Goodbye New York!

Well it's our last night here and we're all packed up and ready to go. It would be really sad, but luckily we've got some more exciting places to visit before this trip is over.

We have been a bit slack with photo taking so here is one of B in Central Park the other day... How pretty!



And here I am in Battery Park. We went for a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, but unfortunately it was all enclosed because of the weather so we didn't get any good Statue photos. So you get me instead.



Sunday we went for a stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge and into DUMBO which is the area of Brooklyn between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. It was nice and quiet, lovely to escape the hustle and bustle. The city has been especially busy because of Thanksgiving weekend.



We wandered around and stumbled upon a show of Hamlet played by marionettes. Sort of. It was a bit more like actors running around playing Hamlet while carrying puppets, but oh well, it didn't really make up for our Broadway show being cancelled...

Then we ate pizza at Grimaldi's which is supposedly the best pizza in New York. It was yum.


This is the Brooklyn Bridge by night.

There's lots of other things we've done. We went on a Hip Hop Tour of Harlem and the Bronx which was interesting. It was led by a guy named Grandmaster Caz who wrote some of the rhymes for Rappers Delight. He was quite bitter about the fact that he has never been paid any money for it, but still he was entertaining and it was a good way to see these areas and imagine what they were like back in the 70s and 80s.

Today we went to MoMA and to Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockettes. We figured it would be fun since we missed out on seeing a musical. It was pretty corny, but fun. And it has huge amounts of money put in to it. It had a 3D movie, real fireworks, falling snow, live animals (sheep, camels,a donkey!), a life size double decker bus, and the sets were amazing! They do 3 shows a day and most sell out, so I guess they can afford it.

Anyway, I could go on forever but I might only be entertaining myself, so I'll stop now.

See you in Helsinki!

New York state of mind...

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! A great day for chilling out and trying to recover from the 50+ kms we've walked since we got here on Friday.

What a city! I love this place! I can't really describe it without a bevy of worn cliches, rather I will just generally enthuse. So far the list is pretty standard - Statue of Liberty, Staten Island ferry, Alphabet City, Katz's and Tiffany's... but it's more about the feel of the place, the atmosphere. Makes Sydney feel like Yass with a nice harbour and way too much pretension...



This is from when I was doing my King Kong impression... It was incredibly cold up there, and rather windy, but what a view! I wish I could do a 360 photo or something, cos this don't do it justice.



I love Central Park! It's so massive! Incredible that wedged in between such a bustling noisy metropolis, this serene, beautiful place could exist, and on such a scale! And it makes for such nice photos...
It's easy when you have a great location and an ever better subject!



Rockefeller Centre... wish I was there...

Anyways suffice to say, believe the hype, everyone IS your friend in New York City, and it's pretty hard to beat.

Seeya!

Stevie Concert

Wow.......

Sorry, I cant rotate the images..... Here is B in his new New York oufit. HOT!


And me....




B eating Matzo ball soup at Katz's deli, do you think he's having what she had? Hmmmmm....





Here our our sideways corned beef sandwiches. mmm mmm




Hi Eamon!



Here is our crazy room in the east village. But it's cute anyway and cheap...

oh by the way, we saw Stevie Wonder last night, it was amazing, Best concert experience ever. Prince got up and played Bass to Superstition and tony Bennet sang along to For Once in my Life. And Stevie was fabulous and heaps of fun. It was too much to even properly explain.

Anyway, in the spirit of Stevie we love you all and miss you!

xxxxxxxxxxxx

More Disney Photos

We actually didn't take that many photos, sorry....



It's A Small World, done up for Xmas. The ride was different too, they sang Jingle Bells as well as Small World, but not in other languages, and everything had decorations on it. The Hanuted Mansion was also done up as Nightmare Before Xmas. It was ok, I think it's better the normal way.




B on the teacups ride.



B trying to post some postcards in Toon Town, to a talking post box...



Main Street done up for Xmas.

That's it! We were obviously having to much fun to take pictures!

We're in New York now so will post about that soon...

The Wonderful World of Disney

Here we are again having spent two long days at Disneyland and its neighbour Disney's California Adventure. Fun.



This is us riding a rollercoaster called California Screamin'. It was fast and good, but not as scary as B's face looks, but more scary than mine looks. I don't know what's happening to the guy behind us.


Here we are after getting soaked on a white water rafting ride. B actually let a stranger take our photo after being offered many times since we left.




Thank god they had beer at California Adventure. Yes!

...confidential

The LA journey continues, with yesterday being Hollywood, Beverley Hills and Rodeo Drive.
Today we went downtown, things were sure great downtown!




The new(ish) Walt Disney Concert Hall is awesome. We both agree, that it takes, nay stomps upon, the mantle from the SOH as best modern music-type place. If only it were on a decent harbour...

After that it was Olvera St for a little Mexican flavour, and then onto the freeways once more to Anaheim for some Disney action!



How good is the view from our motel here? I had heard that LA is a great big freeway, but this is ridiculous!

Anyway, there was only way to deal with it!

LA Story

Hello!
Here is me driving along the beach at Santa Monica, well I am not driving, B is. He is driving on the wrong side of the car. Arggh! So scary!



B is at the Getty Museum. What a wonderful place. We took lots of photos at sunset. Pretty... And B got to take some of his favourite water photos.



He he. I'll get in trouble for that.



After Getty we drove along Mulholland Drive back to Hollywood. Nice view.

We just ate some weird food and the waiter came and said something to me and I didn't understand so I just said Yes. Then he said 1 or 2? Wha? So I said one. Turns out he was giving me a takeaway container to put our mountain of leftover food in. Now we have enough to last till we leave LA. Cool!

So now we are drinking some gin in our suite at the guesthouse. It's really big and around the corner are all these cafes that have real coffee, except we haven't worked out what they call a flat white here, we think they call it cappucino, but a latte comes in a really big flat white cup.

Crazy Americans!

More soon....