Empire State of Mind

Wikipedia has a page dedicated purely to songs about New York and believe me, there are a lot on there.  I got bored of scrolling through them at the letter H (which includes the Harlem Shake - does that really count?).  Having now spent a week there at the beginning of September, we can kind of understand why.  There is so much going on!

Can you find Kyle?

Now, what did we get up to?  I could blather on about what we did in order and, to be honest, I did start writing it that way...  but it was BORING...  so instead, I'll stick to my penchant for lists and use the Lonely Planet for guidance because I'm essentially bone lazy.

So here you go, here's our countdown of the top 10 things about New York as experienced by us:

10.  Famous addresses
Madison Avenue, 5th Avenue, Trump Tower, the New York Times, Radio City Music Hall, Grand Central station, Wall Street, Harry Winston's, the studio where they tape Letterman...  They're all here.


9.  Living out quasi-Top Gun dreams
New York has an aircraft carrier that's a museum...  The USS Intrepid.  It's rather large, as evidenced by the approximately 42 planes parked on top, including an F-14 Tomcat.  Sadly, Iceman appeared to have the day off.  Boo.

Also parked on top was a space shuttle (the Enterprise - all hail Star Trek nerds!) and moored off the back is a submarine from the Cold War.  It wins the award for best name ever. 

And the staff get prizes for having senses of humour too.

8.   The High Line
The High Line was great - a former railway line for the transportation paraphernalia about the industrial part of town, now redundant, the locals had campaigned for years to get it torn down.  Instead, some enterprising individual came up with the idea of turning the ugly old tracks into a park.  So now it's replanted with flowers, shrubs and trees and dotted with sculptures and other art.  Our fav piece was a giant nose placed delicately in a wheelbarrow.

Better than that was all the attention to detail, the little railway-related things dotted about all over the place.  Not just the running rails still visible between the plants, but the deck chairs running on wheels along the rails that people were lying on to read their books and the sprinkler system that soaked the soles of your feet on a beautiful 30 degree plus day.  Fab idea.

See!  Rails!

7.   Brooklyn Bridge
The stroll over Brooklyn Bridge was lovely.  Busy, but lovely.  It gave a different perspective of the East River and a close up view of the iconic bridge itself.  Once on the other side, we explored Brooklyn Heights a little and stopped for lunch (more meat). 

Afterward, we caught the water taxi back to Manhattan, which provided good views of my fav hunk of metal, the Chrysler Building.

6.   Central Park and Times Square
We stayed in an apartment 5 mins walk from Central Park, so we headed there on our first morning.  Not only is it huge (I didn't quite appreciate it's size before we got in there) but it's jam packed with sculptures, buskers, runners and more.  We found the memorial to John Lennon in Strawberry Fields and sculptures dedicated to literary greats.

Chillin' with Hans Christian Andersen

After a decent walk through over half the park, we ditched the greenery and hit the streets.  Eventually, we made our way to Times Square.  It had all the hustle and bustle we'd been promised.  We got sold some tickets to a comedy show in the comedy hole where Seinfeld did his stand up bits in the show...  the comedy was bad but the drinks were strong... A fair to middling compromise.

5.  Sporting Events
We took in two sporting events in our week in NYC.

The first, the US Open.  We had the good fortune to see Serena Williams completely obliterate her quarter final opposition (she wasn't on the court long enough for us to learn anything other than that she's Spanish) and Andy Murray defeat his round of 16 opponent (his final win for the tournament).  Great atmosphere and fun, plus, Boris Becker walked right past us!  I was a bit too starstruck to think to ask for a photo though.  Pathetic.

Hey Boris, we saved you a seat!

The second was evening taking in America's favourite passtime.  Baseball.  At Yankee Stadium.


We got tickets to see the ultimate grudge match.  The New York Yankees vs. The Boston Red Sox, recently freed from the curse that struck when they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees back when photos were still black and white. 

As someone who grew up on baseball movies (it was Robert Redford and Glenn Close who forced my parents to tell me about the birds and the bees) this was magic.  We saw foul balls, stolen and loaded bases and home runs.  The only thing that could have made it better would have been for the announcer to yell out "Goodbyyyyyyyye, Miiiiiister Spaaaalding" or a home run that smashed out the floodlights. 

