New York - greenery scenery

Today was all about Central Park.

A slow morning led into a slow stroll through Central Park. Central Park is so big (it's 4km long and nearly 1km wide) that you probably couldn't walk along all of the paths that cris-cross all over the park in a single day.

We started out at West 72nd Street...at the corner where the Dakota building is. The Dakota building is famous as the home of John Lennon and Yoko Ono and is the site where he was shot. Across the road in Central Park is Strawberry Fields - a 'quiet' place to sit and contemplate the world (a rare thing in New York)....and the 'Imagine' mosaic created after John Lennon's death.

 Wandering through the park from here you come across 'the lake' - where you can hire a rowboat, and the Bow Bridge, which is popular for weddings and in many movies.

 Also in many movies is the Bethesda Terrace and and Angel of the Waters fountain, both of which were constructed in 1860-1870.

Behind the Bethesda Terrace is the "Mall"which gave us a lovely shady walk towards downtown after lunch of New York hotdogs...our squirrel sightings definitely increased today, with Eloise catching up in the squirrel spotting challenge!

 We found the carousel - which I had promised the girls a ride on the vintage (built in 1908) merry-go-round since we had left our apartment. Needless to say there were very excited to find it.

 We also discovered ANOTHER playground - this one is definitely the biggest we have seen. There is certainly no lack of play areas for the kids which is nice in such a busy and fast-paced city. 

Shane had a visit to the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) today which he said was fantastic -Van Gogh's and Piccasso's a-plenty and I had a visit to Macy's department store....shoes and clothes a-plenty....

One last visit to the park for the day and Eloise wanted a turn under the fountain at the West 96 Street playground....

New York - creatures and features

Central Park Zoo...is not as big as I imagined. Perhaps I have watched too many movies but I always thought that there were more animals in the zoo (Madagascar has a lot of explaining to do!).

But it is still a nice little zoo. We took the subway downtown and walked along the horse and carriages waiting for customers. Eloise thought the horses were 'smelly' so not sure she will be harrassing us for a carriage ride anytime soon.

When we got to the zoo they had a '4D' Dora and Diego movie - which, (I am a little embarrassed to admit) was pretty great. By 4D it meant that when the movie (which was in 3D) showed a banana being peeled, the smell of bananas filled the theatre. Or when we were flying in a plane, the seat vibrated like being in a plane, and we got 'splashed' with water when we 'flew' through the rain....





















After the movie we went and saw the animals. First up was a penguin feeding...

 And then we watched the sea lions. I thought they were seals but I have learned...
"A sea lion has external earflaps, while seals have internal ears. Sea lions can pivot their hind flippers to walk on land, but seals cannot. Sea lions propel with their front flippers and steer with the back, but seals are opposite of this."

 We also saw polar bears, snow leopards and snow monkeys, along with a few other small creatures...including a few more squirrels (I am still winning the squirrel spotting competition but have lost count!)

There is a nice view of the city from the zoo

And speaking of nice views of the city....after the zoo we walked down 5th Avenue past all the designer shops including Tiffany's (which Shane was willing to go in and buy me something - but not sure the bank would approve!!) before we got to the Rockerfeller Centre.

We took the lift (which was amazingly fast) to the top and got a fabulous view of all of Manhattan.

This is 'downtown' with the Empire State Building in the background. The building at the back with the crane on top of it is one of the new towers at the World Trade Centre and you can 'just' see the Statue of Liberty at the top of my head (although very tiny - the statue, not my head!)

 

This is 'uptown' with Central Park dominating the scenery. We are staying in the "Upper West Side" which is about halfway along Central Park and on the left here. 

More playing in Central Park this afternoon before a thunderstorm but a dampener on things.

I feel like I have ticked off all of my 'must see' list - still with over 3 days to go - which should give me enough time for some shopping and more cupcakes!!!!!

New York - relief at last

Today is 10 degrees cooler than the last 10 days....hoorah!! It certainly made getting around (and being around) MUCH more comfortable.

