Euro 2008

Fans,

As you will probably be aware, the European Football Championships are well under way in Switzerland and Austria at the moment. We bought tickets to see France v Italy (both 2006 World Cup finalists) way back in December last year. Unfortunately, we bought the tickets off a thieving scamming company and the tickets never arrived in the post. We emailed and called them about a hundred times asking where our tickets were but we got no response. We since discovered that hundreds of people have suffered the same fate. However, we have been told that we will get a refund from Visa, so it's not all bad.

We had planned to stop in Zurich for a day to see the match on our way to Croatia (for a summer holiday). So on Tuesday morning, we left London and arrived in Zurich without tickets for the match but determined to have a good day! Zurich was packed full of football fans, which made for a great atmosphere around the city. Tim supports France in football so we joined the thousands of French fans parading their colours in the streets.

The main street that runs along the river and down to the lake was closed to traffic and was full of stalls selling food, drinks and football souvenirs. They also had a "Fan Zone" set up down by the lake, with lots of big screens and more bars and stalls. After wandering around the shops (in particular the chocolate shop!) we stopped in at some of the bars for a few drinks. They had a bar called Coyote Ugly, where the maids danced on the bar, just like in the movie!

Then we made our way to the Fan Zone to watch the game on the big screen. Unfortunately France did not play well and they lost to Italy 2-0, which meant they were eliminated from the tournament and Italy progressed to the quarter finals. We met some English fans who were quite funny. They had made the trip to Switzerland to protest at England's failure to qualify for the championships. They livened up the atmosphere a little with random chants about English striker Peter Crouch and shouts of "Come on England", which got some confused looks from the Italians around us.

After France's dismal showing, we walked / stumbled back to the hotel via the hot dog stand. On Wednesday morning we set off for 6 days in Croatia!






Tim and
cardboard
Euro trophy













Megan by
Grossmunster
















Coyote
Ugly











Ditto














Megan in the
Fan Zone


















Allez
les Bleus















Giant statues
of football
stars in Zurich
train station

Luxembourg

Greetings,

A couple of months ago, we decided that we would each choose a destination for a weekend away that would remain a surprise for the other person pretty much right up until the day of departure. Tim chose Luxembourg and on Friday night, we met after work and made our way to London City Airport. Megan had no idea where we were going until we got to the check-in counter at the airport. After a delay in leaving and a short flight, we were in Luxembourg City, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

Luxembourg is a fascinating place - it is the only Grand Duchy in the world (ruled by the Grand-Duc Henri) and it has the highest GDP per capita in the world. It is a tiny country wedged in between Belgium, Germany and France. It is just 82km long and 57km wide, making it the 175th largest of the 194 independent countries of the world. It has a population of less than half a million and three official languages - French, German and Luxembourgish, although most of the Luxembourgers also speak English.

A couple of things struck us about Luxembourg straight away - one, that it was the greenest place we had seen since Aotearoa and two, that there were very few tourists around...very refreshing. We stayed at the Parc Plaza, which we definitely recommend. It is very close to the city centre and we had a very pleasant stay there. We particularly enjoyed the complimentary full buffet breakfast each morning!

Saturday

On Saturday morning, we explored the Old Town in the city centre. There are a few squares in the Old Town, packed with cafes, bars and shops, but in the weekends, these squares are also home to all sorts of markets, music and entertainment. In the Place d'Armes, we checked out the antiques and nick-nacks at the market stalls and listened to a brass band, which was performing in the middle of the square. Megan found a bargain (antique tin) at one of the stalls! Close by is the Place de Guilliame II, the main town square of Luxembourg. This was packed with more market stalls, but this time fresh fruit and veges, fish and flowers!

After exploring some more of the shops around the Old Town, we made our way to the Place de la Constitution, home to a rather impressive war monument and more importantly, the pick-up and drop-off point for the mini "train" that was to take us on a tour of the city! The one hour ride took us through the Petrusse Valley (a beautiful big valley running down the western side of the city, full of trees, grass and garden), through the lower suburbs of Grund and Clausen and through the city centre.

