i hear its hot in the UK - well thats probably nothing compared to here! we hit 100 degrees fahrenheit today and that felt hotter with the humidity. about once a week we have an incredible thunderstorm which absolutely soaks the city and things settle down again. tom - hope you're prepared for china, i expect it'll be hotter! went to central park at the weekend - check out the photos of the crazy NY dance skater group - which was quite amazing. the place is absolutley huge, it covers about 70 blocks and is 3 avenues wide (i think). there was a free concert in the park, which was (unfortuntely) some rapper i'd never heard of but i read that the yeah yeah yeahs and jack johnson have previously played there - bad luck for me, maybe i'll go back next weekend. recieved my new debit card today (hurray! - thanks mum) so am just about to go out and spend loads of money. my first purchase will be food as i havenet eaten a proper meal for a while. the food here is really good although i reckon sometimes its cheaper to eat out than to buy and cook stuff. i paid 4 dollars (2.50 GBP) for a loaf of bread today but it was good stuff imported from ireland and not the cheap sweet stuff they produce over here. there's a chinese 2 blocks away that does rice, meat and a soda for 5 bucks and a halal food stand that does a mean kebab for 4 bucks. queens is a very multicultural borough of NY and because of this its possible to eat a wide variety of food, often very cheaply as its not manhattan. speaking of manhattan we went out on sat night for some drinks which was fun - a little underground place downtown that was only known by locals apparently. there's another place that we couldnt get into cos we didnt have ID that has imported sand ansd is right next to the east river overlooking Manhattan and particularly the lower east side if that measn something to anyone.... sorry this entry has been a bit rambly, maybe i'll clean it up later - email me any typos (if you're sad enough) and i'll change them(!). hope everyone is well, email me with updates of what you're all up to. p.s. if anyone's near NY any time soon, look me up and we'll meet.