mexico, ny

i caught a good ole greyhound bus north from new york city to visit my mum's cousins Hank and Ida (i think that makes them my second cousins?). They live in a place called Mexico, in the middle of New York State right near Lake Ontario and the Canadian border, took about 5 hours on the bus from NYC.



this guy was on the bus too - his tracksuit was priceless, looked like a giant cream-coloured amoeba or something



hank and ida live in a gorgeous log cabin in the middle of the woods, its so lovely and serene, couldn't get much more removed from the city!





here's hank and ida! (sorry guys its a bit blurry)



and the loungeroom





almost all the leaves had dropped from the trees, the landscape was really quite beautiful. hank and ida said it was a lot better in spring, but i thought it was still pretty great.





it had been raining pretty solidly. the ground was soggy and waterproof boots were a must to walk around (luckily ida had some spares that i could borrow)

this is a 360 view standing out near the big shed, which doubles as an aircraft hangar - yes i do mean aircraft hanger - hank and ida have a little 2-seater plane that they fly around in, so cool! unfortunately the weather wasn't good enough to go for a ride when i visited, save that for next time!



ida baked us the yummiest apple pie ever! we had it for lunch with cream and icecream, soooo good



not a bad backyard for a cat...





this is hank and ida's workshop - where they run their business making electrical circuit boards, mainly for theatre applications. they did a huge board for a casino in las vegas, it controls the movement of a platform for dancing girls!



just can't get enough of that photo stitch program - here's a vertical one - ooo clever...



and it even snowed - albeit a tiny bit - on the last day of my visit



was so lovely to visit hank and ida and see where they live, have to say a huge thanks to them for putting me up, driving me around and feeding me!! they were most generous to me and it was lovely to meet them again... hope to go and stay another time for a bit longer.

x

new york: part 3

i've always wanted to see the Guggenheim museum, seen lots of pictures and its such an amazing building. so i was pretty - shall we say - unhappy when i arrived and it looked like this:



excellent. i know it needs to be restored but did they have to do it right when i wanted to visit?! still, the interior is also amazing. they had an exhibition on by zaha hadid, which was ok, but i'd rather see the building with nothing in it.



alison told me about this place that andy warhol used to love called serendipity 3, he had his own table there and used to pay his bill with drawings. they're famous for their frozen hot chocolate - strange concept, but i assure you its really really really yummy. like really.



also went to trump tower, just to say hi to the 'ole don.



unfortunately he wasn't in that day. but he left a couple of pictures of him and the wife around just in case they had visitors.



later went on a sunset cruise of the harbour



this is john, our cruise tour guide. he's a native new yorker, studied to be an actor and ended up running cruises. he was lovely, but seemed a little bored.



also went past some lady holding a torch



and last but not least, went up to the viewing deck the empire state building. not a bad view of the city...



so there you go, i feel like i only just touched the surface of new york. saw great stuff, ate great things, met nice people - what more can you ask for!

x

new york: part 2

there are good things and bad things about staying in hostels.

the bad things are that you have to sleep in a room with millions of other people, with no space, in bunk beds, with acrylic blankets and often pretty festy bathrooms. but the good things are that they are (usually) really cheap, often in great locations, and you meet great people such as these...



that's paul, tim and pete, 3 lovely english boys who'd travelled to New York for their friends' wedding. but not just them - the bride, groom and everyone else all travelled from from england, crazy! sounded like they all had a brilliant time.



and that's carly, kellie and paul again - just after he came back from the wedding held at the very swanky rainbow room. carly and kellie were visiting for a few days from florida, kellie has plans to move to ny permanently in a while.

i caught the train along the Hudson river to visit the Dia Gallery at Beacon, its an old biscuit factory converted into a vast gallery space, very serrrious modernist work, absolutely amazing exhibition space. the train ride was great too, beautiful autumn colours



i love train stations in general, but this one relay takes the cake - Grand Central Station - its just breathtaking.



as was the Chrystler building...



had dinner at the famous Katz's Deli, a brilliant Jewish deli/cafe opened in 1888 that serves the best pastrami and pickles around.



here was my corned beef sandwich - was huge - this is only half of it! brett, the pickles are for you haha...!



after your sandwich you can "send a salami to your boy in the army" - this is for real! you can actually get them to send a whole salami to your son/husband/whatever serving in the forces wherever in the world



next day i spent with Martin, lovely dutch guy also staying at the hostel. we walked up through central park and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.



here's Martin in a very familiar pose!



the Met has an absolutely amazing Egyptian collection, so fasctinating and really well displayed.



the Met building also gives a great view over central park to the Manhattan skyline



never get sick of the squirrels, even though they're everywhere! so incredibly cute - here's us trying to coax one close enough for a photo...



then we caught the subway down to lower manhattan island and to the financial district and wall street. this is the NY stock exchange. again, not shy of displaying the flag



this is ground zero, site of the former World Trade Centre towers. its really spooky down there, eerie. there's still just a big hole in the ground, no-one can decide to do with it i think. we went to the memorial exhibition place, which was very moving. it had artifacts and all sorts of things recovered from the site, lots of stories from those involved, films and stuff - but i did wish that the exhibition wasn't so emotive, and that it was left to speak for itself.



at sunset we walked over the Brooklyn bridge and back again, great views back to the lower manhattan skyscrapers...





tbc...

new york: part 1

Ok strap yourselves in ladies and gentlemen, this is gonna be a big one, just can't seem to edit this big fat city down!

The first couple of nights in New York I stayed in Brooklyn, one of the 5 boroughs just over the East River from Manhattan. In the past Brooklyn was pretty much a place to be avoided, so I understand, but now its becoming gentrified.

I was in Greenpoint, staying at the YMCA. Breakfast was provided by a diner just down the street. If you imagine what a diner in Brooklyn at breakfast on a Saturday would be like, this is it. Big eggs, bad coffee, huge hair, women yelling at each other in the broadest Brooklyn accents… it was brilliant! Ordering at a place like this is certainly an art to be mastered. The whole experience was a little confusing, but fascinating. This was my waitress…



And across the road, John C. Deere's handy law van should someone decide to sue someone else during breakfast…



Corner Manhattan and Nassau Sts, Brooklyn…



My first NY dinner, a slice of pepperoni pizza



Moved over to Manhattan after a few days, this was the view when I first emerged from the subway…yikes!



i love the snack carts that are everywhere



here's the hot dog i had in Times Square, not really that remarkable, but authentic



next stop, Museum of Modern Art





That place is seriously huge, and has an amazing (perhaps greedy) collection, all the big guns are there. The museum building is very new, absolutely immaculate white walls, each gallery is named after its private benefactor (all private money, very little public – has interesting implications I think).

This work by Arthur Young is a helicopter suspended about half way up in the gallery



There are lots of windows through MoMA so you get great views of the surrounding buildings



not a bad apartment to have i'd say



Just wandering the streets of New York is enough to keep you entertained for hours… this is the Hershey’s shop in midtown.



Amercans seem to be mad for chocolate/peanut flavoured things – and for those who really just can’t get enough, chocolate-peanut flavoured lip balm...



Classic NY street view, complete with crazy speeding cabs



tumbled across the Rockerfeller Centre one night, where they set up a skating rink over the winter. They also don’t mind a bit of the American flag





They have just installed this work by Anish Kapoor, called the Sky Mirror. Its a massive concave stainless steel mirror, leaning back towards one side so it reflects the sky and tall buildings on one side, and the street scape on the other. (10 points if you can you spot me...)



tbc...