Blogs from Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, North America - page 16

Our final day in Paris was a little less hectic, starting out with a leisurely stroll around Montmartre eating delicious freshly made crepes for breakfast. Not wanting to be too lazy though, we gave our legs a work out and climbed the 300 steps to the dome of the Sacre Coeur. The dizzying spiral staircase to the top offered breathtaking views across Paris and panic attacks for the claustrophobic! Lily spotted a double decker carousel in the gardens and her 4 year old inner self dragged Izzy along for a ride on the pretty painted horses. The next few hours were spent atop the Big Red Bus viewing the sights and giving our legs a rest, followed by a relaxing cruise along the Seine. Paris is a beautiful city and much more time is needed to ... read more

Sorry for the delay, folks. Writing a blog entry daily after attending 4 briefings a day while trying to explore as much of the city as possible is just not possible. But on this beautifully sunny Sunday morning I have found the perfect little diner called “The Good Stuff” that has a brunch special where the coffee is included, but the screwdriver is not. The omelet that is on the way is a nice deviation from the $1.00 cheese pizza that I have been eating for the past two days in a row. As far as the briefings go, they are all starting to meld together. It is interesting to see the different consulates; you really get a sense of how rich a country is just by visiting their consulate. Let me tell you that France, ... read more

After a three hour delay (voluntarily, in exchange for some free flights for our next trip…) we touched down at 8:30pm local time. What we hadn’t considered when agreeing to a later flight was that, by the time we had done all the customs malarkey and the officials had laughed at ‘Notting-ham’ on Zoe’s passport for some unknown reason, it was nearing 10pm. After briefly considering our options for getting downtown, we opted for the relatively cheap subway. This was our first mistake. There are many ways to describe New York’s subway system. Clean, user friendly and well signposted are not among them. Two hours later and we had been shouted at by two officials, seen some interesting characters, been given directions by a friendly, if somewhat shady looking, Mexican man and got on the wrong ... read more

Bonjour à tous Une journée qui n'ai pas sans me rappeler le début du voyage 2014. La météo avait vu juste. 100% pluie et un petit 13°. Je décide de garder la chambre seul problème elle a pris 120$ de plus en 24h, je remonte, regarde Booking, et je trouve, pour le même prix qu'hier, dans le Upper West Side tout près de Central Park. J'ai hésité, il y avait aussi le Sofitel, très bien situé, avec des femmes des chambres très serviables, mais nous connaissons tous quelqu'un qui a eu un problème. La gâterie de Nafitoussa, lui a coûté assez chère. Pour commencer, il ne pleut pas trop, un petit café sur Time Square. et il faut que je sorte la voiture avant 11H. Cet à ce moment que la pluie a commencée.Dense et froide. ... read more

As mentioned in the previous posting there should be some talk of cultural things. However in this fast paced, time poor city of New York a posting dedicated solely to one topic, be that culture (or as is our usual want one about food) would seem time profligate indeed. And so this posting shall combine observations and experiences of both food and culture. And as luck would have it the two topics do intertwine, as exemplified by one of our very first ports of call in our neighbourhood, Katz’s Deli down on Houston Street. Renowned for its double-fisted super-sized deli sandwiches, this was the place where the infamous ‘I’ll have what she’s having” scene from the movie “When Harry Met Sally” was set. Dianne had been very keen to visit this classic deli, however once in ... read more