Day 8, in which we slip like shadows into the Guggenheim

After pancakes and french toast at the Red Flame Diner, we took a taxi to the Guggenheim.

The Guggenheim is a fantastic space, technically containing only one floor which rises up an up in a giant spiral to fill the tall space, today presenting a collection of Kandinsky's work progressing through time from his first sketches at ground level up to his latest works at the top. It was filled with a large number of slow and stupid strangers who only served to get in the way. I can't be alone in thinking the world would be nicer if the majority of people on the planet would just vanish and leave the rest of us to enjoy it, and so it was I wished I could roll a giant Indiana Jones-style boulder down the ramp and clear out the gallery. As it was, no boulder was available so we checked out about some of the later Kandinskys (and a very cool Anish Kapoor sculpture, a giant object crammed into a tiny room which was only visible in small sections, like the blind men's elephant) and then spent twice as much time in the gift shop.

After a cup of coffee back at the Algonquin, we dragged our suitcases down to Penn Station. Manhattan is busy at the best of times, but as New Year's Eve approached the streets were densely packed and the traffic static, and so taxis simply were not an option. We battled our way eleven blocks south and agreed that perhaps we'd had enough of the big city for now and were glad to be returning to provincial London for a brief rest.

Following Al Qaeda's terror attack on the Christmas flight to Detroit (if setting fire to a blanket and then being beaten up by a member of the public can be counted as an 'attack'), British Airways had warned us to be prepared for severe delays in security at the airport. In fact, it was swifter than usual and we soon found ourselves tucking into burgers and ice tea.

The flight home flew by, assisted by the soporific effects of Scott Neustadter's (500) Days of Summer. We arrived back in Tufnell Park at 9am, ready to unpack, launder and repack for Japan.