We decided to leave New York for an overnight trip to Washington, packing all we needed into a tiny backpack.  The four hour bus ride from New York became five hours after the bus spent an hour exiting Manhattan.   Twenty minutes of that the bus was stuck in the middle of a busy intersection blocking traffic in nearly all directions.  Ah – New York.

Perhaps there is still a little of Derby in us because we both appreciated leaving the busy city for a few days to visit a much smaller town of Washington with only 500,000 people.  We slept fitfully on the bus trip, sprawled across our chairs and interrupted only by the rantings of an African American who spent the entire bus trip yelling into his phone and his girlfriend who repetitively popped her gum.

The weather in Washington was entirely balmy – mid 20s and sunny.  We walked past a bike hire stall and I decided on a whim that we should hire bikes to tour the monuments.  Cassy did not look too impressed at the late notice and the lack of ability to change into cycle friendly attire.  Soon enough we were pedalling between monuments and stripping off layers of clothing as the warm weather began to bite.

The National Mall is impressive; so many familiar buildings and monuments frame this 4 kilometre long public space.   Within minutes of hiring bikes we had seen Washington Monument and the White House.  Unfortunately there was no invitation from Obama for a cup of tea.

We were disappointed to find that the reflecting pool was under repair, the entire length of the pool was shrouded in fencing and cloth.  The empty concrete pool was reflecting nothing, except maybe the pallid state of American politics!

We passed the World War II Monument and paused momentarily to remember my grandma who passed away during the week.   Her funeral was later that evening, our time, and the memorial seemed a fitting place to remember her and my late grandfather who served with the air force during the Second World War.  Unfortunately we could not lay flowers – undoubtedly due to the huge numbers of people who visit the memorial district each day. 

I was amazed by the “busyness” of the National Mall.   There were crowds everywhere.  High School cheerleading squads and dance teams practiced on the grass.  Tour buses lined the streets.  Swarms of Segways on guided tours weaved in and out of the crowds of pedestrians.  I wonder whether the surge of nationalism since 2001 has meant more US tourists visit their nation’s capital.   Certainly, the Americans seemed to vastly outnumber the international tourists.

We visited the Lincoln Memorial and then headed back down the mall to the Congress at the other end.  It was then time to dump our bikes , check into our hotel and research a dinner venue.  Cassy did well finding Legal Seafood Restaurant and we had an awesome meal and lots of great wine.  We walked out of the restaurant to find the air was still warm and that Friday night had filled the streets with a crowd of families, revellers and people of all ages enjoying downtown DC.

There are so many museums on offer in Washington, but we decided against another gallery filled day.  Too many museums in New York made us tired of history and art.  Instead, the lawyers in us decided we should wander up to the Supreme Court by way of the Sculpture Garden.  By then it was lunch time and we smashed down some Asian salads before finishing our time in Washington drinking coffees at a lunch bar.

On the bus trip back we saw close up the megalopolis that is north eastern USA.  I had seen at night the carpet of lights on the ground for the last hour of our flight into New York.  The bus drove past mile upon mile of suburbs, usually colour coordinated housing, interspersed with malls, towns and cities and criss-crossed by massive concrete highways.  Here the car is king and massive tracts of land have been devastated to create auto dependant suburban environments.

 

New York, New York…is so overwhelming in its colour, vibrancy and frenetic paced and theatrical excitement; I’ll need to revert to list format to cover the best bits.

Doing our washing at the local Laundromat (well overdue)

This was much as you’d expect, except we were so very happy to finally have clean clothes (as both of us have pretty much been wearing the same outfit every single day due to poor packing).

Museum of the City of New York

This was much better than I expected, even though large chunks of the museum were closed for renovations. It was actually a nice change to peruse a museum that was small enough to be easily digestible – and not be overwhelmed by the vastness of it all. The highlight was a beautiful short media presentation on the history of NYC, with informative narrative, stunning photographs and painted images shown on a three screen projector. If I was a local I would have cried with the joy of being part of such a monumental city. It’s easy to understand why New Yorkers identify so strongly as New Yorkers, and why they feel such pride in their diverse, sprawling city. The slide show covered the history of the city from its humble origins as a fur trading post for Dutch entrepreneurs to its present status as a megalopolis. Great show, and in typical NY style an elderly lady in the audience discovered some Welsh tourists sitting next to us and theatrically introduced them to the whole group. We lay low to remain anonymous…

The other highlight was an exhibition of the history of Harlem’s famed Apollo theatre. The theatre is where many blues, jazz and comedy stars were made (or sent packing back to their day jobs). The exhibition included photographs, stage notes, album covers, costumes and other paraphernalia from the beginnings of the theatre in the 1920s to the present day – it was a fantastic exhibition covering diverse performers from Michael Jackson to the Supremes, to Elvis Costello and some modern day rappers I am not cool enough to remember the names of.  

