Tuesday 12th June
Very nice it was, to have a long weekend. I can’t say I expended much energy but…I have shingles as an excuse for laziness! I did have a very nice family reunion day on Saturday, and cooked some pies on Monday, so I didn’t spend ALL of the three days lolling on the couch with DVDs and my ipad…
Just before Pete left for his outback flying adventure he heard news of our Canadian lone-sailor friend Greg, via a ham radio operator in Kettering. Apparently Greg has reached New Caledonia so…he is now warm and we don’t have to worry about him and Ede, the cat, freezing in the ocean spray. Whether or not he is going to set foot in New Caledonia is another matter. He was planning on going straight to Vanuatu; he feared Les Français would be as bureaucratic as Les Australiens and that he would have to pay out lots of money and throw out all of his grains, flour, necessities.
NYC #4
This morning I have sore calf muscles. Yesterday, after walking a long way from our bus stop to the "Googleheim" (as it shall forever after be known) and after we could not take in any more breathtakingly wonderful works of art, we decided to just "pop across" Central Park to the John Lennon memorial mosaic in Strawberry Fields. Well, Central Park, as we all know, is just enormous and it was a very long, although thoroughly enjoyable walk. Then we walked a longish way back to the toy shop whose name I have now remembered (FAO Schwartz - 150 year old) then walked even further to a bus stop and caught a bus which stopped about 8 blocks (a long way) from our apartment. By this time, a storm was upon us, we had been walking for about eight hours, so we hailed a cab for the last lap home. I say this nonchalantly, but actually with a great deal of pride. Having observed New Yorkers at peak hour, especially in the rain, attempt the seemingly impossible task of hailing a cab, I have now scored three out of three successful (within minutes) cab-hails. Beginner's luck, probably. As always happens, the cab veered straight across in front of all other traffic to collect the fare, on this occasion nearly collecting a cyclist as well, resulting in a stream of invective (deserved) from said cyclist. Amazingly, in New York there are many, many cyclists, darting in and out of the chaotic and constantly streaming traffic. And, here in America, the Land of the Free, they do not wear safety helmets! No Nanny State for us, folks. God knows what the mortality rate for cyclists is.
As happens all too often, by the time we arrived back at the apartment we were far too tired to even contemplate going out to eat, and, on this occasion, to even go to our local Whole Foods store salad bar, so had an extremely healthy dinner (not) of fried cheese sandwiches and gin (me) and kahlua (Barbara) and watched yet more CSI episodes on cable TV. They are beginning to blur, I am not sure whether we were in New York, Miami or LA last night.
At the Googleheim (in addition to the fabulous collection of modern art) there was a lovely exhibition from a year long collaboration with a number of New York public schools, in which they explored questions of place and identity. It was so beautiful and so well curated. The building itself is gorgeous, with a huge spiral concourse, so one can just keep circling ever upward, with diversions into different gallery spaces as you go. It was beautiful.
Central Park is the ultimate in people watching. At one time, before New York was "cleaned up" and ceased being one of the murder capitals of the world, I imagined Central Park to be a deserted place, in which lone joggers were attacked and mugged. Well, in the day at least, it is absolutely teeming with people, and, despite the vastness of the park, the chance of anyone being mugged without about fifty witnesses, seems extremely remote. It is a tad unkempt by the Australian and European standards of manicured lawns, but it is truly beautiful. People were doing (almost) every conceivable thing that people can do in parks: sprinting, walking, jogging, pram-pushing, cycling, skating, skateboarding, travelling by horse drawn carriage and by rickshaw. Baseball, football, basketball, frisbee-throwing, picnicking and just sitting in one of the many park seats, all of which have little plaques on them in memorial of somebody or another's lost "loved ones" (I hate that overused term, but I guess they must have been loved in order for someone to fork out the dollars to buy the plaque).
There was nearly a tragedy in Central Park - my red Pashmina, bought by Abi in Hong Kong those many years ago, and which has now accompanied me on many trips to many places, was left in a bag (along with other things purchased at the Googleheim shop) on a park bench. When I realised what had happened we ran back to the bench (Barbara gamely running ahead, despite very sore knee) and miraculously we found the bag where it had fallen under a seat. It would not have lasted two seconds if it had been visible. I was so relieved, that Pashmina is my travel talisman.
