New York...again (Part 2)

Saturday

Saturday began with another fantastic breakfast at the Metro Cafe next door! The weather just got better and better during our time in the Big Apple. Both Saturday and Sunday were hot and mainly sunny - happy days!

After breakfast we walked through the city to Grand Central Station and caught the subway from there to Battery Park, right at the southern tip of Manhattan. The park got its name as it used to be home to a fort that the military used to protect Manhattan from enemy ships entering the harbour. There is a big monument in the middle of the park to remember the soldiers killed in the Korean War (see picture below). It lists all of the countries that took part in the war and the number of casualties suffered by each. The park was very pretty and we were entertained by a very energetic squirrel jumping in and out of a rubbish bin fossicking for breakfast!

From there we caught a ferry out to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty close up. Note that we skipped the 2 hour queue as we had bought our ferry tickets online the week before!!! The short ferry ride was very pleasant and we were very excited to see the statue close up. It is massive! The height of the statue itself is 46.5m, with the stone base included it is 93m. The statue weighs around 204 tonnes. The width of each eye of the statue is 2 and a half feet and the length of the index finger on the hand holding the torch is 8 feet!

The Statue of Liberty was presented to the US by the people of France in 1886 to commemorate the centennial of the United States and as a symbol of friendship between the nations. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel Tower) engineered the internal structure and Frederic Auguste Bartholdi sculpted the statue, which was then separated into parts and transported from France to New York in crates. The people of New York donated $100,000 for the clearing the island and construction of the stone base that the statue sits on. The statue was often one of the first glimpses of the United States for millions of immigrants following ocean voyages from Europe.

Another short ferry ride took us to Ellis Island, the location of what was once the main entry point for immigrants to the United States. The US Bureau of Immigration operated the huge building on the island from 1 January 1892 to 12 November 1954, during which time up to 20 million immigrants were processed. The immigrants would pile off the ships and make their way through the building where they would be given health checks and asked questions about the skills and resources they had brought to the United States. Those with minor health problems were treated in a hospital on the island before being let in to New York. Those with serious health problems or those unskilled workers who were considered "likely to become a public charge" were sent home again.

The building is now a museum but the interior has been retained almost exactly as it was when it was closed in 1954 (see picture below). We spent a good 2-3 hours (although you could easily spend longer there) in the museum and we both found it fascinating.

Once back in Manhattan, we returned to the Chelsea Market to buy some of the goodies we had sampled the previous day! We both bought some Cranberry Everything cookies and Megan had some gelato!

On Saturday night we had tickets to see The Lion King musical on Broadway. We got down to Times Square early...but so did a few million other tourists. We eventually found a pizza and pasta place where we grabbed some kai. Then we made our way to the Minskoff Theatre. We had wanted to see this show for ages but had never got around to it in London, so we were very excited. And we were certainly not let down. The show was spectacular. The costumes were amazing and the many different animals portrayed by the actors were incredibly life-like. The giraffes were stunning - basically people walking on stilts but leaning forward with their arms resting on another set of stilts while wearing a long neck and head mask (to look like a giraffe you see). They were somehow still able to move with that giraffe lope - very talented people.

Sunday

Surprise, surprise, Sunday began with breakfast at the Metro Cafe...and it was excellent once again. Sunday was even hotter than Saturday and rather muggy. We were a little slower moving than on the previous mornings, but after breakfast we caught the subway over to Brooklyn. We had a very pleasant walk around Brooklyn and caught some rays lying on the grass in a little park near Brooklyn Bridge. We had heard that the finest pizza in New York is made at a place called Grimaldi's Pizzeria, but so had everybody else. The queue was pretty long and we were not super hungry, so we bypassed the finest pizza in New York!

We walked across the famous Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan, taking in the stunning views of the skyscrapers as we went. The bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States (the weekend we were in New York marked the 125th anniversary of the bridge) and it stretches over 1.8km connecting the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan. In 1964 it was designated a National Historic Landmark.

