Upper West

  I'm in a new hostel. 

  I woke at eleven, squeezed into the tiny shit hole toilet in the other block and fell asleep. I didn't mean to, it just happened.

  I woke up at twelve, disorientated. I felt like a rent boy for about twenty seconds before  realising that no, I hadn't been drugged and yes, my body was still intact. I went back to the room and packed my things. It was time to move on.

  I got to the reception and threw the guy my keys through the hole in the glass.

  "That'll be twenty dollars"

  "What do you mean? I'm checking out!"

  "Yeah but it's gone twelve. Twenty dollar fee for late check out"

  I checked the clock. 12:03 pm.

  "You are having a laugh?" I cried, my eyes looking surprised as possible.

  "No sir. Twenty dollars please"

  "Come on mate, its three minutes past!"  This guy can't have been more than twenty three, surely he'd understand..?

  "You broke the rules sir, if you don't pay, I will take action"

  And with that, I calmly got out my wallet, left two dollars on my side of the glass and walked away.

  "Hey! Hey Sir! There's only 2 dollars here!"

  "I know" I said to myself as I turned out of the hall and hit the sidewalk.

   Now, if he had chased me I would have paid, I wasn't running or anything, but I think the guy quietly let it slide, after all I was 4 minutes late for check out and he would have been an ass for following that up.

  I got on the subway and made my way to 103rd street. 

  I'm now on the upper west side, I wanted to get up here so I can explore Harlem more easily. I'm in New York's largest hostel, it's everything a virginal, gap year student could dream of. Bloc Party is blaring out of the omnipresent speakers. There's free pool. Countless lounges and a big patio. I feel like I'm in some kind of social experiment. Still, the social atmosphere is welcome, compared to the stale rotten shoe box in Chelsea, even if everything I say is accompanied by "Yeah Dawg!" or "Awesome!"

Example 1-  "What's your name dude?"

                      "Pete"

                      "Yeah Dawg!"

Example 2- "Where you from?"

                      "Manchester"

                      "No way, Awesome!"

   Yeah Im surrounded by loads of west coast natives on a New York piss up. Though I'm probably going to end up going out with them at some point to keep me sane. One of them in particular hasn't left me alone until now, all he does is reel off names of English footballers and who they play for. As if when he reaches a certain number, I'm going to explode into a shower of money. He just smiles and stares into my eyes excitedly saying:

  "John Barnes-Liverpool FC. Thierry Henry-Arsenal. David Beck-HAM-Manchester United......"

  "Uh huh. That's right. Yep. Yeah he did." Is all I grunt.

  If he carries on, i'm going to have to tell him to stop. I like the cigarette in the eye technique better though.