CHIGAGO, Broadway (Ambassador Theatre)

I suppose this is the highlight of my life so far, really. I managed to book really good seats for us ages ago for a Tuesday date night surprise for JB – knowing he liked the musical after we watched the movie – and, coincidentally, Chicago is my favourite musical of all time, so that worked out well. 

I can’t really describe this well enough to do it justice, but I was so excited I cried throughout the first few scenes. Only vain worries about smearing my liquid eyeliner helped me contain myself. Roxy Hart was played by a tiny little brunette, who  was the cutest little thing imaginable – feisty and witty and unbearably hilarious. Valma Kelly was played by a tall, pale, athletic redhead with suitable fire and aplomb. The stage show included many songs and scenes not in the movie version, as well as far more humourand bawdiness. A lovely touch was some interactions with the audience (Mama – whose cans could rival Queen Latifa’s), as well as the orchestra being set right in the middle of the stage – the actors moved through a central passage of the orchestra pit to enter, exit the stage and often interacted with the players too. All my favourite numbers  were infinitely better on stage than on screen. I don’t think I will need to see another stage production of Chicago again, as this one nailed it. Jamie said he liked it too! Winner.

Line of the show, Valma Kelly – after being usurped by Roxy Hart: “Well, ok. I’ll go then. But I won’t go quietly . Gimme my exit music!” as she climbed aloft 4 beefy guys and waved huge feather wings to orchestral fanfare, while exiting stage right.

The night was made even better by us sandwiching the show between glasses of wine at a tiny Italian restaurant/piano bar across the street. The blind piano player was a bit of a character and played all the classics – as well as coming to introduce himself to us and then dedicating ‘You are so beautiful” to us (well, to Jamie I think). He asked us for requests but since he’d already covered all my favourites I just asked for any Billy Joel, and so we sang along to Piano Man before finishing our wine and making our way home on the subway. Grand evening.

MOMA

The museum of modern art was superb, of course – but I think we were both overwhelmed at this point by the hugeness of everything, because we each only remember a few distinct paintings –Van Gogh stuck with me (I kept wandering back to stand in front of Starry Night, all starry eyed) and we both enjoyed an exhibition by women photographers. The Warhol was also awesome.

Dinner in Harlem, at Creole – with jazzzzzzzzzzzz

This dinner/evening was so good it deserved a special food review. Suffice to say here we had a fab night eating southern comfort foods and being regaled by local jazz personalities, while Ol’ Earl ‘Speedy’ Cadillac (I have no idea who he is yet – but he was utterly gorgeous and the singers gave a shout out to him) delicately ate his plate of fried chicken at the next table, gold-ringed pinky finger delicately lifted as he dined.

Day out in Brooklyn – vintage shopping in Williamsburg, and cheese in the park

I’d begged JB for ever I think to let me explore the vintage shops. He got some hot tips from little bro CB (thank you CB!) and I shopped to my heart’s content in gorgeous, laid back, bohemian student haunt Brooklyn.

Ladies – I can’t even begin to describe how f-ing cool the shopping was here (and you know I am quite partial to shopping on the odd occasion). Buffalo is a massive American chain of vintage stores where you can trade in and exchange your old clothes for new old clothes. The selection was phenomenal – and the prices almost made me lose my mind. I showed admirable self restraint, and after three hours shopping (while JB shopped, fretted, got a hair cut, fretted and waited) I had spent LESS than the price of a pair of good jeans in Perth and bought:

A new pair of low-top vans for strollin’

A pair of grey leather vintage Italian knee high boots for strutting (my other boots went to charity)

FCUK anorak/jacket – the Lumberjack also went to charity - free at last!

