What a lovely view from; heaven looks at you from the Brooklyn Bridge

I heart the weekends.

No, let me rephrase that: I heart the non-hungover weekends.

This is because I have a list a MILE long of the shiz I want to do in the time I have here, and if I’m hungover, nothing gets checked off.

Luckily, this weekend I made an effort and managed to do some of those things. Me and Daniel spent a gorgeous, fall Saturday - NY style. First stop was Starbucks to wake us up. They didn’t understand my name, and so wrote Glora-Jane on my cup!! JEE to the SUS! Dan insisted on calling me Glora for the rest of the day. I don’t heart Dan anymore.

Kidding!

Whilst sipping a caramel moccachino (no, I don’t know what that is either), we decided we wanted to shop and sightsee. So we started off by getting the PATH to Manhatten and made our first stop, Century 21. Century 21 is like the MOTHER of all discount shops. It’s like TK Maxx on a department store scale. It is, in short, amaze! I had no money to spend on such frivolous things as clothes, it being poor week and all, but I spent a fun couple of hours helping Dan spend his money. He was looking for some jeans. He actually got some coolio Diesel sunglasses, the softest cashmere scarf known to man, a Guess wallet that looks exactly like the man version of my wallet that I got from Tesco’s for like a pound, and did not get some jeans.

Then we were hungry, so we consulted my guide book. It recommended a French Bistro place which was just around the corner. It was called Les Halles. As I was wearing my new beret, we decided French would be appropriate. And I’m glad we went as it was super-duper noice*. The guidebook had recommended the mussels and fries… or moules et frites, so that, my friends, is what I opted for. And im bloody glad I did, they were delish! And we had coffee and it all felt very en francais! What made it even better was that there was ACTUAL love all around.

Boy - that’s bovine actual love, and that is something pretty special if you ask me.

After this, Dan and I took a walk to the highlight of the day… Brooklyn Bridge. This was definitely something I really wanted to do while I was here, so I’m really glad we went. For the first ten minutes walking on the bridge, because the walkway is between the two lanes of traffic and slightly elevated, and because we weren’t even over water yet, it kind of felt like we were walking down the middle of the M25 haha! But then when we got to the middle and turned around to face Manhatten, the views were spectacular. I could see the Statue of Liberty in the distance.. ..and to the other side, the familiar gang of MetLife, Chrysler and CitiGroup Center.

We were there just as some beautiful cracks of afternoon sunlight started to appear through the up-til-now overcast sky. I love looking at the sky at the best of times, its when I feel most alive spiritually; but there was something magical about it on that day. I loved it longtime.

After taking in the view and catching a cold (probably: it was quite windy), we wandered back to Manhatten and had a wander round the little shops in Soho/Tribeca.

I heart NY days.

Dan does too haha!

(*to be said Kath and Kim style)

Ween-tastic times

HI EVERYBODY!!! (to be said Doctor Nick stylee) hehe.

First off... MASSIVE HUGE MASSIVE APOLOGIES for not posting in such an uber long time.  Basically I have spent a bit of time getting into a routine here in New York. I really feel settled here now, like its home.  I am no longer a tourist!!

Secondly.. well what have I been up to??  Well lots of things really... I have spent a bit of time chillaxing in Central Park (as mentioned in previous posts)

I've also spent a bit of time messing about at the Museum of Natural History, which is a fascinating place.  The photo there is me recreating the classic scene from Hitchcock's "The Birds" haha.

Also, whilst the weather was still warm, we went to visit Little Italy. For part of the Mountbatten syllabus we have to have an architecture tour... and mine was for Little Italy! it was an absolutely BOILING DAY in October, and me and Sam and Dan made our way (hungover!) to Little Italy for the architecture tour... I can't remember a lot of what the guide said as I was too hot and bothered, but basically Little Italy is located where it is because a pond went stagnant down there and none of the rich people wanted to live there because it smelt, so they shoved all the immigrants there. LOVELY!
A lot of Little Italy is lovely, totally different to the huge scale of midtown, plus the food is YUMSCRUM!!  That's one of the things I love about Manhattan - each district is totally different in style, feel, atmosphere, and vibe, but yet they all sit happily together on this small island.  I hope to do some more in depth exploring of all the districts like I have done here over the year.


I like this building cos of the Italian stripes.  We were lucky when we went to Little Italy, because it was Columbus day weekend when we went: the bank holiday where Americans celebrate Columbus happening upon them!  And as Columbus was Italian, in Little Italy particularly they go a bit crazy for the guy.. while we were eating lunch they had a parade in his honour which was really fun to see.


So.. talking and showing all those photos all that stuff seems like AGES ago.. I'm really going to make an effort to blog more often!!  More recently, the weather in like, literally the last week has suddenly got a lot lot colder.  Like its not freezing yet (don't panic mum), but I just mean in comparison to the unusually high temperatures we had been seeing for this time of year, now the temperature feels more autumnal and the leaves are turning finally.  The other day, the air was actually 'crisp'!  Autumn, or 'fall', is so nice here, I wish I had enough money and time to go to New England where it is supposedly more spectacular, but there's always next year because I can technically stay here til 18th October 2008...


So, we have just had Halloween here... which everyone LOVES over here by the way... it's a proper holiday, like Christmas and stuff, there's loads of parties and all sorts, and everyone goes crazy for dressing up. Like in England people dress up but its always kind of half arsed to be frank... you haven't seen dressing up until you come here!!  I went to a costume shop with some friends to get some and it was literally like Calcutta!  People were selling their kids just to get the perfect one!!  Haha.  I went as Britney Spears, as, lets face it, having her for a mum has to be pretty scary hahaha.  But I went as her in her hey-day... to two parties.  The first was a party thrown by my American colleague Heather. (<---that's her in the picture) This was a pretty fun time, as all my work friends were there.  The second party was a week later and was an official Mountbatten party at a club.  Before we all made our way there tho, one of my friends, Dan (aka Teenwolf haha) threw a pre-party party at his apartment, which they had decorated for the occasion... it looked fantastic.. and everyone had made such an effort with the costumes.  It was a really good night!!


Yesterday which was actual Halloween, on which they have a parade downtown, I had class.  Which was a bit lame!  But as soon as class was over, me and my friend Penny made our way down there, and managed to catch the tail end of it.  It seemed like good fun.

So, my first American holiday, and my first American Halloween experience, all in all, I have to say I prefer the way they do it over here, you can never have too many excuses to dress up and have fun now can you?!?!?  Although it is weird to think that I wont be celebrating Bonfire Night this year.   But I guess I have Thanksgiving to look forward to instead!


Happy HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEEEEN everyone!!

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