Before I left home I downloaded all the photos on my camera onto my computer and fully charged the battery and, foolishly, told myself that I did not need to bring my camera battery charger in order to save luggage space. Foolish me indeed, of course the camera battery now needs recharging and I will have to try to find an appropriate shop to buy another charger. This is easily said, but it has been our experience that, despite the millions of shops in New York, it is extremely difficult to find ones that sell the things you really need. On the first night in our wee apartment we lamented the lack of what seemed like an essential - a bedside reading lamp. Well, thought I, I will just pick up a cheap one from the first supermarket I come to. One week and hours and hours and hours of trudging past shops, and I have not found one single place that sells anything like cheap bedlamps. Maybe we need a Walmart, but I haven't seen any of those, they are probably only way out in the burbs. So I shall just have to take photos on my mobile phone, which might, in fact be better, enabling me to surreptitiously take photos of some of the more bizarre people one sees in the streets here.
I now know the difference between panhandlers and beggars. Panhandlers are those who just stay in one spot and ask for money, and beggars are those who move around and ask for money. There are plenty of both, but more of the former. Many have props, one woman in Central Park, who was wearing mad crocheted over-the-top hippy clothes, had a beautiful cat, and was charging $5 for people to photograph her with her cat. Barbara has photographed many, many dogs in New York, but she now has a photo of a cat, too. I have mentioned before that there are many, many fashion accessory type dogs here. Yesterday we spent some happy hours wandering around 5th Avenue Upper East Side where the super, super, super rich have their apartments. This is the land of the dog-walker, where people are paid to walk the dogs who live in squillion dollar apartments. Just like in the movies, there are people walking six or more dogs at a time - how their leads don't get tangled, I don't know. And I bet it’s the maids who have to take care of the dogs' ablutions. There are many black and Latino maids walking white babies in prams (the prams themselves are design marvels) and we watched one family arrive from an excursion, their driver helped them out of the car and not one, but two, liveried doormen rushed to help them carry their purchases from the car, bowing and scraping the whole time. A little further on a whole street was blocked off to traffic, and there were many people milling around, so we went to check it out. It was actually the end of the school day, and the street was full (mainly of maids and nannies) picking up the precious children of the super-rich. "Huh", said Barbara; "I bet they don't block off the streets for the public school children". And they don't.
This morning I have sore calf muscles. Yesterday, after walking a long way from our bus stop to the "Googleheim" (as it shall forever after be known) and after we could not take in any more breathtakingly wonderful works of art, we decided to just "pop across" Central Park to the John Lennon memorial mosaic in Strawberry Fields. Well, Central Park, as we all know, is just enormous and it was a very long, although thoroughly enjoyable walk. Then we walked a longish way back to the toy shop whose name I have now remembered (FAO Schwartz - 150 year old) then walked even further to a bus stop and caught a bus which stopped about 8 blocks (a long way) from our apartment. By this time, a storm was upon us, we had been walking for about eight hours, so we hailed a cab for the last lap home. I say this nonchalantly, but actually with a great deal of pride. Having observed New Yorkers at peak hour, especially in the rain, attempt the seemingly impossible task of hailing a cab, I have now scored three out of three successful (within minutes) cab-hails. Beginner's luck, probably. As always happens, the cab veered straight across in front of all other traffic to collect the fare, on this occasion nearly collecting a cyclist as well, resulting in a stream of invective (deserved) from said cyclist. Amazingly, in New York there are many, many cyclists, darting in and out of the chaotic and constantly streaming traffic. And, here in America, the Land of the Free, they do not wear safety helmets! No Nanny State for us, folks. God knows what the mortality rate for cyclists is.
As happens all too often, by the time we arrived back at the apartment we were far too tired to even contemplate going out to eat, and, on this occasion, to even go to our local Whole Foods store salad bar, so had an extremely healthy dinner (not) of fried cheese sandwiches and gin (me) and kahlua (Barbara) and watched yet more CSI episodes on cable TV. They are beginning to blur, I am not sure whether we were in New York, Miami or LA last night.