BCBG silk lounge/harem pants (dry clean only so they have to be sent home, sadly – prob not so good for cycling...)

Cute little pull on denim skinny leg pants

Crazy rainbow coloured mesh-top dress....and numerous silk blouses, silk skirt and three pairs of cute earrings.

It wasn’t ALL about me though and I helped JB get some cute narrow-toe Italian leather shoes and a funky sweater thing.

As if life could get any better – after that we found a cheese shop (thanks again CB) and picnicked in the local park on gorgonzola and brie with fresh bakery bread and Tuscan olives.

Best day ever.

Museum of Sex

Well, I thought this was pretty shitty in fact. I expected exhibits of erotic art through the ages (should have realised all the good art was in the four hundred billion other galleries around town...) and this was a very small and kind of tacky museum exploring sex in fil/media/entertainment. It was ok, just not brilliant, or even very good (and much of it closed for renovations too). Nothing stands out in my mind except that the coat check girl had a lovely dress on.

I guess really it was just too small to be good...

That’s it so far, ‘cause then we went to Washington.

Just to clarify - I am wearing an oversized, faded, brown beat-up Levi's corduroy jacket lined with hideous hard (yet squishy) polyester fleece in many of the pics JB is gratuitously posting NOT because I WANT to look like a 1990s lumberjack/trailer park resident - but because of course I didn't have any cold weather clothing and otherwise I may die. All the cheese pretzels and potato knishes in the world would not keep me warm enough in NY, and the jacket does the job perfectly. And JB has not let me shop...yet...

That is all.

(LD - if you're reading this - even though I just spoke ill of The Lumberjack - I am eternally grateful and it is the most useful thing I have ever had gifted to me after it cunningly sneaked home with you from the nightclubs of the Couv, thanks!)

 

So we have survived our first week in New York.  No caps in our arse.  No nights spent shivering at the end of the wrong line on the Subway.

We arrived in New York late on Tuesday night after a sleepless night and an exhausting day’s travel from Vancouver.  The first thing we did was to order in room service, which came direct to our hotel room door from a local Chinese restaurant at 11:30pm.  Such flavour. Such massive portions.  The meal kept us sated for a couple of days.   Which was necessary because we spent our first day in New York holed up in our hotel bunker recovering from travel trauma.  But our hotel room, at Country Inn and Suites just over the Queensboro Bridge in Queens, was a great bunker for us.

The next day we emerged and walked into Manhattan.  An exciting walk across the Queensboro Bridge and then we started walking downtown on First Avenue.  And of course, the first attraction we visited was ….. a cheese shop.  After that, the visit to the UN came as a little of a disappointment.  The informative tour, the overwhelming sense of importance and a little bit of awe was dwarfed by the smell of cheese wafting out of our backpack.

We continued to walk downtown, stopping only for a lunchtime pizza.  Eventually we found ourselves in downtown Manhattan and on a ferry to Staten Island.  We visited the Staten Island museum.  Take our advice – NEVER VISIT THE STATEN ISLAND MUSEUM.  The $3 entry fee was overpriced, and would have been better spent on cheese.  On returning to Manhattan we stumbled upon the famous raging bull on Beaver and Broadway and then fell into the subway for the ride home.  On returning home we calculated that we had walked about 16km that day.

This started a bad pattern of emerging from our hotel bunker for a day and night exploring New York and then spending a day in our hotel room recovering.  My Ra Ra Vee and a nasty cold that Cassy picked up on public transport somewhere kept us hotel bound the next day.

Saturday we picked up on the tourist fever.  We did a double on the museums, the Metropolitan Museum in the morning and the Guggenheim in the afternoon.  The Met is overwhelming and massive.  We wandered through taking in Degas,  di Chirico, Picasso, Dali, Rockwell, Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Japan …  Slightly tired and a little overwhelmed, having only seen about a quarter of the exhibits, we fell into the gift shop.   A purchase of Van Gogh fridge magnets made us realize that we had missed the impressionists and it was back into the museum to hunt out old one ear and his friends Manet, Monet and much much more.

The Guggenheim is an amazing Frank Lloyd Wright designed building with works of art from 1910-1918.  Kaminsky was an obvious favourite of the Guggenheims but Picasso featured heavily along with Simon’s old friend di Chirico.  After climbing the spiral we vowed never again to attempt two museums in one day.

