NY Moments

I’m sorry it’s been a while – I have all good intentions to update this blog and have plenty to write about, but finding the time is tough! We had Ash’s parents here for a few weeks and had a great time exploring the city with them.  Also, we have joined a gym (need to counter the affects of Ben and Jerrys!) so I'm trying to fit that in along with spending way too much time at work.   But we are still living it up in NY - here are some highlights:

The Guggenheim – the architecture is the main highlight but showing in the main rotunda was an exhibition of modern art themed ‘Haunted’. My favourite exhibit was the collection in the impressionist room.
http://www.guggenheim.org/

Central Park – more exploring on a very hot day, we discovered the Hans Christian Andersen statue, the remote control toy sail boat lake, the boathouse and lake with row boats and gondola’s for hire, the fountain you recognise in movies - eg One Fine Day and Ransom - and the mall, a lovely long straight walk through the middle of the park.  We may have snacked on a $2 hotdog with mustard from a cart which we thoroughly enjoyed - we’ve decided that even tofu would taste good with mustard!

Back to Broadway – saw Memphis, a musical tackling the difficult topic of inter-racial relationships in the 50’s but the music was fantastic and once again there was a packed audience who enjoyed the show.
www.memphisthemusical.com/

Ground Zero – wandering around this site for the first time and the size of the construction is awesome. The missing twin towers are still very prominent in NY popular culture and they are often mentioned in the media or reflected in art. In what I would consider to be a real sign of defiance, one of the six skyscrapers to be rebuilt on the site will once again stand well above the NYC skyline – called the Freedom Tower – due to be finished in 2012:

The Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station – loud and busy, there’s seafood a plenty, and for those of us that don’t eat oysters the salmon was lovely too! We enjoyed a champagne (thanks Michelle) while the soup was literally slapped down in front of us.

The Gay Pride Festival and parade which concluded right near our apartment in the West Village. There were crowds of people colourfuly dressed (or not) enjoying the atmosphere.  Ash enjoyed the sights from our ‘terrace’ (fire escape) and as you can imagine there were plenty!

Strand Hotel Rooftop bar - perfect views of the Empire State Building while you sit back on a lounge and sip cocktails

A walk from Jersey City to Hoboken – we headed on the “Path” train under the Hudson and 1 stop later we were in Jersey City, New Jersey. As the sun was setting on Manhattan we wandered down a new-ish waterfront walkway 30mins to Hoboken where we had a surprisingly good meal at the Clam Broth House – I ate a boar bolognaise – we plan to go back there with other visitors if they want the trip to Jersey.

The weather has been very hot, much more than I expected, reaching 40deg some days, and the city tends to hold the heat in the buildings and especially the subway stations which I had described to me today as like walking into a giant mouth (hot and moist!).  We are making the most of our air-con and received our first electricity bill yesterday which (thankfully) didn't send us broke :)   Tomorrow we are taking our first trip out of town to the beach on Long Island, about a 1 hour train journey.  I'm sure it will make its own blog.

We have visitors regularly now until September and I’m very excited to explore more of NY with them all.  Our next friends arrive on Thursday and their visit will include another afternoon at the baseball - it looks like I’m becoming a Yankees fan!

The Cable Guy

One of the first things we organised when we moved in was connecting our cable. This would allow us to stop stealing wireless internet from the café downstairs (which was fine, until they closed at around 10pm and we lost connection) and also give us nearly 1000 channels to watch on our 2 new tv's.

(yes - someone wanted 2! - well it does make sense when one of us wants to watch "So You Think You Can Dance" and the other one wants "The 10 deadliest military weapons used in Vietnam", and tv's are relatively cheap here… but I digress).

In what seemed a much more efficient process than ordering pay tv at home, we ordered online, provided 3 possible time slots for the 'guy' to come and hook us up, then we received an email confirmation that 'he' would be there in one of those suggested times. It was one of the least painful experiences we have had in our relocation, hassle free, 'he' turned up, connected everything and it was all done.

We now have more tv viewing options than you can imagine. Scrolling through the guide list to find something of interest takes about 8 mins! And sometimes, believe it or not, I still can't find something worth watching. More and more channels are getting an 'on demand' option and we have the DVR option so can record as well and have a backlog of movies to catch up on when we have a moment. I have always enjoyed a dose of reality tv trash and one of my new favourites is called "The Millionaire Matchmaker" - classic! I'm addicted :) Another one, not sure if you have at home yet, but you probably will get is "Losing it with Jillian" (trainer from the Biggest Loser) - I cry in every episode… and if its on, I will always watch "the Bachelorette" - Poor Ash, I hear you say, no wonder he wanted a second tv! But it works both ways, with his favourites are usually located on the Military or History Channel… I mean, really, how many black and white WWII docos can one watch??!!

We have been in our lovely little place for a month now and we went through a week of watching films each night but I was exhausted as they became late nights by the time we finished dinner and put the film on, so that wasn't a sustainable habit. We have also been in the right timezone to watch the World Cup soccer and the French Open and Wimbledon so I'm in my element and loving the cable. Ash is not so into watching sport - another good reason for that second tv - this weekend is the start of the Tour de France - bring it on!