It was all about the kids today. A play in Central Park in the morning followed by a walk down Broadway to the Manhattan Childrens Museum (while Shane went to the Guggenheim Art Gallery). What a fabulous place for kids! The girls had a fantastic time playing on all the exhibits and getting dirty with paints - they could have happily stayed for a week.

After lunch at a 'typical' burger joint, we stumbled upon one of those magical places that you can only dream about......a cupcake shop!!!! The array of different cupcakes was unbelievable and it was a touch decision which one to choose - but I couldn't go past the 'red velvet' cupcake.  The girls are normally happy to have anything with sprinkles on it so I knew they wouldn't be disappointed with whatever they got!

 

 I think we may become regulars!

An afternoon play in Central Park and the day is done....by all reports the weather is set to stay like this (cloudy and cooler at 25 degrees) for the next few days and I must admit I am thankful for that.

New York - new beginnings

Another steamy, hot day in the Big Apple.
I have realised that New York, in summer, with little kids...isn't the best time to be here. It is just SO hot (although the locals say that this is unusually hot for this time of year) and SO crowded!! When I come back to New York (and I say 'when' not 'if' because I know there will be so many things that I won't get to see) it will definitely NOT be in the middle of summer and middle of school holidays!
We took the kids to Central Park this morning for a turn in the playground - the girls fell in love with a tyre swing that spun around and around.....although with so much spinning and so much heat, poor Eloise's stomach didn't cope so well.
We have a 'squirrel spotting' competition in Central Park - I am ahead 3 to 0. They are cute little creatures.

There IS a squirrel running up the side of the tree.























Today we went to the 9/11 memorial site. We were VERY lucky that we had tickets for a time that obviously wasn't too busy (it's a christmas miracle!) so we got through the 4 security checkpoints really quickly!
The memorial itself is very beautiful. It is strange to think of these massive structures just collapsing. Walking in the streets surrounding the site it is impossible to imagine the terror and chaos that must have been so overwhelming at the time. The building works are going along at the buildings that will replace the world trade centre will be pretty impressive.

The two pools or waterfalls that are in the footprints of the twin towers are amazing. Just the size of each one is astounding but when you see the names of the 2,977 people killed (including those on the other flights that came down that day) it brings home what this is all about.

 The 9/11 museum is still not open yet but I can imagine it will make the whole experience even more memorable.

Moving on from there we stopped by Times Square. I don't think I have ever seen more people in one spot in my whole life! It is pretty amazing with the lights and the colours and action - but not the best place to be with two tired and hungry kids. Glad I saw it though.

I think the weather is supposed to cool down tomorrow which will be good - we might try and go to the Central Park zoo.
The girls have been FANTASTIC so far this trip - Neve has walked miles without much complaint - although she has not stopped talking since we left Newcastle - it is getting beyond ridiculous! Eloise is getting into the travelling groove and is coping really well with the heat and crowds. I am very proud of both of them!

New York - our lady Liberty

Today was a busy day.
We took our first 'subway' ride - which was an adventure all in itself. I can imagine that in the midst of winter the subway would almost be a warm 'escape' from the snow and cold outside - but when it is 30+ degrees and the subway is another 5 or 6 degrees warmer - the feeling of actually being 'roasted' inside a metal tube under the ground isn't that pleasant.

But it gets you downtown and around town really quickly and efficiently so there will be no more complaints (apart from how crowded the subway is - I thought London and Japan trains were busy but they are nothing compared to New York. Although the photo below was taken right at the end of the line when most people had gotten off.

Anyway - we made it downtown and got on the Staten Island ferry which took us past the Statue of Liberty and gave us a great view back to the business district of New York.

 The Statue of Liberty is beautiful - smaller than I imagined but I am sure if you get up close (which we didn't do - apparently the line to get on the island that the statue is on is several hours long) it would be much bigger....

The city actually doesn't look that big from this angle - but this is really only the 'tip' of New York...it goes back from here for miles! The building that you can see being constructed in the middle of the shot (with the cranes on top of it) is one of the new 'twin towers' that are being constructed the other ones were destroyed on September 11, 2001. We will visit the memorial site for this tomorrow.

Neve (of course) made friends with a local on the ferry and we learnt a lot about New York and taught her and her Mum a lot about Australia.