We headed back to Queens and out to dinner at a local Thai recommended by an I-Phone app we had downloaded.  Armhan Thai was amazing.  We enjoyed three beers over dinner, and feeling like it was too early to turn in, we looked around for a bar.   We found Veronica’s, a small suburban bar filled with a mix of “middle American” men.  And our night ramped up a gear.  As soon as our Australianness was uncovered, and Cassy revealed her dancing technique, we became favourites of the bar.  Cassy received two marriage proposals whilst I lapped up travel hints from the locals.  We stumbled out of the bar sometime after 2am and played hide and seek on the way home.   Cassy won when she curled herself up in a ball amongst bags of trash down a driveway. 

Thus continued our habit of one day in Manhattan and one day in our room as we recovered from the big night out.   We just can’t cut it anymore as Saturday night party people.  Another lazy Sunday followed.

Monday was another day out.  After our 16km walk on our first day in Manhattan we had decided to catch the subway into “town” each day.  We have found the subway system fairly simple to navigate, thanks largely to the simply designed subway map.  It is world famous as the best designed subway map in the world, although the ease of its design is partly due to the rigid grid street pattern throughout Manhattan.  But I digress, and my nerdiness shows!

We took the Circle Line ferry around the bottom half of Manhattan Island, seeing the Brooklyn –Manhattan - Washington bridges, the Statue of Liberty and all the buildings and areas of town.  We lunched in Hell’s Kitchen at a local diner and then went to the American Museum of Natural History.  Another enormous museum which rivaled the Metropolitan Museum of Art for size and breadth of collection.  The highlight of this visit was standing near the entry of the evolution display and listening to the intergenerational invective as families debated the merits and otherwise of evolution.  Loudly.  Suffice to say that there was a distinct correlation between the loudness of the voice opposing evolution and the lack of interest in learning anything about evolution.  Ignorance is bliss.

We had enough time to hurry home and get changed for our first cultural night on the town.   We had tickets to Romeo and Juliet at the Metropolitan Opera.  It was my first opera and may well be my last.  Not because I didn’t enjoy the show – it was amazing!   We had tickets on the balcony with an awesome view of the stage, which was framed perfectly before us.  The opera was in French which allowed me to practice my translation skills, aided by the actual translation which scrolled before us on tiny screens set into the back of the row of seats in front of us.  But obviously it was the spectacle that impressed me most.   Stunningly designed and coordinated sets and costumes.  Amazing movement and voices.  And a gorgeous orchestral arrangement expertly conducted by Placido Domingo.  The reason that I may never return to the opera is that I doubt I will ever see an opera this good again.  Amongst many highlights, this stands out as a wonderful show and an amazing feeling to be with my beautiful lady at the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Cassy and I keep my nephews, Oscar and Hugo, updated on our adventures by writing stories for them.

So far we have written about six of our adventures (Bali, Gibb River, Sailing, Working, Kimberley and South Australia).   The Vancouver instalment is number 7 in the series.

Mike, Cassy and I spent a couple of days last weekend in Victoria on Vancouver Island.  (No Cassy, the eggs aren't in the Couv...).  This blog was meant to be posted last weekend but after writing the blog, it disappeared into the etherverse.
The trip to Victoria from Vancouver is laborious.  We caught a train to the train station then another train to the bus stop then a bus to the ferry terminal then the ferry to the bus stop and then a bus to Victoria.
At least we had plenty of time to stare out the window and consider the pine filled, lake spotted countryside reminiscent of many horror and summer vacation films.  The ferry ride was particularly scenic as the ferry wends its way between the picturesque Gulf Islands on the way to Vancouver Island.  Many artists and creative types live on the bays and hills of the Gulf Islands.

The town of Victoria, home to 300,000 people, is extremely picturesque.  The parliament building dominates the inner harbour area and is the finest government building I have seen.  Although we are visiting Washington next week. 
Downtown Victoria has retained most of its older buildings which are generally between two and four stories.  Most of the new buildings are at a similar scale.  This makes the downtown area seem very welcoming and open to the sky. Whether by accident or design the downtown is built to a human scale.  This meant we enjoyed most of our time in Victoria wandering around the downtown area.