At the Googleheim (in addition to the fabulous collection of modern art) there was a lovely exhibition from a year long collaboration with a number of New York public schools, in which they explored questions of place and identity. It was so beautiful and so well curated. The building itself is gorgeous, with a huge spiral concourse, so one can just keep circling ever upward, with diversions into different gallery spaces as you go. It was beautiful.
Central Park is the ultimate in people watching. At one time, before New York was "cleaned up" and ceased being one of the murder capitals of the world, I imagined Central Park to be a deserted place, in which lone joggers were attacked and mugged. Well, in the day at least, it is absolutely teeming with people, and, despite the vastness of the park, the chance of anyone being mugged without about fifty witnesses, seems extremely remote. It is a tad unkempt by the Australian and European standards of manicured lawns, but it is truly beautiful. People were doing (almost) every conceivable thing that people can do in parks: sprinting, walking, jogging, pram-pushing, cycling, skating, skateboarding, travelling by horse drawn carriage and by rickshaw. Baseball, football, basketball, frisbee-throwing, picnicking and just sitting in one of the many park seats, all of which have little plaques on them in memorial of somebody or another's lost "loved ones" (I hate that overused term, but I guess they must have been loved in order for someone to fork out the dollars to buy the plaque).
There was nearly a tragedy in Central Park - my red Pashmina, bought by Abi in Hong Kong those many years ago, and which has now accompanied me on many trips to many places, was left in a bag (along with other things purchased at the Googleheim shop) on a park bench. When I realised what had happened we ran back to the bench (Barbara gamely running ahead, despite very sore knee) and miraculously we found the bag where it had fallen under a seat. It would not have lasted two seconds if it had been visible. I was so relieved, that Pashmina is my travel talisman.
Before I left home I downloaded all the photos on my camera onto my computer and fully charged the battery and, foolishly, told myself that I did not need to bring my camera battery charger in order to save luggage space. Foolish me indeed, of course the camera battery now needs recharging and I will have to try to find an appropriate shop to buy another charger. This is easily said, but it has been our experience that, despite the millions of shops in New York, it is extremely difficult to find ones that sell the things you really need. On the first night in our wee apartment we lamented the lack of what seemed like an essential - a bedside reading lamp. Well, thought I, I will just pick up a cheap one from the first supermarket I come to. One week and hours and hours and hours of trudging past shops, and I have not found one single place that sells anything like cheap bedlamps. Maybe we need a Walmart, but I haven't seen any of those, they are probably only way out in the burbs. So I shall just have to take photos on my mobile phone, which might, in fact be better, enabling me to surreptitiously take photos of some of the more bizarre people one sees in the streets here.
I now know the difference between panhandlers and beggars. Panhandlers are those who just stay in one spot and ask for money, and beggars are those who move around and ask for money. There are plenty of both, but more of the former. Many have props, one woman in Central Park, who was wearing mad crocheted over-the-top hippy clothes, had a beautiful cat, and was charging $5 for people to photograph her with her cat. Barbara has photographed many, many dogs in New York, but she now has a photo of a cat, too. I have mentioned before that there are many, many fashion accessory type dogs here. Yesterday we spent some happy hours wandering around 5th Avenue Upper East Side where the super, super, super rich have their apartments. This is the land of the dog-walker, where people are paid to walk the dogs who live in squillion dollar apartments. Just like in the movies, there are people walking six or more dogs at a time - how their leads don't get tangled, I don't know. And I bet it’s the maids who have to take care of the dogs' ablutions. There are many black and Latino maids walking white babies in prams (the prams themselves are design marvels) and we watched one family arrive from an excursion, their driver helped them out of the car and not one, but two, liveried doormen rushed to help them carry their purchases from the car, bowing and scraping the whole time. A little further on a whole street was blocked off to traffic, and there were many people milling around, so we went to check it out. It was actually the end of the school day, and the street was full (mainly of maids and nannies) picking up the precious children of the super-rich. "Huh", said Barbara; "I bet they don't block off the streets for the public school children". And they don't.
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