Don’t get me wrong. Aude is a pharmacist, so I know first-hand that pharmacists in France are highly educated, knowledgeable professionals. I know that the advice that they hand out is top-rate, and that they are genuinely interested in providing a good service to their customers. But they are driving me nuts.

First, you have to accept the premise that no one in France is expected to be responsible enough to look after themselves. From pensions to healthcare, the government assumes that you are too irresponsible to be left in control, so they issue enormous tax bills and take care of all the details for you, the taxpayer. And on one hand, it is incredibly helpful – there really is very little to do after you have received your paycheque each month.

But just like many other examples in France, the French pharmacy system is designed on the basis that customers are, basically, uneducated idiots who would kill themselves if left to their own devices. Never mind that the French take more medicine per capita than any other nation in Europe – they are pill-poppers extraordinaire.

The aisles of my local pharmacy are filled with shampoos and soaps, all of which I am trusted to select on my own. Two full aisles are filled with nothing but diet pills, and these are all considered safe for self-service. But heaven forbid I should need something as strong as a few ibuprofen or paracetamol. For those, I am expected to have a consultation with a pharmacist. And because the pharmacists have a total monopoly on the market, I am expected to pay €7 for a box of pills that would have cost me about €0.70 in the UK. This morning, feeling a little under the weather, I thought I would pop in to buy some vitamin C. No, even that is deemed too dangerous for me to purchase without a pharmaceutical consultation.

In the end, I gave up and bought a glass of orange juice. I’m amazed they allow me to buy something so potent on my own.

It’s bloody FREEZING! I think we must have brought the cold weather home with us. After dragging my jet-lagged body out of bed this morning, I was greeted with arctic gales and frosty temperatures, a real change after the very mild winter we’ve had so far. To make matters worse, I was running late and didn’t have time to grab my normal cup of coffee before jumping on the train. It’s a rough way to start the week.

Back to New York. We arrived late on Thursday night, delayed an hour because the pilots had trouble getting to the airport. We had severe winds on Thursday night, downing trees and power lines across the country, and generally making travel of all sorts difficult. The strong headwind also meant that our flight took longer – we eventually arrived in New York around midnight, and got to our hotel around 1am. New York roads are as bad as ever, and I saw my life flash before my eyes several times on the cab journey from the airport.

Lobby of the Sheraton New York. I was upgraded to a nice suite, but Anne Laure and Neil were “upgraded” to a handicapped room, where everything was designed for someone 3ft tall.

We were up early on Friday morning and decided to hit the city. I wanted to hit B&H Photo – closed on Friday afternoons and Saturdays because it’s run by Orthodox Jews – so that was the first order of business. I ended up with a 50mm lens for my camera and a new camera bag. And I talked Neil into buying one as well (…and so starts the addiction!).

Matthew tries to decide which lens he wants.

Neil was giving me a hard time about buying a lot of stuff — until we saw this guy. He must have bought every accessory in the store! He dumped everything out on the floor and packed it into his new camera bag.

We stopped off for a Mexican lunch, then headed to the International Photography Center, where we saw the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition I had wanted to see in Paris. I thought it was fitting to see his photos, a sort of “tribute” to a 50mm lens, in light of my new purchase.

Friday evening we met up with my friend Peter and his girlfriend for a few drinks at the W Hotel at Times Square, then headed out to dinner at Les Halles, Anthony Bourdin’s original NY restaurant, where Aude and I split a piece of steak just slightly larger than my head.

At the Whiskey Bar, beneath the W Hotel in Times Square. (Photo courtesy of Peter)

MG rode up from her home-away-from-home in New Jersey on Saturday – her first trip to New York. We picked her up at Penn Station and went straight into Macy’s – start as you meant to continue. On a tip from Peter’s girlfriend, we all met for lunch at Golden Bridge in Chinatown for dim sum – and were pretty much the only white people there.

Dim sum with everyone at the Golden Bridge restaurant in Chinatown. (Photo courtesy of Peter)

After gorging ourselves, we spent the afternoon exploring the city – Times Square, Fifth Avenue, the World Trade Centre site – then onto the real New York landmark – Century 21! Famished after hours of shopping, we headed to Little Italy for dinner. We had some fantastic veal, then went around the corner to Ferrara’s bakery for some dessert. After trying unsuccessfully to hail a cab, I managed to blag a ride home in a passing limo.

We were up like clockwork on Sunday morning, Neil’s stomach calling out for food. There was no avoiding it – we needed breakfast at a Jewish deli. We went into Carnegie Deli on 7th Ave and had a traditional deli breakfast with all the trimmings – including a waitress who looked like she’d been working there since the turn of the century. The nineteenth century.