After doing a spot of shopping (Megan bought a few things at Banana Republic), we met up at the Shake Shack at Madison Square Park. The Shake Shack is a fairly new outlet, which we are told does the best burgers in the world. Judging by the queue of literally hundreds of people, that is probably true, however we didn't put it to the test. Instead we had some lunch in a bar across the road from Madison Square Park and sipped cold Budweisers while we watched the Yankees come from behind to win.

Right next to Madison Square Park is the Flatiron Building, a bizarre triangular shaped building with rounded edges, which sits between 5th Avenue and Broadway on a small triangular block. We stopped for a few snaps - we are certainly big fans.

Then we walked a few blocks to visit Daggy (from our Russell McVeagh days). Daggy recently moved from New Zealand to New York and somehow found himself a great apartment with a balcony looking out on to the Empire State Building - we were very jealous. Captain Dags (former tugboat captain) is a loyal follower of the blog, so we said we would post a photo of him (see below). We had a few beers at Daggy's place and then he introduced us to one of his locals where we had a few more before calling it a night.

Korean War

monument -

Battery Park

Lady

Liberty

Immi-

gration

Museum

Ellis Island

Elini's -

Chelsea

Market

Hanging in
Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Bridge

Megs by

the bridge -

Manhattan

in the back

Crossing

the bridge

Flatiron
Building

Tim and

Captain

Dags

New York...again (Part 1)

Fans,

Thursday

On Thursday we left for our second trip to New York! The down side to going to New York is that you fly out of (and back in to) Heathrow. However, things were surprisingly easy for a change. The flight dragged a little bit but we were kept amused by our little TV screens, managing to cram in a lot of movies and games of Battleship.

New York was a little grey and drizzly when we arrived, but no worse than London had been! After ditching our bags at the Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel (which was really good, although we didn't even see one tree), we headed to an old favourite for lunch: the Tick Tock Diner (8th and 34th, diagonally across from Madison Square Garden). This place is the finest eating establishment in the world. You can order pretty much anything imaginable and the size options are XL, XXL or XXXL. Tim ordered a triple BBQ bacon cheeseburger that was so huge it hardly even fit on the plate. He made a brave effort but could not finish it.

After lunch we rolled out the door and caught the subway down to Greenwich Village in south west Manhattan. We wandered the beautiful tree-lined streets of Greenwich and checked out some of the crazy little shops along the way. We also ventured back to the Magnolia Bakery and Megan got one of their famous cupcakes (Tim could still barely walk at this point).

Next stop was Times Square and as always it was packed full of tourists and buzzing with excitement. We ducked into a few stores and bought a few New York mementos - Tim some New York Yankees pictures and Megan some New York fridge magnets to add to the international magnet collection. We also stopped in at the Hershey's and M&M super stores and stocked up on chocolates!

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped in at the Rockefeller Centre, which was decorated with hundreds of American flags and looked amazing. The Monday that we left New York was Memorial Day holiday to remember all of the fallen soldiers, so we assume the flags were there because of that. It looked very patriotic! After a bit of a rest at the hotel (we had got up at 4.30am UK time and by the evening New York time, we were stuffed), we grabbed a drink at the bar next door and got some Japanese for dinner before calling it a night.

Friday

It was a fairly early start on Friday morning and we went next door to the hotel to the Metro Cafe for breakfast. We knew it would be good because there was a massive queue! We had some cereal, yoghurt and pancakes and fresh orange juice. Friday was a beautiful hot sunny day in New York.

Our first adventure of a busy day was to conquer the Rockefeller Tower. Unlike the Empire State Building, which we had "climbed" during our last visit to New York, there were no queues at the Rockefeller Tower so we went straight up to the 68th floor viewing platform. The views from the top were spectacular, even better than from the top of the Empire State building, as you get to see Central Park and the Empire State building itself. They also have glass walls rather than steel bars to peer through, so the views are clearer.

