We had a brief false start on the subway when we went to the platform going the wrong direction. A simple changeover to the other side was thwarted by the ticketing system, which made us wait 18 minutes before we could scan back in – to avoid ticket fraud apparently. Don’t tell the Myki people or they will want this too!

  
We took a short trip to the lovely Madison Square park (not gardens) and caught up with Deb’s friend Rishe who works on Madison Avenue.

  
It was a gorgeous warm afternoon so everyone was queuing at a place called the Shake Shack, which is something of an institution here – we had a caramel and bagel flavoured “concrete”, basically a full on thick shake, and a coffee and doughnut flavoured frozen custard. After a few mouthfuls our teeth were vibrating and the park was shimmering – crazy amounts of sugar!

E had a lovely time tearing around the park and making friends with dogs, pigeons, squirrels and passers by.

We hopped back on the subway for a quick changeover, then Deb and I grabbed the number 7 out to Citi field, home of the New York Mets. Tonight’s game was the Mets vs the Pittsburgh Pirates, and there was a big crowd gathering.

  
We picked up our tickets with a minimum of fuss and headed in via a couple of souvenirs. Friday is free t-shirt day so we are now kitted out with some fancy Mets gear.

In keeping with the spirit of things I decided to grab a can of Bud – turns out that as with everything else, the cans are massive – 25 oz or about 750 mL. Fortunately it’s sex in a canoe beer, so it was more about thirst quenching than anything (at least that’s what I told Deb)

 
We had great seats towards the front of right field so we settled in and made friends with our neighbours. As baseball novices we needed some expert tuition and the guys next to us were very patient and obliging.

The atmosphere was great,and there was a great mood – something Deb and I hadn’t experienced enough of with our respective footy teams this year. The Mets had won 11 of their last 13 games so expectations were high.

The main pitcher, the amusingly named Colon, was warming up near us. With a physique reminiscent of the legendary David Boon, he looked an unlikely figure, but by god he was throwing bullets in his warmup.

 

 
The game kicked off to much action, with a home run in the Pirates’ first innings. Lots of action and excitement, it’s a really enjoyable game to watch and gets very tense.

A bloke came round selling beers so I grabbed another and did the fun game of sending my money down the row to the seller and getting my beer passed back along, what fun! Shame it was Bud Light, again 25 oz of watery, but mercifully ice cold, “beer”

The match continued and at the bottom of the 9th scores were level at 1 run apiece so it went to a 10th innings.

  

Unfortunately due to some somewhat insipid pitching, the Pirates scored a double, so the Mets were up against it to stay in the game. Some late heroics resulted in one more run, but it was too late and the Mets went down 3-2.

No one was particularly annoyed and we filed out to the train after a thoroughly enjoyable evening. We may have to try to get into some games when we are back home.

The subway proved much easier and felt far safer than we had been led to expect from movies and TV. Even the massive crowds at Times Square weren’t too much of an issue. There were some ladies wandering around wearing nothing but g-strings and body paint, much to the delight of the ten year old boys in front of us, whose parents weren’t sure how to explain the situation to them. No photos sorry.