The gang at the Carnegie Deli, shortly before being abused by the pre-historic waitress.

Clearly unimpressed with our unfamiliarity with deli procedure, she served us cheerlessly with her patented “service without a smile.” Still, it could be worse. She yelled at the retired travellers behind us for ordering a side-order of cream cheese, complaining that she had to walk all the way back to the kitchen. Funny, that’s what I thought her job was.

She added a 20% gratuity to our bill.

I got to thinking – if she keeps her tips ($14 on our $70 bill) and serves ten tables an hour, she’s clearing $140 an hour in tips. Assuming she works a 4-hour shift, five days a week, that’s $140K a year – a significant portion of which, I assume, does not get reported to the tax man. It’s easy to look at a 70+ year old woman and feel sorry that she has to work as a waitress. But then I did the arithmetic and my sympathy was tempered somewhat. She’s laughing all the way to the bank.

Some completely mad people running a half-marathon in Central Park in the middle of winter.

Laden with food, we headed up to Central Park, where we caught the tail end of the half-marathon that Peter was running in. We didn’t manage to catch him (he was too quick for us) but we did get a chance to see some of his slower competitors bringing up the rear.

Skaters in Rockefeller Center.

Neil finds heaven on Fifth Avenue.

Heaven, like God himself, takes many forms. For MG, it comes in the form of Prada.

After discovering that all the shops on Fifth don’t open until 11am on a Saturday, we headed town to the Staten Island Ferry.

Neil is, frankly, a little skeptical of my subway navigation skills.

Aude, on the other hand, is totally unimpressed and threatens to leave me for one of the rats that run down the tracks!

The New York subway.

In their wisdom, someone put me in charge of navigating the Metro. I learned a number of embarrassing lessons about riding the New York subway.

1. You can only swipe four people through on a Metro card. Which means that, if you’re the fifth guy, you look like jackass when you then try to swipe yourself through, instead getting impaled on the barrier.
2. Colours and lines do not correspond 1-to-1. Which helps explain why it took four separate trains to get from 50th to the South Ferry.
3. If ever your swipe card doesn’t work, wrapping it with a dollar bill to clean the sensors is a surprising effective trick.
4. Trains are infuriatingly infrequent on a Sunday. Particularly if you need to change four times because your map-reader doesn’t quite understand the subway system.
5. If you’re going less than 20 blocks, take a cab. It’s just as cheap, and a damn sight quicker and more convenient.

After a ride on nearly every subway line, we finally reached the Staten Island Ferry.

Anne Laure and Neil on the Staten Island Ferry.

Matt and Neil enjoy a New York delicacy – a hot pretzel with mustard.

After the Staten Island Ferry and the Statue of Liberty, it was back to 5th Ave for some more shopping. We worked our way down until we eventually ended up at Macy’s again – MG was jealous of the cheap cashmere sweaters I had found and wasn’t going to leave Manhattan until she had some of her own.

We reconvened with Anne Laure and Neil on Sunday night – a low key dinner at Sushiden (fantastic sushi and very accommodating waitresses, endlessly entertained by Neil’s “sake bombs” but not terribly fluent in English. When asked what something was, our waitress helpfully informed us that she “knew the name in Japanese”.) Early to bed, we were up at 5am for our trip back to JFK.

So there you have it – three days in New York. It actually felt much longer. We hit all the big sights, did our bit for the US economy, grabbed a few bargains, and ate enough to feed an army. Best £200 I’ve spent in a long time.

Celebrity sightings while in NY:

1. Richard Wilkins – Australian TV presenter and recent winner of “Australia’s Worst Show Biz TV Reporter” in the 2006 Fugly Awards.” Staying at our hotel.
2. Jean-Baptiste Requien, Gordon Ramsay’s right-hand man, at Ramsay’s restaurant in New York. Anne-Laure tried to sweet-talk her way into a table, but no dice.
3. Crazy “I Surrender” Guy – clearly a man who has spent quite a while in incarceration. Spotted walking off the Staten Island Ferry, hands in the air, trying to surrender to anyone in a uniform – Transit Police, dock operators, and the hotdog vendor. Could have been a relative of Henry Earl.
4. “Dances With Cats” – spotted on the Staten Island Ferry with a curiously noisy shopping bag.
5. Fat “Shouts at Passers-By” Guy, spotted shouting at passers-by at the corner of 44th and 5th.
6. Mr Rhetorical Questions, spotted countless examples of these fellows (and ladies) who speak endlessly to themselves.

Another one of New York’s colourful characters!

Seems like the perfect character to set off the one above!

Still, it wouldn’t be New York without characters like these.