Back at ground level, Megan had booked us in to a walking tour around Chelsea Market. We walked through the city, past the Empire State building and Madison Square Garden to Chelsea. The Chelsea Market is situated inside an enormous building that runs all the way from 9th Avenue to 10th Avenue between 15th and 16th streets. The building was originally the Nabisco biscuit factory but is now full of specialist food stores, including dairy, gelato, fruit and veg, seafood, Italian food, a bakery and our personal favourite, a cupcake / biscuit store called Eleni's.
As part of the walking tour, we stopped in most of the stores in the market and as well as hearing a little about the history and background of each place, we were given samples to eat and drink along the way. At Eleni's we tried the "Cranberry Everything" cookies, which were easily the finest cookies we have ever eaten. They were oatmeal cookies, packed full of big chunks of chocolate, cranberries and...everything else. They were fantastic. We also sampled seafood chowder, chocolate milk, an Italian platter, freshly baked bread, cheese, gelato and some red tea...but not all at once.

The walking tour continued outside the market in the meat packing district. This area is undergoing massive transformation at the moment. It is one of the few areas of Manhattan yet to be developed, although that is changing quickly. There used to be around 150 meat packers operating within a 4-block region, but today there are just 22 remaining. Many of the others have been squeezed out by rapidly rising rents and have been replaced by apartment blocks, boutique fashion stores (including Stella McCartney) and bars and nightclubs.

It looks a little strange at the moment, as in some parts you have brand new, high-end shops and nightclubs and on the other side of the street are abandoned warehouses covered in graffiti. The three hour walking tour was excellent value and our guide was extremely knowledgeable but also pretty crazy, which made things amusing. One of the highlights was when the guide picked up one of the live lobsters in the seafood place and was telling us some interesting lobster export stats and another lobster, desperate to escape from a crate behind her, crawled over the edge and fell a few feet into another crate below - quite acrobatic.

Once the tour was over, we had a quick change of clothes and then caught the subway out to The Bronx for the baseball. We had drinks and dinner at Yankee Tavern again (a block away from the stadium) and it was just as good as the last time we were there. The menu is full of cheesy baseball puns such as the "Double Play" which is a cheeseburger and hot dog and the "Triple Play" which is a Double Play with buffalo wings. Hilarious. We had a couple of Budweisers and marvelled at the amazing collection of Yankees memorabilia decorating the walls of the bar.

Then it was game time and when we eventually found our seats at Yankee Stadium, we settled in for a very entertaining game. There was loads of action and the good guys won 13-2 (massacre). We had really good seats, low down near third base, so it was a really fun night. This is the last season that the current Yankee Stadium will be used. It was constructed in 1923 and is one of the most famous sporting venues in the world. A shiny new Yankee Stadium is well under way across the road!





Pretty
Greenwich
Village

Times
Square

Rockefeller
Centre flags

Rockefeller
Tower

Views from
the top

Megan and
Central Park

Chelsea
Market

Live lobster
in the market

Tim in

the market

Yankee
Stadium

Derek
Jeter

Yankees

fan

Lord's

Fans,

We went on a tour of Lord's cricket ground in July last year when Bernie, Margaret and Brendan were in London, but today we were back at the home of cricket for a test match! New Zealand is currently touring England and the first test started at Lord's on Thursday.

Unfortunately after two weeks of amazing weather in London, the first morning of the test was greeted with gloomy cloud and drizzle, so a lot of time in the test had been lost already. The forecast for Saturday was poor but we were hopeful of seeing some cricket.

We got to Lord's early and saw both teams warming up. It was pretty grey overhead and looked ominous, but after a slight delay, we got in the finest 9 overs of test cricket you have ever seen. England scratched around for 21 runs and the New Zealand bowlers didn't look too dangerous. Then the drizzle started up and that was the day.

But, we both had a very enjoyable day. The cricket was only part of the fun. We really enjoyed wandering around the ground, checking out the Lord's shop, the many stalls selling lollies and ice cream and the big marquee selling Pimms and champagne on the picnic lawn. We also loved watching the MCC members wandering around in their famous red and yellow ties and jackets. The atmosphere around the ground was really awesome. Everyone was in good spirits and had their bottles of champagne or wine or pints of beer.