The Yankees didn't win that night, although they gave it a good nudge in a thrilling 7th inning which forced some overtime.  But at one point it really was bottom of the ninth and the scores were tied...  Regardless,  baseball gained two new fans that night. 

Take me out to the ball game....

4.  Statue of Liberty, by day and night
The Statue of Liberty was something we were both really looking forward to seeing.  Our first look was via the Staten Island Ferry, which we caught with some guy called Bill de Blasio.  Later, we found out that he's tipped to win the next NYC mayoral election.  Good luck, Bill!  Anyway, yet another beautiful New York afternoon, Lady Liberty was resplendent.  No one played any Jackie Wilson though, so she stayed put.

Your love keeps lifting me...

We came back for a second look by night after booking an evening sail on a schooner up the Hudson River.  I have to say, the skyline and the Statue are gorgeous at night. 

That's Lady Liberty in the back, honest.

3.  FOOD!  Had to be in there somewhere...
My god, when I think of all we ate on this trip...  the number one most amazing thing has to be the Philly Cheesesteak we had at Yankee Stadium, of all places.  If I never have another one in my life I'll be quite disappointed...  Kind of spiced sliced steak in a hot dog bun with cheese sauce and onions - it's deliciousness wrapped in goodness soaked in happiness.  I WANT MORE!

We also stopped in at Spice Market after we'd finished walking the High Line.  Upmarket south east asian street food, this place was divine.  We sat inside and sipped cocktails while we cooled down after our walk in the sun.  Highly recommend the pork buns and the shrimp with sun dried pineapple.  Om nom nom.

Pork Bun of awesomeness

Another stop worth mentioning is Katz Deli.  I had about five different people tell me we had to go there.  Then, one of them said it's where they filmed the "I'll have what she's having" scene in When Harry Met Sally.  Sold!  Sure enough, there's a sign above the relevant table.  More importantly, perhaps, they sell pastrami and brisket sandwiches fatter than your fist and served with their own delicious pickles.  Kyle and I shared the brisket but, if we go back, I'm going to go completely starving and have a crack at the pastrami on my own.  Protein requirements = sorted.

Tucking in with gusto.  And a pickle.

We also sampled other traditional American fare like buffalo wings, ribs, bagels (good, but lox is disgusting...  seriously, what the hell is up with that stuff????), brisket, sweet potato with brown sugar (sounds good, but isn't) and, of course, New York style pizza.  Oh and gelato.  Of course.

2.  Skyscrapers, old, new and remembered
Of course everyone goes on about the Empire State Building.  We went up to the Top of the Rock (the top of the Rockefeller Center) to see it in amongst the NYC skyline.  We spent a good few hours up there watching the sun go down and the lights on all the buildings come up.  Not bad at all. 

Night falls on Manhattan

My personal favourite, however, and the first one we saw on arrival, is the Chrysler Building.  It's gorgeous.  Day or night.

The obvious new addition to the NYC skyline is the almost complete so-called Freedom Tower.  Rising up above ground zero, it's a giant monolith standing 1776 feet high (the year of Independence...) and is best viewed either from a schooner (as above) or from the 9/11 World Trade Center Memorial.  We overheard a guide saying they're having trouble selling the office space above the 40th floor.  No one seemed particularly surprised.

The 9/11 World Trade Center Memorial next door is, naturally, a very sombre visit.  Recently opened, there are two reflecting pools, each built on what were the footprints of the Two Towers.  The names of those lost, at ground zero, the Pentagon and from Flight 93, are carved into the sides of the pools and on those people's birthdays, the volunteers place a single white rose inside the carving of the name.  Seeing the names of each loved one lost made it all so much more real than just a number.  Very moving and very sad.  The only uplifting thing about the site is the tree that survived the attack, which has been nurtured back into life and replanted within the memorial. 

1.  Catching up with good mates after more than 18 months
The best thing was catching up with Jayden and Caz from back home.  We hadn't seen these guys in over 18 months, so that was truly excellent.  It took us all of about 12 minutes to slip back into the usual routine.  Brilliant.  Miss you guys already!!!

Cazzy.  Keeping it serious.

The gang all together again.

And still juvenile.

Pretty bloody epic, but our American odyssey isn't done yet...  From NYC we caught a train to Washington DC.  But more on that next time.

Until then, I leave you with this classic ear worm.

