RULE NUMBER 1.

Adam in the NY cold

LAX

Greetings.

Welcome to the Rules of America...the naffly named blog spot of Ads and Gem Rule (Gem came up with the name!).

Rule Number 1.

Start Spreading the News.

Ok, we have arrived at our destination. A groovy little pad in the East Village / Lower East Side. First floor...kind of under the sidewalk to be precise but you get the gist. Our East 2nd Street is a cool little side street and our modest building is surrounded by similar old brick (yet no doubt expensive) buildings full of funky apartments and cool night spots. Of course its bloody cold and the street is full of iced up snow and pre-collection rubbish...kinda Sesame Street looking with a bum playing Oscar the Grouch role.

Our apartment was nothing but a joy to walk into after the 32 hours of flight/airport time we just endured without so much as 30 winks. One spacious room with a side kitchen and a good sized bathroom...nicely furnished and comes with satellite tv (185 channels i think), wi-fi and most importantly....good heating.

Ok....lets back track because i have some stuff to say about United Airlines and LAX. United is seemlingly the bung-hole airline over here. No media thingys in the back of the seat in front, disinterested staff, lazy drinks cart and awful 'food'. Oh...and here is a thought for all newly manufactured airliners....put a dimmer in the toilets! I honestly thought i was still 25 years old until i went for my first relief session. The man in the hideously lit lavatory was obviously someone else wearing an older Adam suit...i gotta tell you, 'Airline Adam' looked like someone closer to the dark side of 40! Bloody truth mirror!!

I have one thing to say about LAX - S.U.X! Despite our 5 hour layover at this fine establishment i still managed about 45mins of light sleep whilst laying across 5 seats and using my laptop as a pillow. Gem wasn't so 'lucky' . Anyhoo...enough of the tiredness fuelled ranting. Anytime you fly from one side of the planet to the other its not going to be pleasant.

ok, so we fly into NY and the cab ride is sweet and scary. As soon as you see the skyline on a clear night you are buzzed. The closer we got to our crib (trying to get my black dude speak on) the more we forgot about the previous 30 plus hours. We arrived at the apartment, dropped our stuff and went exploring up the street to find a cool place to get some quick takeaway. Two doors down is a place called Il Bagatto. It was recommended to us by our friendly apartment dude and it did not disappoint. Opened the door and pulled back a curtain to reveal a bustling little boutique italian restaurant. Maybe 35 peeps upstairs and a another few in the dimly lit bar downstairs. We ordered our pasta and then hit the bar for a glass of wine and a few deep breaths of New York coolness. Before that though, i did notice Mary Stewart Masterson (Some Kind of Wonderful amongst other film roles)....i had a small crush on that girl back in the 80's and she is looking pretty darn good today! But wait, there is more...as we were walking out we noticed Mary was sitting on a table with Kevin Spacey! Blimey, we have been in town for 2 hours and we have hit gold....a blast from the past and one of the great modern actors going around today.

Welcome to New York. We love this place!!

Stay tuned to our next blog in a couple of days for some more updates...

Much love, Ads and Gem x