New York City

We leave New York City today (friday) but we have had the chance to go and visit New York City over the last few days. We have both been here before so we had a few things we wanted to have a look at and tended to concentrate our efforts on those. By the end of the three days though we both had difficulty walking any further.

The first day was cut a bit short as we had dinner with the Rossbach's that night (we still ran late!). Most of it was sent around Times Square. Yes, there are enough shops and sights to keep you busy for the whole day. We did go to the biggest Build-a-Bear shop in the world on 5th Ave though and Sam was able to cash in her birthday present before departure. Basically at Build-a-Bear you get to choose what sort of bear you want, stuff him/her, cloth him/her, name him/her etc. It's done very well and the 5-10 year olds have a great time and get very excited (so do the 28 year olds).






















Day two was spent at the Museum of Modern Art and the Frick Collection. MoMA was very good but its architectural section was a bit disappointing (read almost non-existent). Here was a Richards Sierra exhibition on which was great. Interestingly you can take photos at MoMA. It's a shame no-one told us that before standing in the que for 30minutes to check our bag. The Frick was good. It's pretty impressive for what was a private collection. Day two was wrapped up by wandering past Yoko Ono's place and down to Foster's new building just south of Central Park.


Day three was spent wandering again but this time through Greenwich Village, SoHo, China Town and the Seaport area on the lower east side. These areas are a bit smaller in scale and it's almost easy to forget that you're in one of the biggest cities in the world. One weird thing that happened was that we saw the same people twice in one day. We saw them in SoHo at around 12:00 and again at about 4:30 a few miles away on 5th Ave. Considering that there must be millions of people in this city at any one point in time, the chances of seeing the same people twice EVER is pretty slim. Perhaps we're being followed?





















So, that's all from us in the USA. Our next update will be from London. We've both got interviews there and should have plenty of news to report after our week there. On the 18th we start a whistle stop tour of Paris, Rome and Barcelona over two weeks.

A few facts an figure from our two month USA tour:
We drove 7600 miles (approx 12,000 kilometres)
We stayed in 17 different places.

M+S

















Architectural highlight (and total museum/gallery visits):
MoMA's 40yrs of Richard Sierra exhibition. The rest of MoMA was a bit disappointing. Total museum and gallery visits = 5 (including the Frick collection on 5th Ave)

Shopping highlight (and total black strappy shoe purchases):
Build a Bear!
Total number of black strappy shoe purchases = 2

Lessons learnt:
Bras are optional in New York City.

Fear Factor:
2/10 people, people, people, people, people........

Funniest moment:
You know how when you're at a party and the music stops and everyone goes quiet except you and YOU SOUND LIKE YOU'RE YELLING? Well, we're in Foot Locker (a sports shoe shop) and we've noticed that all of the staff are African Americans. We figure that they probably choose the music because it's all sung by fellow African Americans and they are both singing and dancing to it (and having a lot of fun). Anyway, so we're talking about this as a song is coming to an end and Sam says "Yeah, I reckon I could work here all day with all these BLACK DUDES!" Hasty retreat.

Total number of Thai meals so far:
Zero still but we did find a restaurant just down the road!