NYC 14-15/9

Our first stop on Monday morning was the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on 5th Avenue. We arrived before the opening at 10:30, and were able to beat the growing queue in buying tickets. Woo hoo! It comprises six main floors with different types of exhibitions or collections on each one. Some highlights included great works by Picasso, Dali, Van Gogh, Pollock, Warhol (the soup cans!) and Magritte, one of my favourite artists. There were also extensive photography, design and architecture collections. The design component had some excellent chairs and electronics from the 70’s. We were keen to have some of the decor in our future house! Following our time at MoMA we headed to the Rockefeller Centre, to a viewing platform known as ‘Top of the Rock’. It is 70 stories above street level and offers a great view of the city and of the Empire State Building in particular. You can see most of Manhattan, over to Brooklyn and New Jersey from the top. We had a clear day and the view was amazing. One surprise was the the Statue of Liberty looks very tiny from there, it is a fair way away, but movies give you the false impression that it is a massive feature in the NYC skyline. The Rockefeller Centre is also home to NBC studios. We had a brief look around the shopping concourse as well, it’s a massive buiding. Leaving the Rockefeller we saw the Radio City Music Hall on our way to Grand Central Station. Next up was the Chrysler Building, this great art-deco inspired building has some great features in the foyer, hopefully they will turn out in the photos. We had planned to go out to dinner to a particular restarant named The John Dory (we’d read about it in London) but unfortunately it had closed, perhaps not being terribly successful in the credit crunch. Over the road from the closed restaurant was The Chelsea Market, a great collection of fresh food stores, bakeries and lunch places but we didn’t find anything that tickled our fancy. Both of us were pretty tired and just wanted to be waited on rather than trying to organise something ourselves. We consulted our guide book again and by luck after a manic cab ride ended up at a great Italian restaurant on 79th Street where we had fantastic food and service, we think the evening turned out for the best. For Tuesday, our last full day in NYC, we were up early to catch the Number 1 train from 96th St Subway Station all the way to the Statten Island Ferry Terminal. It was about a 25 minute journey over to Statten Island and the same back again. The main purpose (of course) being the view of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty, this time looking a little bigger as we were a lot closer to her. While onboard we had a talk to a Brooklyn local. I should say it was mostly him talking with a series of rapidfire questions about Australia and anything else that popped into his head. A real New Yorker. Once we’d returned to Manhattan we took the subway to the Time Warner centre near Columbus Cirle. There was a fantastic food market in the basement where we bought some provisions for lunch. They had absolutely anything you could want for lunch down there and it was hugely popular with the local people on their lunch break. We headed back out to eat outside under the statue of Columbus in Columbus Circle where we could do some people watching. After lunch we did some more walking along Broadway, stopping in a few more stores - Urban Outfitters (where we both could have spent a small fortune on vinyl, collectibles and t-shirts) and Victoria’s Secret before we had some Subway takeaway for dinner. All in all, we had a fantastic time in New York City. 99% of the people were really friendly, we had excellent food, great service, saw fantastic sights and art and it was easy to get around - great!

NYC Sunday 13/9

We headed out a little bit later on Sunday to a bakery lunch. They do great paninis in New York. Loads of locals were out and about as it was a lovely day. We saw heaps of people as we walked across Central Park. There’s a large lake or reservoir in the middle with a couple of hundred joggers straining their way around it. We were on our way to the Guggenheim Museum on 5th Avenue. It’s a striking building and a large number of people were heading in to have a look at the collection. The usual display was interrupted a bit to make room for a Kandinsky exhibition starting later in the month so we didn’t get to see as much as we would have normally. What we did see was quite good though. Following the Guggenheim we walked towards the East Village and some really cool shops and bars. With the temperature rising we had a drink in a cool bar to rehydrate before checking out the old CBGBs site at 315 the Bowery. This former music venue was a bit of a pilgrimage for us, having been the site of some incredible bands through the 70’s and 80’s. Elements of the original decor have been kept as part of the buildings new lease on life as a fashion store. Original graffiti and posters have been preserved behind glass so that was quite cool to see. The clothes all seemed to be beyond our budget though, way beyond our budget. Perhaps it's where rock stars shop once they've made it. Our next stop was a specialist sneaker store named Dave’s Quality Meat, it was a very cool store to check out. We had more of a walk through East Village, stopping at a great skate shop named Autumn Skateboards, before we had some Sangria at a bar, the Latin Lounge. By dinner time we were pretty hungry from all the walking and we ate at the Buenos Aires restaurant for some great pasta and seafood. Our last stop of the evening was a bar recommended by our travel guide, the Eastern Bloc. What the guide mentioned was that it had cool decor (which it did), but what it didn’t mentioned was that it was a popular East Village gay bar. We had a drink and the barman had a bit of a chat to us. We basically fitted the template of the undercover cops who come in regularly to check that he asks people for I.D. There would normally be a man and a woman, one would drink and the other wouldn’t, we thought it was pretty funny. We caught the subway home again, it’s a pretty easy system to work out and fairly clean which is good.