Lord's has amazing facilities with about three toilets per spectator and even more food and beer stalls per spectator. No queues for a pint at Lord's! The selection of food is amazing too. They had fantastic gourmet pies, a barbecue, Indian food, chicken, fish n chips, all of our favourite things.

Disappointing weather and lack of cricket, but still a very fun day out!







Our favourite,
McCullum











The
Pavillion

























See, there
was some
cricket




























W G Grace

















Megs on
picnic lawn













One of many
Lord's statues
















A day of
cricket in
London...

Amsterdam Part II - Keukenhof Gardens pictures

More pictures of Keukenhof Gardens...

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Fans,

Saturday

We left London early Saturday morning (via London City Airport, which we now love and will try to fly to and from whenever possible) for sunny Amsterdam. We checked in to the Sofitel Hotel, which was amazing (definitely recommended) and we set off to explore the city.

First stop was Dam Square, which was buzzing with hundreds of people (mainly tourists) being entertained by various street performers and characters from Madame Tussaud's (Darth Vader, Batman and two Grim Reapers were all there)! Dam Square is a huge open courtyard with the imposing Koninklijk Paleis (originally built as the city's Town Hall, but occasionally used by the Dutch Royal Family for official functions) at one end, Madame Tussaud's and some shops down one side, cafes and bars down the other side and a war monument at the far end. It was pretty hot all weekend in Amsterdam, so we found some shade in a nearby cafe and had some lunch and a beer.

We enjoyed the leisurely stroll from Dam Square across the canals down to the Museum Quarter, where we visited the Van Gogh museum. When Van Gogh died in 1890, his brother Theo, an art dealer, amassed a collection of over 200 paintings and 500 drawings. These, along with over 800 letters written by Van Gogh to Theo, make up the majority of the museum's fantastic collection. The Van Gogh museum was opened in 1973.

Despite the masses of people in the museum, we both thoroughly enjoyed our visit. We are not exactly art experts, but we are both fans of Van Gogh's work. We were particularly amazed to discover that Van Gogh never really studied art but rather taught himself how to paint and draw, and at how rapid his works were produced. His entire collection of over 800 paintings and 1,000 drawings were produced in just 10 years.

The afternoon heat was countered with ice creams and a rest in the shade in Vondelpark, Amsterdam's largest public park. The park was very pretty and was full of people enjoying games, music, picnics and drinks in the shade! By this time it was definitely Beer o'clock, so we wandered back to our hotel for a beer and then hit the bars. We visited a few bars between our hotel and Dam Square, one of which was home to the worst poker machine in the world. We put some money in and pushed a few buttons and nothing happened, so we pushed some more buttons and it told us we had lost...the reels didn't even spin around!!! The crafty old Dutch saw us coming.

We then decided on St Paul's Cafe for dinner, which was very nice and the food was pretty good (except the lack of french fries that the menu had promised us). But after sitting down, we suddenly realised that we were the only heterosexual people in there...and there were a LOT of disco balls hanging from the ceiling. Interesting...

The Red Light District was another eye opener! There is a long straight street (with dozens of alleyways coming off either side) full of sex shops, strip shows and literally hundreds of parlours where working girls stand in the shop windows in their underwear attempting to entice guys inside. It is unbelievable. And the streets outside these places were packed with tourists, most of whom were not shopping, but just being nosy.

Sunday

After a later than expected start on Sunday morning, we eventually got going thanks to a brilliant breakfast from the bakery next to our hotel. We then set off for the Keukenhof Gardens, which are situated on the outskirts of Lisse, around 35km south-west of Amsterdam.

Keukenhof is an historic park covering an area of 32 hectares and is full of tulips, hyacinths, daffodils and any other spring bulbs you can think of. Aside from the floral displays in the park, there are several flower shows in various pavillions and many sculptures and works of art scattered throughout the park. Keukenhof is the largest sculpture park in the Netherlands, with 15km of footpaths, 7 million flower bulbs all planted by hand (including 4.5 million tulips in 100 different varieties) and more than 2,500 trees (including 87 different varieties). It is also the home of the largest tulip in the world, has won awards as Europe's most valued attraction, is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Netherlands and is the most photographed place in the world!!!

