State of Origin

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Can you believe it - Cooper and Greg are watching the State of origin. It's just after 8am and we all have been up since 5.30am.

Yesterday was another long day -up at 6.00am at the airport by 8am (after the 2 hour trip into Paris I wasn't risking it). Flight on time but still nearly missed our connection to Newark in Frankfurt due to delays on the tarmac, kids excited it was a jumbo jet and asking why we couldn't sit upstairs - I explained they could that if they wanted to when they were older. Seats VERY uncomfortable but personal tv's made the time go quick. Watched "episodes" - highly recommend it even though it stars Matt Le Blanc - is english comedy at it's darkest. Not looking forward to the last leg of the trip at all. Finally arrived at the flat in Brooklyn at 6pm - which was midnight Paris time. Headed out for supplies with Cooper. Very confronting to see so much processed stuff after all the beautiful produce in Italy and Paris - particularly Italy. However - finally found peanut butter - Coops happy. Not only processed food but much more expensive that ANYWHERE we've been so far, more like prices back in Sydney. I was expecting there to be a huge contrast with Europe coming here last of all but who knew that contrast would be so stark in a supermarket.

Our flat - or bunker as Cooper calls it - is great, much bigger than Paris and finally for the kids TV in english - first (except for BBC or CNN world news) since England two months ago. Great location, 10 minutes to the "7"line- which is 10 minutes into times square. Found laundromat and some great places to eat nearby.

This time in one month we will be home - very very scary. Though this time yesterday I was ready just to come home. Travel days are exhausting - not sure how you'd go if you were constantly in places just a few days, having a week or so in most places has been great and allowed down time - to do nothing much without feeling guilty. Also allows shopping time!!

Spent the moring online finding all we need to do and see today - the web really makes travel so much different to pre web travel. Have sourced several great NYC city apps that should help - though can't imagine really feeling lost in a city in which there is so much to see.

Day 1

Walked about 10 minutes to get the "7" into times square, which is just 10 minutes on the subway. Peak hour was flat out, hot and crowded. All those movies showing steam rising from subway grates aren't exagerating at all - it is really really hot down there. The day was cool to start with hints of rain. Times square was amazing - neon everything. From there we wandered, and wandered until we ended up at the American natural history museum (probably several km's away)- "run Larry run". Very exciting. On the way we walked through Central Park and passed Trump tower and the Dakota building - history everywhere. Had our first hotdog from a street vendor - just a hotdog really. The museum was a huge anachronism - but packed. After a few hours we headed to the dreaded McD's for lunch - I stupidly odered a large diet coke which came in a bucket. After lunch we went to Toys r us - which has so much stuff including a massine barbie house and huge lego figures - hour plus later we left - with a new Ken doll and groovy Star wars stuff for me. By the time we got back to Brooklyn we'd walked our feet off - so I snuck off on my own to shop for dinner - but we were all too tired to eat properly and had sandwiches and fruit. Plus I discovered that a bottle of wine - average wine is about 15.00, while a quality imported 750ml bottle of vodka is the same price - go figure!

Bed earlish - Cooper snuck a few episodes of Family guy - which I'm not sure was a wise decision, however in Rome I allowed them both to watch tragic Gordon ramsey swear his head off Fing being his every second word - I was so excited to see a program in English on TV after so long the kids got to wathc gordon's extremely bad behaviour. Now I've been so tired - think it's mini jet lag - I've been neglecting Harry Hole - my new fav flawed hero in Jo Nesbo's books. Fell asleep planning how to get to Harlem for tomorrow.

Unfortunately I woke at 3.30am on day 2 - and couldn't get back to sleep - but did get lots of planning done for the next few days in NYC.

Day 2.

Left to head off for a walking tour of up town NYC. A group of 20 with free tours by foot - you pay what ever you think the tour is worth. We walked for nearly 6 hours - highlights included Harlem - and advice on where to eat soul food (which we will head back to in the next few days), the famous Apollo theatre! where all the greats got their start. Then headed to Columbia uni - very impressive - then past the original diner in Seilfeld - VERY exciting. Lunch was a great great pizza place - the biggest slices ever for $3.00 - seriously the American have size issues - we shared two slices between the 4 of us. Then on to Central Park - sooooo big and a beautiful day. Soon after we left the group and took off for the american movie experience in Times square - a 7 story complex with 25 cinemas - popcorn in a huge bucket and a huuuggeee drink - of which they wanted us to go get a free refill - seriously - size problems. We 7ed our way home - got back after 7pm and fed the kids sandwiches while we had nothing - size problems! Again lots of walking -wished i had a pedometer!

Day 3

Before we left we went over the basics of september 11 with the kids and answered lots of questions. We felt they needed context for our day.

dropped of the washing - a huge bag wash and folded for 15.00 dollars - love it.

headed in to pick up our passes for the 9/11 memorial - then went window shopping at century 21 - serious bargains but nothing bought as we didn't want to carry it. A huge waiting in burger king for toilets - where they threw people out if they weren't customers! Then we got there just in time - huge huge walk in and around to get in to security and even further to get in to the actual memorial. It was impressive - and such a great memorial. I think the highlight was the survivor tree - see u tube (sorry Janey) for it's story. Was all very emotional - lots and lots of people crying. Watching the work going on on the new WTC towers 1 and 2 was also very sobering andd strange - life goes on. Lots of talking to the kids about it all over the whole day.

Then headed to grab lunch - found and AUTHENTIC NY diner - not a touristy one - just full of locals grabbing lunch - what is with potato ships served with a sandwich??? Anyway - Cooper has a plain slice, Kasey a cheese burger, me a ruben and Greg some sort of massive sandwich that he nearly couldn't finish. Grabbed a pink lemonade snapple - I do miss snapple - Greg can't even remember when we had it in Aus.

The ruben - I'll explain - toasted bread - mustard, suarkraut, about 1/2 kilo of pastrami and topped with swiss chesse - all grilled. a NY institution. really good, way too big. About an hour after having it i had 2 litres of water - salty plus!

After lunch we took the ferry to staten island, another of NYC boroughs. Saw the lady liberty - but she is closed for refurbishment so we couldn't get up close.

People here are lovely and friendly and all want to talk about us and our trip and Australia. Everyone is helpful when we don't know where we are going, even the guy at the local deli is looking after me!

Our plan to go out for dinner failed as soon as we had such a big lunch - will try again tomorrow night - but maybe havig soul food for lunch, so maybe not!!!

Have been too busy to read the paper - finally bought a NY times today so will be having a good night! Oh what my life has become!!!

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Comments

[Michelle]

Barbie heaven
Kasey looks like she could just move right in!

[Michelle]

Gold Jerry
Love this!