After our tour, we walked down the windy path and under the impressive Adolphe Bridge through the stunning Petrusse Valley. It was so quiet and peaceful down there. And so very green! The rough part of exploring the valley was climbing the steps back up to the city afterwards. So we were definitely ready for lunch once we got to the top!

After lunch we visited the famous Casemates du Bock. In 963, Count Siegfried built a fortified castle on the Bock promontory. Over the next few centuries, as the Burgundians, Spaniards, French, Austrians and Germans took turns invading, they eventually added massive ring walls around the inner city and made Luxembourg one of the most powerful emplacements in the world, the "Gibralter of the north". Beneath the fortress was a 23km network of casemates (tunnels), which sheltered thousands of soldiers and their horses, but which also housed workshops, kitchens, bakeries and slaughter houses! In 1867, after the declaration of neutrality, the military withdrew from the fortress and the defences were demolished. However, it proved to be impossible to blow up the casemates without also demolishing part of the city, so the entrances and key connecting galleries were sealed. Today, two of the casemates remain open for tourist visits. We had a great time walking through the casemates although we were caught out by the odd dead end!

Back above ground, we wandered back through the city centre and stumbled across the Grand Ducal Palace, although there was no sign of the Grand-Duc Henri! The palace is open to the public for tours in the summer, but we were about a month early for that, so we just admired it from the outside. Next to the palace is the Clairefontaine Square, yet another pretty little square in the Old Town.

There are loads of bars and pubs in the centre of Luxembourg, so it was not hard to find a cold beer. We visited a pub called The Tube, modelled on the underground system in London, with all the same signage as you see in the London underground etc, and the ceiling was even shaped like a tunnel! We had a couple of beers in there and watched the opening game of the Euro 2008 football championships, although we were eventually scared off by the rather brash and off-the-wall Irish barmaid...next stop was the Cafe de Paris in the Place d'Armes, where we each had a fantastic steak and really good dessert! We definitely recommend eating (and drinking) here; it was ka pai. The Luxembourg beer was very nice - Bofferding seems to be the favourite!

Sunday

Sunday dawned a lot clearer and it ended up being a very hot and sunny day in the Grand Duchy! After another delightful breakfast, we went for another walk through the Petrusse Valley. There were a few joggers and cyclists about, but it was still very peaceful down there! Then we bought a newspaper and sat in the Place d'Armes enjoying the sunshine and listening to the band that was playing...it seems to be non-stop orchestra in the square on weekends!

On the western side of the city centre, there is a huge public garden, unsurprisingly called the City Garden. We lazed on the grass and finished reading the paper and walked through the gardens - the highlight of which was probably the huge adventure playground in the middle, complete with a pirate ship and giant turtles!!!

We actually needed a bit of shade after our jaunt through the gardens, so we decided to check out the Museum of History and Art. Thankfully we got the English audio guide, as there only signage was in French. The museum was quite good, although two floors were closed for renovations. The Luxembourgish art was not quite all we hoped for, although we have been spoilt with quality art of late, both in London and in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

After grabbing some lunch from a bakery in the Old Town and watching the locals do their thing, we returned to the Place de Guilliame II, where there was a Portuguese festival! We discovered during our city tour that Luxembourg has a lot of immigrants from all over Europe, many from Portugal. The festival was great - the square was packed full of people enjoying all sorts of entertainment in the form of traditional music and dancers, a bouncy castle, loads of stalls and several thousand helium balloons. It was really fun.

More shelter was required late in the afternoon, so we had a drink in a bar called Urban, which was really nice. We saw the last part of Nadal's demolition of Federer and then a bit more Euro 2008 football on TV. They do a great club sandwich in Urban, which filled a gap nicely before we headed for the airport and back to London town.

Adolphe
Bridge














Place de la
Constitution

















Clock Tower



















Our
"train"










Casemates
du Bock













Inside the
Casemates

















Grand
Ducal
Palace








Claire-
fontaine
Square














Petrusse
Valley











Megs in
the Valley

















Adolphe
Bridge















Crazy statue
in city































Giant turtle
in City
Garden













Tim in
City
Garden












Megs in
Place de
Guilliame
II












Portuguese
festival

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