Good night everybody!
M&K

Search for Sunshine

Ugh, so my record of failed New Year's resolutions stands...

2013 has been an interesting and busy year so far.  Both Kyle and I have started new jobs and we've learned that there are two key ingredients required for a successful trip:  sunshine and good food.  I hope you were sitting down for that one, because I bet it came as a total shock...  Suffice to say that in both cases, this year has not been as successful as last year, but then we always knew 2012 would be tough to beat.  It was, after all, the awesomeness.

Not that we haven't had our fair share of highlights.  Let's do a quick recap of things we've learned.

1.  Snow on the beach is crazy...  and there is a really good reason why Brighton is a summer destination... We popped down for the weekend for our anniversary in January, which coincided with a decent dumping of snow across the UK.  Well timed, Team Reid, well timed.  So we mostly stuck to inside activities - the Pavilion is gorgeous and looks fab lit up at night.

On the beach...  no, seriously.

After that, we hibernated, apart for a day trip out to Greenwich...

2.  They're not kidding about Venice sinking!
We saw for ourselves on Kyle's birthday over the Easter long weekend.  I think we covered pretty much the whole city on foot and it was pretty great wandering around and never having to watch out for cars or bikes.  We got a bit of surprise when we came out of a restaurant one night and the pavement was calf deep in water...

You can only really buy four things in Venice: glass, masks, bags and tat.  After a water logged trip out to Murano, the sun finally came out and then you can really start to understand why people love Venice.  Beautiful.

Sunshine and gelato - now we're talking!

3.  Belfast is a really friendly place (at the right time of year)
Another jaunt over a long weekend.  We learned a bit about the politics, saw where the Titanic was built and visited the Giant's Causeway to marvel at the natural rock formations (or construction prowess of the local giant, depending on who you believe).  It seemed to us to be a city really trying to pull it's socks up and put it's troubled past behind it, although the news lately would seem to suggest otherwise.

 

4.  Scotland and the South Island of NZ were separated at birth and Kyle is speedy!
Setting out from Inverness, we spent a week traveling past Loch Ness to the Isle of Skye, down the west coast of Scotland, through Glasgow, then on to Edinburgh via Stirling.

Scotland?

Or South Island?  You decide.

Someone, who will remain nameless, ran the Edinburgh Marathon in 3hr 28m.  Speedy Gonzales.

Before

After

  

















5.  It is freakin awesome to catch up with mates from home
That's not really a lesson, we knew that from seeing Sarah and Will last year, but it was so good it bears repeating.  We caught up with Jenn and Paul in Belfort at the end of May.  Never heard of it?  Never mind.  It's on the French side of the Franco-Swiss border.

Paul is a bit of a clever clogs.  Not content with "just" being an IronMan, he went and got himself selected for the National NZ Long-Distance Triathlon team...  competing in the world champs in good old Belfort.  How impressive is that!?!  We shot over for a quick weekend with Pip to see them, with our flags.

Finishing strong

Just like old times...

6. Getting older is still ok (for now)
After three trips in May, we needed a rest...  so there was nothing else until the end of July, when we soaked up uninterrupted sunshine (finally) and quaffed sangria in Majorca for five days.  Bliss.

For my birthday, Kyle took me to this A-MAZ-ING restaurant called Es Moli d'en Bou for a 12 course degustation dinner.  Can't believe we forgot the camera...  the food was as much art as anything else.  Absolutely incredible.  Not only that, it was very quiet in there.  There was no music and the wait staff spoke almost in a whisper, which made the diners speak more quietly too (even me), so the senses were more focused on the food.  Best meal we've had in a long time, it'll definitely stick in the memory.

So there you go.  Next weekend, we're off to take a bite out of the Big Apple and visit Obama with two of our fav peeps, Jayden and Caz.  Seriously, can not wait.

Peace out, yo.
M&K 

Fabulous Frosty Finland

Okay, make yourself a cup of tea and get comfortable, because this is going to be a looong one…

Being unable to force our families to feed us into a bbq-induced stupor this year, thanks to a minor geographical hiccup, we had to come up with other ideas about how to spend Christmas 2012.  The options were plentiful, but we decided that it would be brilliant if we could see the Northern Lights.