After some lunch, we walked uptown (New York has 'downtown' which is to the south and 'uptown' which is north) and saw Wall St and the New York Stock Exchange. This was the first time I had seen people actually dressed in suits and business clothes - even in New York the dress is far more casual than I thought it would be. You can't actually go in the stock exchange - it is all roped off - not sure if this is normal or whether there was something happening.

Catching another subway train uptown we found the Plaza Hotel (where "Eloise" the book/movie/story takes place). The girls were VERY excited about this (particularly Eloise) and we HAD to go inside and take a look. It was VERY fancy but Eloise found a familiar face on the wall.

Across the road from the Plaza is the famous FAO Schwarz toy store. There were quite a few dilemmas with the girls not being able to decide what doll they liked best....eventually they chose one each....although we did spy a doll with a freakishly familiar face on the box.....

Who does this look like????????

Hello year 1. This is Neve. I am missing you all very much. I hope you are enjoying this blog. We will try and post updates every day. Please leave a comment if you can.
Thank you.

New York, New York

Here we are in New York - the Big Apple.
It is certainly BIG...we walked for HOURS today and barely even scratched the surface. Tomorrow we ride the subway to see different parts of the city!

Yesterday was a big travel day. Out of the hotel by 830am but then our flight was delayed until 1230pm so there was a fair amount of hanging around the airport. Our 'car service' picked us up from New York airport and we arrived our or apartment - a HUGE manhattan brownstone on the upper west side - 2 blocks from Central Park and 2 blocks from Broadway.

On 'our' street lives the actor Alec Baldwin and the singer Tony Bennett and apparently a few other celebrities are close by as well.

We managed to hold off the kids from exploring too much yesterday but this morning it was straight to Central Park. I was amazed at how huge it is (we saw it from the plane as we flew into New York) and how many playgrounds there are - and we barely saw 10% of it.

We wandered down through Central Park until we reached the Museum of Natural History which we visited - but not before our first New York hot dog and pretzel experience!! The kids loved the hot dogs but weren't so fussed about the pretzel - they were just impressed by the size!

The Museum of Natural History was enormous! It would take days to see everything - but we gave it a good go and saw quite a lot of it in the few hours we were there. It was also nice to get out of the heat (32 degrees today).

The afternoon was spent resting and then wandering around the local neighbourhood. Its mostly a very quiet residential area which is nice - lots of kids around.  We have found a gelato-type stand run by a pair of old ladies and Neve is in the process of trying each flavour.

Tomorrow we hit the subway and make our way 'downtown' for more exploring. We have learnt that most playgrounds have some sort of water-feature that the kids can play in to cool down - so will remember to pack the girls swimmers.

Chicago - hot hot hot

Today in Chicago was HOT!!! It was one of the hottest days on record with a temperature of 104 degrees Fahrenheit (which is 40 degrees Celsius). Too hot to go out and do much so there was a lot of time spent at the pool!

The heat reminds me of another 'hot' time in Chicago...the great fire of 1871. The fire burned down most of Chicago. It started about 9pm on Sunday October 8 and didn't get under control until early Tuesday October 10. The traditional account of the origin of the fire is that it was started by a cow kicking over a lantern in the barn owned by the O'Leary family. In 1893, the  reporter who wrote the O'Leary account, admitted he had made it up. The barn was the first building to be consumed by the fire, but the official report could not determine the exact cause of it.

I never understood the meaning of the children's song until now....

"Late one night, when we were all in bed,

Old Lady Leary lit the lantern in the shed,

And when the cow kicked it over,

She winked her eye and said,

“There’ll be a hot time in the ol’ town tonight!”

FIRE!  FIRE!  FIRE!"

One of the few buildings to survive the fire was (ironically) the Chicago water tower which still stands today (in photo).

Tonight we went to the "Rainforest Cafe" for dinner. VERY kid friendly with animals and trees all over the place. Neve freaked out a bit but eventually calmed down and enjoyed it!

The girls enjoyed the photo booth at the Rainforest Cafe.

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Chicago and fly to New York  -  "Start spreading the news....."