We spent hours wandering around the park and sitting on the grass in front of one of the ponds watching the world go by. It really is an amazing, peaceful place. We were blown away by how beautiful it was. We took about a billion photos, some of which are posted below, but not even the photos do it justice. We were kept amused several times during our trip by American tourists saying odd/stupid things in our presence, but one of the favourites was at the gardens, when we were walking down a path towards the pond and we passed an American man who said to his wife, "I think that's a building", pointing towards a building. We had to agree with him, as it was indeed a building, but why he thought to share this we will never know...

Back in Amsterdam, we were thirsty again so we checked out a few more bars. Sunday (the day before Liberation Day) was the Dutch national day of remembrance for soldiers killed in the wars. The Dutch Queen was arriving in Dam Square to lay a wreath on the war memorial, which meant that Dam Square and a number of surrounding streets were closed. This made it rather tricky trying to navigate the central city to get to our Argentine steak house for dinner, but we eventually made it!

Dinner was great - it was a while since we had had good steak! Although we were well aware of the fact that we were in Amsterdam, it was still quite bizarre (after we had finished our meals) to hear the waiter ask us if we would like "tea, coffee, marijuana?" The walk back across town to our hotel was fantastic too. It was such a warm, still evening and the sun reflecting off the canals made Amsterdam seem even more pretty than usual!

Monday

Monday was Liberation Day, a national holiday in the Netherlands to commemorate the ousting of the Nazis. We rose early and headed off to Anne Frank's House. We had been informed to get there early to avoid long queues. We got there just before it opened for the day and there was a bit of a queue but it didn't take us long to get in.

Seeing the Secret Annex where Anne and seven others hid for over two years was an amazing experience. Because of the proportions and layout of the building, visitors tend to snake through the rooms in single file, starting with the offices and warehouse which fronted the building and now contain photos, videos and momentos of the time, then finally stepping through the bookcase-hidden door and ascending up a very steep staircase to the famous hiding place. As soon as we got to the first room where Otto, Edith and Margot Frank all slept, silence fell and with the blacked out windows (as they were then) and unfurnished space, it all felt a bit ghostly. It is impressive that the administrators of the Anne Frank House have resisted the urge to overdo the message and let the place speak of the horrors of the Nazi persecution by itself.

After another great breakfast / brunch at the little bakery next to the Sofitel, we checked out and made our way to the central station, where we hopped on a canal boat cruise. The cruise took us on a relaxing one hour ride out to the harbour and then through the canals of the city.

We were shown various monuments, bridges and famous buildings along the way, but we were also lucky enough to see a seagull pecking at a dead fish floating in the canal - special times. Unfortunately Amsterdam is a bit of a toilet and with all the rubbish in the canal, we wouldn't be surprised if the fish just gave up. It was pretty hot in Amsterdam by now, so we found a cafe in Rembrandtplein (a vibrant square named after another famous Dutch artist) with some sun umbrellas out the front and we sat and watched the world go by, sipping on cold Heinekens...and we ran into Hamish Hurley (Otago uni and Russell McVeagh days) and his fiancee, who were also having a great weekend in the 'Dam.

After checking out the Magere Brug (Skinny Bridge) on the Amstel River, we slowly wandered back through the city and stopped for another drink (it was hard work alright) before grabbing our bags and heading for the airport. We had a very fast flight back to London and we were treated with a very low fly-by over London city. We could easily pick out the O2 Arena, Arsenal's Emirates Stadium (and our house...almost!), Wembley and as we went further west, we flew right over the top of Windsor Castle, almost low enough to see HM Liz sipping tea through the windows.

For more Keukenhof Gardens photos, see bonus blog entry following this one.







Koninklijk
Paleis












Canal












Vondel-
park












Keukenhof















Windmill
in
Keukenhof










































Canal














Anne Frank
House































Tim in
clogs

















Rembrandt-
plein

















Statue of
Rembrandt

Magere
Brug