Apparently, although generally temperamental, the Northern Lights operate on a reasonably reliable 11-year cycle with this winter being the zenith of that cycle - which doesn’t really make sense, since circles by definition don’t have a tip, but anyway, never let fact get in the way of a good story, as Hollywood would say.  I digress.  Again.  The short version is that now is the best time to go.

After a decent amount of googling we found a place in Finland that offered Christmas trips that included a range of Arctic activities guaranteed to ensure we had a fabulous time even if we weren’t lucky enough to see the Lights.

We left London and bounced through Helsinki to Kittila in northern Finland.  Here we met our bus that took us to the hotel/resort thing in Muonio, Lapland, right by the Swedish border.  In the week or so leading up, we had been eagerly keeping an eye on the temperature – we wanted to experience proper cold.  We needn’t have worried.  When we landed in Kittila (yes, the transport keeps running regardless) it was -33 degrees outside and the snow was more than knee deep where it hadn't been plowed.  It was so cold that when you breathe in through your nose, your nose hairs freeze instantly, which is very bizarre the first few times!  The amazing thing is, at that temperature, any moisture in the air freezes as well, so the world looked sparkly and glittery like we were inside a snow globe or something.  It was the first (and probably the last) time I thought an airport looked pretty.

So the bus drops us off in time for dinner.  They engineer the trips so that you spend all your time with the other people in your tour group, which is cool.  We were thrown together with a British couple on the first leg of their honeymoon and a family from Australia – the Dad came out on the first morning in an All Blacks jersey too, so, you know, he cool.

After dinner we had to go and collect out winter woollies – the stuff that “would keep us alive” – very reassuring.  You bring your thermals etc and they top you up with the extras.  We’ve worked out that, to not die in the arctic, it’s customary to wear many items of clothing.  For example, I spent each day in two pairs of woollen socks, 3 pairs thermal legs, 1 pair trackies, 2 thermal tops, 2 merino tops, 1 cashmere sweater, 1 thick merino hoody, the standard issue super sexy arctic onesie, 1 pair glove liners, one pair thermal mittens, one pair leather mittens, scarf, balaclava, arctic boots and a hat.  You put all of this on in your room where its 22 degrees, so you overheat and then you go outside to cool down.  Crazy.  But supremely useful.

On our first morning, we met our guide, Dirk, who first warned to wear “everything we own”, hence the above list.  It was still -30 odd and you could tell he was worried about us freezing to death.  Anyway, time to see some countryside.  On a snowmobile!  We had to go in pairs, so Kyle drove while I clung on the back trying to keep my fingers and toes as warm as I could.  We blitzed through the forest and across frozen lakes – it was magnificent.  Those machines pick up a fair amount of speed!  Kyle got ours up to about 90km/hr or something.  We stopped for lunch at the sister hotel down the road where we got to warm up by a roaring fire and eat a hearty lunch of salmon and potato soup, which was delicious.  They were having a wedding there that day – the bride arrived in a reindeer-drawn sleigh and then the couple made their vows to each other inside a real igloo.  Magic stuff.

For the return journey, the girls were challenged to have a go at driving the snowmobiles…  I drove all the way back and what a completely different experience!  Not only is it always nice to be the one in control, but you also get to have electric hand warmers in the handlebars and you don’t have a helmet in the way blocking your view!  After a tentative start at no more than 40-50km/hr I eventually hit my stride and had us whipping across the lakes at a respectable 80 odd, but don’t tell Kyle, he was getting a little nervous…  The best part, for me, was the bumps.  If you hit them juuust right, you can make hubby get some air off the back seat, just like he did to you on the way out.  BWAHAHA!  We were exhausted and cold when we got back, but exhilarated.

That night, the hotel was visited by a real Finnish Santa who doled out presents to each guest.  “Santa” came in leaning heavily on a cane, dragging a large sack of presents – so no one sat on his knee to save hurting him.  Later, we found out he’s a French guy, not much older than us who loves snowmobiling…  and he doesn’t have a beard.  Most convincing Santa.  EVER.

Christmas Day revolved around reindeer.  We visited a reindeer farm (there are as many reindeer in Lapland as there are people) and dashed through the snow riding in a reindeer sleigh stopping in a snow-covered tepee for lunch.  We had reindeer soup for lunch that day…  which was delicious, it just felt wrong eating the same animal that just hauled us through the forest.

