New York, New York (May 2007)

It is kind of hard to believe, but Ev and I had our first trip ever to New York recently. I had a work retreat there for 2 days so we thought it would be good to spend the weekend there as well to see some sights. We had an amazing time in NY and really loved the city (who doesn't!). Can't wait to get back there....


Ending up somewhere towards Long Island...




Our first experience of NY was, um...ending up somewhere on the way to Long Island. Not exactly the typical tourist destination, we know. How did this happen? Well, it s a long story but Ev actually flew into NY the evening before me in order to meet up with our friends, Anna and Marcus, who work for Lufthansa and were arriving in NY that evening from Frankfurt. As our friends were only in NY for less than 24 hours (before they had to fly back to Germany), Ev decided to get to NY a bit earlier than me and stay the night with Anna & Marcus in their crew hotel (as Anna & Marcus are married, they only use one of their 2 hotel rooms when they fly together so it was perfect for Ev and Mia to take the other room for free!). Things were all planned. Ev and Mia would get into JFK around 7.30 pm (from LAX) and Anna/Marcus were arriving from Germany to JFK around 7.30 pm. They would meet at the crew hotel in Times Square, check-in - probably around 9:00 pm, and go to dinner together and catch-up - what a great way to spend Ev and Mia's first night in NY! Well things didn't go exactly to plan for any of them - Ev's flight from LA got delayed and they were stuck on the tarmac for over 3 hours. Ev and Mia eventually got in JFK at 10.30 pm and got a shuttle bus to Times Square at midnight.



But Anna and Marcus weren't there. Their plane also got delayed. So with Ev and Mia sitting at some diner in some back alleys around Times Square to have dinner at after midnight NY time with no hotel to go to and with no word from our friends, she was getting a bit concerned. That's when I was getting calls from her (LA is 3 hours behind) to my surprise. She had actually inquired about some hotels in the area but all of them were booked out. Ev just kept thinking that they would contact her any minute now so she kept waiting...let me say that the last I heard from Ev was at around 2am NY time and she had just got word from our friend Anna that they had finally landed and were on their way to a new crew hotel out towards Long Island as they had switched the crew hotel on them at the last minute. So Ev took the cab ride ($100) to their new crew hotel from Times Square and eventually went to bed around 4 am. I took the red-eye flight that night so went to meet them at their hotel first thing in the morning (actually, I watched Ev and Mia sleep until around 11am the first morning after arriving at around 8.00 am (I had work to do anyway so it wasn't too bad). So that is how we ended up spending our first day in some hotel in the middle of nothing on the way to Long Island...


Our first morning in NY

Our mates - Anna & Marcus...



First Breakfast/Brunch in NY

After getting off an overnight flight and working for 3.5 hours, I thought I needed a drink...somehow, the others wanted to find a place which had eggs...we later got some brekky and Starbucks....





Bye Bye Mates (& Rockville Centre)




Getting out of the dump of an area we were at to downtown...it was a bit of a change having our first night experience and moving to our next hotel where we would spend the rest of our stay - Ritz Carlton, Battery Park right at the end of the financial district in NY city and where you get the Staten Island ferry with view of the Statute of Liberty across the harbour.












Axel and Les Enfants Terribles




My first night was a bit better than Ev's. We ended up having dinner with Axel, an old friend who I met in 2000 when he was a summer associate with a former law firm I worked for in Sydney. He worked for the NY office but got to spend the summer in Sydney. I hadn't seen Axel since then but had a great time at one of his favorite dining abodes - Les Enfants Terribles, a great French African restaurant/bar on the fringes of Chinatown. This was a place with fantastic ambiance, crowded, noisy, unpretentious and full of character. The food was great, the company superb...




Reunion to remember



We also managed to meet up with my friend Margaret and her husband, David, and David's sister, Kelli. Margaret and David were kind enough to invite us over to their home for dinner one night so it was great to have a home cooked meal in our short stay in NY (although they did get take-out though...but just as yummy as a home cooked meal). So the background to this reunion is that I hadn't seen Margaret since we met in 1994 on a train from Lisbon to Madrid where we hung out in Madrid for the day before Margaret couldn't stand the sight of me anymore (just joking - I had to leave for some other city to meet some other friends...yes, yes, we all can get very important back in those backpacking days!). Kinda funny how you get the feeling that you will meet up with certain people some day...well, 13 years later, I manage to get my arse to NY for the first time and we managed to meet up.

So we arrive by cab to Margaret's place about 3 blocks south of Canal Street, I knock on the door, its kind of getting dark and starts drizzling, Margaret opens the door and we do our long lost reunion hug and kiss on the cheek business, I turn to introduce Ev and Mia and...see Mia having a puke on Margaret's front door steps and Ev holding Mia's head up and telling Mia to lean forward so she doesn't puke all over herself! So the 'great to see ya again' quickly became 'sorry, please give us a moment...you ok Mia....". Poor Mia, she wasn't feeling herself that evening - we blame it on some dodgy watermelon we bought at some markets earlier that day that Mia scoffed down - and our little girl proceeded to sleep on the couch all through dinner (she did wake up towards the end of the night to play with Margaret and David's 3 cats so she did get something out of the evening). Not only that, not expecting Mia to be out like a zombie all through dinner, we sort of forgot to put a nappy on her so Mia ended up wetting Margaret's couch. So, what do you do when you haven't seen someone in 13 years? Bring your new kid around to their place and puke on their front door and pee on their couch...yes, memorable reunion. Well, Margaret, David and Kelli were all very good about the whole experience, and despite this little setback, we all managed to have a wonderful night (or at least we did and hope they did as well) and really appreciated their fine company...we just hope we will get another invite one day....

NY Streets, NY/ subway and MOMA and Chelsea

While I was stuck in all day work seminars, Ev and Mia cruised the streets of NY, MOMA, Chelsea art galleries...she even stopped off at some interesting hotels that she liked the look of...











MOMA...




Hot Chocolate...




Chelsea

Hotel Chelsea..






Chelsea Art gallery area..








Mia's favorite book at the hotel...she couldn't put it down...




Times Square...

They say you are a New Yorker when you no longer look up...







SOHO and Nolita



Ended up getting a new jacket from this guy selling his designer jackets at the markets ...he is a really nice guy originally from Jamaica who was kind enough to do some alterations and send the jacket to LA...










The Lion King...

Really fantastic show, Mia absolutely loved it and so did we. Since then, Mia has had her face painted three times at school as Simba the lion, she runs around and growls at everyone!