NYC 11-12/9

We left London in a pre-booked minicab instead of tackling the tube. A great move in retrospect as we wouldn’t have managed very well considering how bloody heavy our bags are at the moment. The flight was with American Airlines whom we’ve not flown with before. It was a good flight and we managed to get through three movies each before landing at John F. Kennedy Airport. Getting through US Immigration was fairly straightforward and we had a remarkably pleasant officer (compared with some UK counterparts). He even recommended some live music venues after discovering that was one of our interests. Once we cleared customs we grabbed our bags and headed out to the cab dispatcher. Our cab saw us headed towards Manhattan, very pleased to be in the US. Unfortunately the cabbie didn’t seem to share our enthusiasm or good mood for that matter, he was pretty much driving dangerously most of the way into the city and upon arrival (once he found our hostel) proceeded to berate us when we started to ask a question about the fare. We came to an understanding fairly quickly and, determined not to let his vile attitude spoil our evening we settled into our room with some dinner. On Saturday morning we got up fairly early and walked from our hostel on the Upper West Side (94th Street) down Broadway to have some breakfast. We then continued walking and taking in the sights: hundreds of yellow cabs and New Yorkers out walking their dogs. We worked up a bit of an appetite by lunch time and had some food at the Brooklyn Diner, a traditional styled American diner serving what they called ‘uncomplicated American food’. I had a bagel along with scrambled eggs and salmon while Kirsten had a super yummy prawn salad. Next up we walked down to Times Square, which was really busy with people queuing for tickets to broadway shows and generally milling about gawping at the giant neon signs and souvenir stores. Further down Broadway we came to the Flat Iron Building, a real highlight in New York architecture, the photos we took will hopefully do it justice. We had a fair bit of drizzle most of the day, though not enough to stop us walking. There was a market in Union Square, we also had a bit of a look in Puma where Kirsten got some 80’s style high top sneakers. We needed a bit of a rest stop at this stage so we found a cool bar named Leela Lounge and had a drink. Following our recovery we had a look at some cool stores around Houston and Wooster Streets, like the Adidas flagship store, Camper (new shoes for me!) and Kid Robot (where it was difficult not to buy awesome collectibles). It was time to get something for dinner by this stage so we walked over to Little Italy where a street fair was in full swing. We had read about Lombardi’s coal fired pizza restaurant in a guide book and wanted to check it out. Lombardi's is apparently the first pizza restaurant in NYC, having been established in 1905. It was quite busy being a Saturday night but after about half an hour we were seated. It was well worth the wait. The pizza was delicious accompanied by some great atmosphere to boot. To finish off our massive day we caught the subway home and made it back to the hostel ready for a serious rest.

London 7-10/9

While waiting for someone to buy the van, we have tried to get out and about a bit in the last few days. We spent Sunday afternoon exploring our local neighbourhood in Fulham, we had dinner at a gourmet burger bar on the high street before catching a movie at the local theatre. We saw 500 Days of Summer, which was quite funny with a great soundtrack. I gave it 6.5/10 as did Kirsten. On Monday we headed into central London to Trafalgar square and the National Gallery. We spent a number of hours there, it’s an excellent collection and considering it is free to get in they have some amazing artists displayed there: Turner, Van Gogh and Renoir to name a few. We had a good feed at the UK chain Pizza Express, something else we wanted to cross off our list and it was lovely. On Tuesday we had another day in central london, starting with an obstetricians appointment, we are happy to report that everything is going well with the pregnancy and that Kirsten and the baby are in great health. We have also been given the okay to fly for the rest of our trip so that is a great relief. We went out and had lunch in Regents Park where a whole heap of people were out enjoying the sunshine. Next up we headed near to Soho to pass some time before going out to dinner. I continued my sampling of UK ales, and had a Doombar Ale (from Cornwall) in a local pub. While walking around we came across a 1960’s fashion photographer’s showcase at small gallery (featuring amazing shots of Twiggy, Marianne Faithful, Jean Shrimpton to name a few). The photographer was on hand to answer any questions, we had a brief chat about film over digital while perusing all the photos. Sadly everything was priced beyond what we could afford but we were both glad we’d ducked in to have a look. We had a resrvation for dinner at Murano, a restaurant in the Gordon Ramsay stable. The decor was quite understated and posh which made the selection of a huge lighting centrepiece near the middle of the restaurant a little unusual. No such hesitations on the service or the menu though, everything was absolutely fantastic. We had three courses with some lovely wines to match, it was a great experience. We saw Gordon himself cutting through the restaurant so it must have been his protege Angela Hartnett doing the cooking that night. My main, grilled Halibut was fantastic and all the little extras we were given and the lovely mix of food was well worth it. It was really quiet in the restaurant and even though we had dressed in our nice duds we felt a bit out of place. I suppose we are used to the rowdiness of the local pub. We finally sold our van a day and a bit before we were due to fly, so we were able to have a celebration/catch up dinner with our good friend Nikki at our temporary local, the Fulham Mitre. The van sale also left us free to head back into London on Thursday where we did a bit of shopping and sightseeing amongst the crowds on Regent Street, Carnaby Street and Soho. That night we had a quiet night and packed for our early flight on Friday morning.

