of inbreeding going on in the boonies of New Jersey. I am no dancer as Reidy will loudly attest to, but I am John Travolta in comparrison to some of the work going on in the Tap Room as people gyrated to the cover band who were working some classic Hootie and the Blowfish and Reo Speedwagon.
Why was I in Warren you ask, well it is part of some cost cutting exercise at work, where they moved the people I deal with to Warren. It's an impressive campus, but it's in Warren, bloody stinking Warren. So when word got out about the pending snow storm coming on Saturday I legged it to the city faster than a fast thing going really fast.
The snow was meant to arrive at lunchtime, it held off until about 3:00 and then came in horizontally. Bloody hell it was cold. Committed drinkers as we are we were out in it, braving the elements both inside and out of the bars in the Village until 4:00am. The Peculiar Bar in Bleeker St has a toilet that is up there with the one at the Suez Canal bus interchange in Egypt (without doubt the world's worst toilet).
It was still snowing when we emerged from my mate's flat at the crack of noon, and it didn't stop for another 5 hours. Had brunch at Walkers on W Boulevard, right opposite the Ghostbusters fire station which was far more impressive for me than walking past Carie Bradshaw's doorstep. The city is pretty wild when it snows, everything turns white strangely enough, it's really quiet as there's no cars on the road, The whole place becomes giant pedestrian mall with the odd cross country skier whizzing past and Central Park becomes an impromptu ski and board park.
Then a day later the streets are magically clear as the garbage trucks become snow ploughs and the footpaths become ice skating rinks as the melting snow freezes over. It's only a matter of time before all the dog turds and other rubbish that were previously covered in a lovely white blanket start oozing out. Two days later the snow is starting to melt, the innocent looking puddles at the bottom of the footpaths are in fact mini ponds that swallow your whole foot and the snow that is still around is now filthy and slushy. So I headed home with some surprising enthusiasm, even as I faced the prospect of an 18 hour non stop flight, at least I knew my feet were finally going to be dry.