After dinner, we received an aurora alert on our phone.  The weather was ripe for a viewing of the Northern Lights.  We donned all our gear and rushed outside...  After about half an hour we saw:

We were treated to about an hour’s display, in the end - magnificent green lights would fade in and out of existence and dance across the sky a little.  It probably wasn’t the most spectacular display ever witnessed but we were thrilled.  There may have been some high-fiving involved...

Boxing Day was more about taking it easy and we got to pick what we did.  We were fairly unanimous that we wanted to give ice fishing a try, so we all trudged out to the lake to give it a go.  First, you have to use the giant corkscrew to drill a hole through the ice.  If you’re a guy, this is quite easy.  If you’re a woman…  it’s a team effort.  It took the three of us ages to drill through, with the guys laughing at us in the background, but we were so pleased when we finally punched through.  I still maintain the drill was blunt.  Ice fishing was cool, if a little less fast-paced when compared to our earlier activities.  Dirk waited until we had all drilled our holes before informing us that it was the wrong time of year to catch anything…  But, we did still get some nibbles.  

At the risk of boasting, I very nearly caught a black salmon (I have witnesses), I felt the tug on the line, yanked and this black head shot up through the hole where, we think, the fish got stuck.  Kyle valiantly ripped his mittens off and tried to grab it out, as my line had come loose, but instead we think he just punched it in the face and helped it escape…  so that fish got to live to fight another day… with a sore lip.  We could tell, though, that fish was huge!  Must have been a good 20cm long…  In the afternoon, we walked to Sverige (Sweden).  As you do.  It was only 2km away.

The next day marked our final activity and, frankly, the one everyone had been looking forward to the most.  The overnight husky safari.  We were each put in charge of a team of four huskies who were tethered to a sleigh.  They pulled us over similar terrain to where we’d snowmobiled but it was very different.   

Controlling the dogs is more difficult to controlling a snowmobile, for example, the dogs don’t like to stop…  We had a brake, but they are so strong that you have to keep all your weight on it to stop them taking off again.  It was great, it was actually snowing on the first day, so had snow getting in our eyes, but it was magic.  We all fell off at least once, so we got skilled at grabbing other people’s teams as they tried to make a run for it.  When we got to the wilderness cabin we had to provide all the care for our dogs – we had to take them off the sleigh, take their harnesses off, feed them and make their straw beds.  That night we sat around this giant dining table eating our reindeer stew, drinking gloggi and talking crap.  It was great.

In the morning, we had to repeat the previous evening’s activities with the huskies in reverse, but this time we also go to pick up their poo…  that was an experience in itself, but I won’t go into detail here…  Let me just say that it’s not as easy as it sounds and golfers would have a slight edge.  I am, however, pleased to report that we didn’t fall off on the second day.  Nailed it!  Getting back was a bit bitter sweet.  Once we'd played with the super cute husky pups for a while, the only thing we had left to do was return our gear and wait…  and have one last group drink in the pub.

But Finland wasn't finished with us yet, we had one more small sighting of the Northern Lights - excellent!

The next day, we had to go back to London…  Kyle and I actually sat on our bed and had a serious conversation about whether or not we could feasibly hide in a cupboard so we’d miss our flights.  But we couldn’t come up with a reason to make them keep feeding us and letting us do cool stuff.  So, back we went.  Stink beans.

Having now been and come back, we really couldn’t recommend Harriniva highly enough.  We had an amazing time – it really was “once in a lifetime” stuff.  

So that was the crown jewel in our incredible year.  We came back to a dreary day in London, with the biggest case of post-holiday blues we’ve ever experienced and with nothing else to look forward to.  The long faces lasted a good couple of weeks, I’ll admit.

On reflection, 2012 was truly remarkable.  Not without a couple of downers, on average we’ve had a great time.  Sure, we miss things about home – family, friends, our favourite restaurants, Whittaker’s chocolate, running through the hills (clearly that’s mostly Kyle), being able to get places in under 45 minutes, driving around Wellington’s south coast on a Sunday afternoon and not having people in our face every second of the day, but hey, we all make sacrifices.  But, if anyone has any blocks of Whittaker’s berry and biscuit and dark caramel they don’t want, we’re here to help!

In a nutshell, this is a very apt description of our year.  But I really don't think we'd have it any other way.

Needless to say, there are high hopes for 2013!

M&K xxx