Humberston 31/8-4/9

We’ve spent a few days chilling out post festival with Aunty Anne and family in Humberston which has been great. We have also headed into Grimsby a couple of times so that we could both get some new (second hand) books and haircuts (mine was well overdue). I’ve been trying to drink some English ales before we leave the UK, two of the better titles are Bishops Finger and Jolly Ploughman, both were very nice. We also made use of the sensational local chippie, where we got some huge Haddock and chips for tea one night. We’ve had a lovely stay here so it was sad to leave. We set out on the motorway for London for the last time (for the immediate future anyway) on Friday and it was lovely that our van also wanted to get in on the act and give us a farewell present, in the form of another blowout on the motorway. The front tyre went this time, thankfully we were able to stop without incident. A motorway safety patrol was just behind us when the tyre blew so they stopped to see if we were ok, they also stuck around while I changed the tyre so it was good to have their high visibility van parked in front of our van. Once the tyre was changed, we drove carefully into London and collected a key to our temporary accommodation in Fulham. Following our arrival we have had a few van trials and tribuations, mostly to do with a toolbag who had promised to buy the van when he viewed it online and then reneged in person. We then had to contact everyone we’d put on hold to try and get the sale happening, a very frustrating process. We’re hoping to avoid any more time wasters.

Leeds Festival 28-30/08

We set off from Humberston for Leeds on Friday morning, a journey of about 80 miles. Thankfully there wasn’t too much festival traffic, it looked like a lot of people had set up the day before. Going through the main security gate we had some bottles confiscated, they weren’t allowing any glass on site. Sadly this meant losing some Belgian cherry beer and having to put a new bottle of scotch into a plastic water bottle. At least I got to keep the scotch. We were into the main arena by early afternoon (another looooong walk from our van to the arena) and we were just in time to catch another secret show by Them Crooked Vultures at the NME/Radio 1 stage. Once again the band looked to be having a fantastic time, with huge applause directed at Dave Grohl whenever his face came up on the video screens. Next up we went to watch Ian Brown on the main stage, a slight slope meant that we could make out the stage if we stood up or watch the video screens if we sat down. We chose to sit down and enjoyed him cranking out a couple of Stone Roses tracks as well as a lot of hits from his solo career, his enthusiasm making up for a very flat sound. We made our way back to the NME tent in time to see some of the Maccabees, we had seen them at Glasto but heard a bit more this time, they sounded quite good but nothing too inspiring. White Lies, Glasvegas and Gossip all followed on the NME stage. We were well pleased as it meant we could avoid trudging between stages and stay under the marquee out of the cold. White Lies had an electronic/guitar kind of sound, quite reminiscent of Duran Duran in places (in a good way) and they had huge amounts of people singing along to their lyrics. Glasvegas were once again excellent, in front of a smaller crowd (most people where off watching The Prodigy) they still inspired some enthusiastic singing along and were excellent to watch. Gossip finished up our Friday night and the band played quite well, technical mishaps and microphone abuse by Beth Ditto aside. No encore due to time restrictions meant we didn’t hear ‘Standing in the Way of Control’ but the rest of the set was extremely enthusiastic and the crowd lapped it up. Saturday seemed to be much colder right from when we got up, mainly due to a keen wind gusting across the open site. First off we walked down to the Dance tent to see some of the Crystal Method’s set, the stuff we heard from their album ‘Vegas’ sounding just as good as on record. We were a bit curious to see Crystal Castles after that following a lot of hype we’d read in NME last year and they didn’t disappoint, a mainly electronic beat with some mostly unintelligible girl vocals over the top. Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Bloc Party and Radiohead were out on the main stage for the rest of Saturday night, it was already getting cold before the sun went down and was very cold after so we stuck it out to hear Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and Bloc Party in full and we left during Radiohead’s set as we were both freezing despite multiple layers. All of the bands sounded great, with Kele from Bloc Party doing his best to get the locals enthused and dancing along. The blasting wind did do us one favour however, it meant we heard a fair bit of Radiohead as we trudged back to the van and heard the rest of their set quite well once we were in the van. Once again we were pleased to be in the camper rather than in a tent. Some were barely holding onto the ground in the strong wind. Sunday saw the inclement weather turn even worse with some rain coming down in the afternoon. We managed to avoid it by staking out a spot in the NME/Radio 1 Tent and stayed in