Having spent my Saturday moonlighting as floor painter (of all things!) I decided to head out today and see some sights. 45 mins outside of NY is long beach which sounds famous and like it was the scene of some american teeny soap opera so i headed out. (I was later informed that Lond Beach is famous but teh one in California, not the one on Long Island...) For those of you whose US geography is as lacking as mine was before arriving here, NY is situated at the end of a long island (aptly named Long Island) and on a few islands just of the coast of Long Island (Staten Island, Manhattan). at the otehr end of Long Island is Montauk and the Hamptons which are very posh indeed. Somewhere in the middle is Long Beach. Took the Long Island Rail Road without much of plan and decided on the train to just have a wander round. Soon after arriving I stumbled into a surfing competition and took a few snaps of the action before walking along the board walk. Was going to walk down to the beach but was informed that doing so would cost me seven bucks! .... so i jumped from the boardwalk when no one was looking. While walking I decided that I want to learn to surf, if anyone's up for it we'll head to bondi beach in Oz and learn there, sound good? Anyway, after walking long enough to build up a decent sunburn (sorry mum) i headed inshore and treated myself to some cool board shorts in the Long Beach surf shop. Before heading back to the city I popped into Starbucks for a frappuchino. Unfortunately the moron thought I asked for "two" when I actually said "tall" - idiot. The girl next to me in the line said that no one ever understood her either. When I asked her if my accent was that difficult to understand she replied "Pardon?" ... obviously it is. True story.