Other highlights of Victoria included seeing John Lennon's personalised Yellow Submarine Rolls Royce, seeing the world's highest totem pole and the food.  We ate local dungeness and king crabs at the 2011 CrabFest at a lovely seafood restaurant called Pescatore.  Coming from Derby, which considers itself the crab centre of the universe, we were impressed with these local varieties.
Disppointments included the lookout at Beacon Hill Park (worst lookout ever) and the Undersea Gardens.  In a surprising first, Perth's Underwater World is actually better than an equivalent attraction in BC.  That record may not last long as we are soon to visit the NY Aquarium.
Visit Victoria if you get the chance.  After only a day there I got the feeling it would be the kind of town I would be happy to live in.  And not just because it seemed particularly bicycle friendly.
J

Cassy and I had tickets with Mike and his chums to see a minor league ice hockey game.  But Cassy was too cool (hungover) to leave the apartment and go to the game.

Just under 8000 people were at the stadium to watch the minor league game; the teams were restricted to players aged between 16 and 19.

I had never seen an ice hockey game before.  Watching the game is a study in sound and motion.  The sounds tell the story of the game; the scraping of ice as players come to a halt, the sound of the stick smashing the puck, the crash of helmets, bodies and sticks against the perspex barrier surrounding the rink, the ping of the puck striking the goalpost.   All of the players are constantly moving and it was tiring as a new spectator to make sense of what was going on.  Particularly in the first period when I didn't realise there was a weird offside rule!

The players smashed each other hard against the barriers and intermittently would remove their helmets and start punching on.  This is such a bizarre concept that is ingrained into the course of the game.  A fight between players is part of the entertainment.

The arena was typically North American so every marketing and commercial opportunity had been snapped up.  You could win a prize dropped in an envelope from the small blimps circling the stadium, get a haircut whilst watching the game or buy any number of snacks and services.

It was really interesting to watch a new sport at a packed arena. It's a pity the Giants lost their leading goalscorer to suspected concussion minutes after the puck was dropped and went on to lose 5 - 0.

Mike, Jamie and I spent the day walking around downtown Vancouver, getting our bearings and checking out the beautiful town. It was a brisk 6 degrees, but the walking and frequent food/hot drink breaks made it perfectly tolerable.

We headed out from Mike's pad on Keefer place, and made our way via central Vancouver to the Burrard Inlet. Vancouver central is on a penninsula, surrounded by water and views of snow capped mountains on all sides. It's stunning, and the mountains inspire awe whenever they sneak into view.

The city has some beautiful architecture, and a strong 'arty' feel with many installations and sculptures. It's a neat and clean city, and the traffic is orderly and gives way to pedestrians - which is nice after Derby traffic (sorry Derby, but it's true).

The convention centre (below) puts the Perth one slightly (vastly) to shame - it is a huge and well designed building with a rooftop garden (inaccessible, we found...) and contains 3 giant flying straw eggs. We liked the eggs.

We stopped for lunch at Templeton - an original refurbished 1950s diner. The menu was extensive and included healthy vego/vegan options, original diner food choices as well as the Canadian classic "poutine" - chips with gravy and cheese curds and tomato sauce. We gave that one a miss, and had fab salads instead. All was well except my sesame tuna looked suspiciously like chicken...and I ate it, and it was. 2 years of pescatorian-ism ruined in one FOWL swoop. Damn. We didn't have to pay for the tuna though... 

The pic below is Jamie and Mike wandering back through downtown Couv - I was a bit taken with the strange green colour of the roof behind them, although the cold overcast day washed the colour out a little.

The final pic is the boys playing in the mud with some large friends they found on our stroll.

So it has begun.  All the tedious counting down blogs are over and now the tedious (and jealousy inciting) blogs about how much fun we are having begin.  And let them begin!

About 24 hours of flying from Perth to LA with stopovers and customs checks.  At Sydney we bumped into one of Cassy's old musician friends.  We now have our names on the door at a gig in Vancouver.

In the airport transfer from LAX to our dodgy highway-side hotel in El Segundo we met a lovely lady from Washington and now have an invite to dinner with her family in DC.

Then we had dinner at a mexican restaurant across the road where we were shouted beer by the local mexicans. 

Damn I love travelling.  And Cassy is looking pretty cute tucked up in bed sleeping off the jetlag.

J