there for the rest of the day. This did mean we missed Kings of Leon but we decided that being warmer and drier was more important. We suspect we’ll get to see KOL over the Australian summer anyway. The first act we saw on Sunday was Little Boots, she had drawn quite a crowd as it seemed she was a local and the end of her set saw her getting a load of rellies on stage to dance about to her last song. Next up we saw The Horrors, who had quite a dark, goth guitar sound along with some menacing vocals, they were quite good. Jack Penate was up next, he’s been hyped a bit in the UK press but we didn’t find anything too exciting, just another male singer/songwriter like so many before him, seemed popular enough with the crowd though. Florence and the Machine played an excellent set after that, so much so we’ve put their CD on our (very long) list to get. Their set was over quickly after a few epic songs and they apologised for not being able to do any more as they were ordered off the stage. Friendly Fires and then Jamie T took the stage, getting good responses from the crowd but beyond the bizarre dancing of the Friendly Fire’s lead singer nothing else really grabbed us. Faith No More had the headline slot in the NME tent up against Kings of Leon on the main stage. They still drew a respectable crowd and we were please to see that Mike Patton had indulged in a costume change from his earlier pink suit from Pukkelpop. With Mike resplendent in a glittery silver suit the band launched straight into business with abandon. At Roskilde and Pukkelpop the band had been opening with a song called ‘Reunited’ but I think due to time constraints they were going straight for the hits. Twice during the set the band played the Eastenders Theme, the second time drawing a great response and some smiles from the crowd. Mike seemed to be determined to mock the crowd and enjoyed baiting the predominantly English audience about ‘loving your tea’. Another cut back due to time constraints meant that the band didn’t play their ‘Chariots of Fire/Stripsearch’ medley, but everything they did play sounded excellent and the band were very tight. Sadly there was no encore due to organisers time constraints, the band apologised and then that was the end of the festival. We waited quite a while for the crowd to disperse before we headed back to the van over the muddy and treacherous ground, we saw a few people slip into the mud and didn’t want to be part of their number. We made it back to the van without incident and had something to eat while we listened to the wind and the crowd in the distance. Monday morning typically saw better weather than the last few days and we found it very easy to leave the festival site, with no queuing to get to the motorway and an easy drive back to Humberston, Aunty Anne and a much needed hot shower.

Leaving Belgium

We checked out of Hasselt on the Monday, travelling into Belgium in time for lunch. We had some excellent seafood at a nice cafe but we only had a limited time there as the staff were keen to close for the afternoon. Kirsten had a char grilled tuna steak and I had a grilled salmon fillet. Both were beautifully presented with tasty veg. Yum! We spent the rest of the afternoon having a wander, coming across some cool looking shops (sadly closed as it was Monday) before we reached the statue of the Manekin Pis. Surrounded by tourists, the small statue of the boy peeing seems a bit inconsiquential by comparison, we took a couple of photos regardless. There’s a large fence we couldn’t remember being there before though we’ll have to check our photos from 2000 to be sure. Following the Manekin Pis we bought some local chocolate produce before walking through cobbled streets to the main square, featuring amazing buildings from the 1600’s. I tried a local dark ale at a bar on the impressive main square before we went along to the Tintin shop, a must vist for some postcards etc. Our last task in Brussels was to procure some waffles, which along with chocolate sauce, strawberries and ice cream, I’m happy to report were magnificent. Leaving Brussels we dropped into Bruges, only an hour or so along the motorway. It is a very pretty town with an impressive square and high church tower, I was tempted very much to talk like Colin Farrell for most of our visit. We had a quiet drink in a character laden local bar, the Nocturne bar. That night we camped in a freepark on the motorway. We were suspicious of anywhere too remote so we stayed at a service station. Some of the English papers had reported tourists being robbed by people seeking to make an illegal crossing into the UK. Thankfully the night passed without incident and we made it to Calais for breakfast croissants and coffee (plus a later cherry beer) at a local brasserie, followed by some shopping in one of the nearby shopping centres. We reached the P&O terminal a bit late but were allowed onto the next ferry. The only issue getting through customs was that we had to deal with the most sour border security person I have ever dealt with. It seemed that the very act of having to breathe and then converse with us was causing her untold agony. Struggling not to be sarcastic we boarded the ferry for a calm crossing, before heading up the motorway to Humberston and to see Aunty Anne.