You know what the funniest thing about New York is? It’s the little differences. I mean, they’ve got the same shit over here that they got back home, but it’s just, just here it’s a little different.

Example?

Alright, well you can’t walk into a movie theatre and buy a beer. And, I don’t mean just like a paper cup, I’m talking about a glass of beer. And, in New York, you can’t buy a beer in McDonald’s. You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in New York? They call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese; they’ve got the metric system.

But I digress. Let’s get back to booze.

You can buy beer or hard cider in a supermarket here, but for anything stronger you have to go to a designated liquor outlet. Hard cider, by the way, is well…cider. Cider, is unfiltered apple juice, and apple juice is a clear sugary drink. Clear?

Drinking in public is illegal, but that’s never been an issue for me to date. Provided you keep the alcohol in a brown paper bag, and it’s not in a playground at 10am, you’re pretty much fine as far as I can tell. On Marathon day some police came by as we were pouring beer from our coolers (Hashers are well-organised when it comes to drinking) into red plastic cups – just like those in countless American University movies – and just nodded to us.

I went out for a pub lunch one Friday with guys from work – as was the cast-iron tradition back in London – but fortunately I was the last one the waitress asked when it came time to order drinks. I was a little disbelieving that everyone else had gone for Cokes, but later learned that I would have got some very odd looks if I’d ordered a beer in the middle of the workday.

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I’ve just come back from an open jam session, where I would have struggled even if it hadn’t been well over a year since I played bass with any conviction. I’ll hopefully head back and play with those guys again, but until that time I intend to practise daily so I don’t embarrass myself quite as badly; I’ve finally just bought a copy of the Real Book to speed things along.

First though, I need a drink to forget quite how badly a couple of those standards went. A whiskey at home is the same anywhere in the world.

Xx