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!