We were amazed when we landed in the Newark, NJ, airport without hassle or
setback.  We had nervously anticipated hassles at customs, or some sort of lost-baggage nightmare, so we were pleasantly surprised when we got to our destination promptly, safe & sound.

From the airport we caught a bus to Penn Station in NJ, then a train to Penn Station, NY, and transferred to the subway and rode it into the Bushwick area of Brooklyn, where our hosts at the Surreal Estates  are located.

We emerged from the subway into a glaringly sunny day, and marveled at the ubiquitous street art that jumped off the walls at us (beautiful stencil art, life-size graff and wheat-pasted images on every corner).  After getting a bit lost and asking for directions we found our way to our temporary home at the Surreal Estates -- a pair of conjoined 3-story brick warehouses, converted into a labyrinthine complex of artists' lofts.  We arrived right in time to meet the folks cooking for the neigbourhood Food Not Bombs (there are 4 or 5 in NYC), and joined them in a nearby park for and extremely well-attended serving.  We served hot prepared food, along with bread, cakes, bananas, bags of salad to over a hundred people.

We spent the next day sleeping off our jet-lag, getting to know our hosts (53 people reside in this collective space), and settling into  our new home -- an inspiring community space, super-saturated with art made by the residents, and packed with bicycles & sound equipment, and the detritus of a hundred in-progress creative projects.  Thank you Vivika Kai, and everyone else there, for inviting us and helping us feel welcome

Saturday was the first day of the New York Anarchist Book Fair; we set up our table for the National Microphone Association , and spent all day talking with friendly folk, and selling a ton of our patches & zines.  We saw our friends from Edmonton's Thought Crime Ink , and a few other familiar faces.  Before we knew it, 8pm had rolled around and it was time to head back to Brooklyn to prepare for the after-party at the Surreal Estates.

The night was a potpourri of musical offerings, with three stages happening simultaneously.  There was an acoustic stage with a variety of folk acts (inc. Ryan Harvey !), a "loud" stage that blasted rock/funk/++ into the night (inc. Broadcast Live !), and an area upstairs where we performed a knock-out hour+ set with our comrade Testament on a tweaked system with a fat subwoofer that one of the house-mates had spent the past 24 hrs constructing (it was the largest subwoofer we have ever performed on!).  The area we performed in was awash in hi-tech lighting & packed with an attentive audience.  Our first New York performance went off with nary a hitch, and we received an abundance of support and enthusiastic encouragement from those present.   Our anticipation / anxiety surrounding whether we would be recieved
nicely was washed away after that one hour performance, and now we are
excited to kickit for more like minds, all over the NE states.

We've got a couple more shows coming up here in Brooklyn, and are looking forward to having more opportunities to share our love with New York.  tell a friend!  our dates are public, and posted on any of our webpages (reverbnation or myspace)