Last Bite of the Big Apple

The last weekend in NY was spent in a flurry of last-minute sightseeing, plus some quintessentially NY/US experiences. On Saturday Steve took me for breakfast at a neighbourhood cafe then on a walking tour of the West Village and the trendy shopping streets of Greenwich Village. We wandered the fashionable streets of hugely expensive apartments, drooled over the foodie heaven of Dean and DeLuca and watched all the hip shoppers browsing the windows of latest fashions.

Sunday morning I took off for Harlem to the Abysssinian Baptist Church, Adam Clayton Powell’s base in the 60s and 70s, for a touch of gospel singing and Hallelujah-brother!!!!!! It felt quite brave to be venturing by subway into Harlem, but it all turned out very proper middle class. The church may have been a hotbed of political action 30 years ago, but being mentioned on the tourist websites plus the gentrification of sections of Harlem and the upward mobility of the black congregation has meant that its demographic has obviously changed. I was waiting for the 11am service, and the exiting 9am (yes – two-hour services!!!!) congregation had more fur coats, gold jewellery and designer handbags than I had seen on Fifth Avenue!!! During the 11am service, every person recognised for some reason seemed to be a professor of this, or a doctor of that, so it was hardly a walk on the wild side!!!! The choir did sing well, the minister had a wonderfully sonorous voice that made his reading of the anatomy of the heart (I kid you not!!!) sound like a Churchillian call to arms, and there were a few muted “Yeah, brother!!”s during the sermon, but the upmarket middle class congregation was certainly not about to do any waving of arms or rolling of eyes to accompany the singing!!!!!

My last bit of sightseeing was to walk out onto the Brooklyn Bridge for a final view of the NY skyline. When you have seen it so many times in movies and TV shows and everlasting Seinfelds, somehow New York seems familiar even when you first arrive – it is one of those cities that belong to the world.

The late afternoon was Superbowl Sunday, which required some buying of beer and potato chips to consume in front of the TV. There should also have been pizza to complete the correct cultural diet, but I bent the rules a bit and cooked chicken instead. Steve and I watched the game, and consumed the aforementioned beer etc., so I did my bit to fit in with the natives. Poor Anna was buried in her room as she had been for days, studying for the New York Bar exam, so she only surfaced occasionally for food and water.

Last night in town – out to JFK tomorrow, and heading home – will try to think of something hugely insightful about my travels to sign off with may last blog entry.

Cruising Fifth Avenue

No trip to NY would be complete without hitting the shops, so after a zoom through Macy’s, dodging the predatory cosmetics saleswomen, I started down Fifth Avenue with a mix of window-shopping and a few sorties into Bloomingdales and Saks and more dodging of extremely predatory cosmetics saleswomen. What is it – do I really look like I need their help that badly that they just about tackle me as I dodge past??? I suppose they must all be on commission, so you cannot walk down an aisle “Just looking, thanks” without being accosted and cajoled in a most off-putting fashion. I might actually have bought something if they had left me alone. However, more looking, then fainting at the prices on the tags achieved no purchases, so I wandered off the Avenue into St Patrick’s Cathedral during the crowded lunch-time Mass. (Rather a valuable bit of real estate, I imagine...). It is a beautiful cathedral, and seems quite a “lived-in” church with workers popping in, not like just a tourist attraction as some cathedrals can seem.

Further on down the Avenue is the wonderful New York Public Library whose Reading Room I had been told was a must-see, so that was my next stop. The Reading Room was indeed beautiful, with amazing ceilings, but the star of my visit was the amazing exhibition of mediaeval illuminated manuscripts. There were dozens of these, some religious books, some history books, map books and atlases, and all hand-decorated in exquisite colour and detail – and this is just a part of the library’s treasure trove, only on display for a few months. I snuck some photos despite the camera ban, as I just could not resist. Another of those surprising treats........

That night was dinner at Lo Scalco in Tribeca with an old friend from Auckland, Ross Collard. Two star Michelin restaurants are indeed a special treat for the country-cousin-come-to-town!!!!!

MOMA and Pooh

Setting off for the Guggenheim, Steve and I ended up at MOMA – due to the slight practicality that the Guggenheim is closed on Thursdays, but I think this serendipitous change was actually for the best, as MOMA’s collection is probably more comprehensive than the Guggenheim’s. So we set out to wander through the amazing displays of rooms full of Matisse (much prefer his sculpture to his paintings), or three different styles of Picasso all painted in the same year, or the concept of the chair executed in an incredible range of possibilities. The space of MOMA itself is also a work of art, with the enormous open atrium, and stairwells and galleries offering interesting angles and views of artworks. “Modern art” was probably not my favourite style, but MOMA presents it in interesting ways, plus the obscure squares of brown/black paint (why is THAT art?) are well compensated for by pieces of great beauty, even if I don’t understand them all. And strangely, there was almost the identical beige-brown splatter Pollock that I thought I had seen at the Met – oh well, I suppose he had to pay for the groceries too..... The design section of light fixtures and chairs etc was also surprisingly beautiful, and the outdoor sculpture courtyard had wonderful pieces of Rodin and Picasso and others that little philistine me did not recognise.

Exiting MOMA, across the street was a branch of the NY Public Library, outide which was the irresistible invitation to “Come upstairs and meet the real Winnie the Pooh.” Who could not follow this summons? So up we went, and there in a cabinet were the real original toys of Christopher Robin that inspired the books – Pooh is a Harrod’s bear given as a present to Christopher Robin when he was two years old, and all the other toys look much loved as well. So for the benefit of Julia (and, I confess, myself), we signed the publicity waiver and were allowed to photograph them through the glass!!! Quite an unexpected little highlight.

That evening we went to a stunning Broadway show called The Producers - now turned into a movie - which was extremely funny, and had something in it to offend everyone - as the show's centrepiece "Springtime with Hitler" might suggest. Imagine singing, dancing Hitler and Nazi chorus lines, with showgirls adorned with pretzels and sausages, old ladies demanding bizarre sexual favours, and you start to get the idea.

Lower Manhattan

Everyone has to do it, so the (free!!!) Staten Island Ferry trip past the Statue of Liberty was next on the list, plus sailing past our eponymous Ellis Island. The view from the ferry again brings the stark 9/11 reminder with the gap in the skyline so close to the ferry’s route, that travellers that morning must have been horrifyingly close to the unfolding scenes.

Sections of the Financial District and the adjacent City Hall buildings are now a barricaded enclave, with (rather artistic...) solid brass street barriers protecting the entrance to Wall Street, black-clad, assault rifle-toting guards on the municipal buildings, and the whole section around City Hall check-pointed and blocked off to traffic apart from buses and official vehicles. But business carries on and the nearby Century 21 outlet store, directly across from Ground Zero, is thronged with office workers looking for bargains of designer leather jackets reduced from $2000 to only $1200 alongside $5 T-shirts. (Note: I©NY T-shirts are 8 for $10 in Chinatown, and $25 each in some tourist shops!!!!!). The skyscrapers are amazing, and even more so when one I was craning at is apparently only 1/3 the height of the now-vanished Twin Towers. Strange how something that is now absent still has such an amazingly strong presence.........

Meandering Through the Met

The Metropolitan Museum was my first bite of NY’s cultural banquet – OK – no more florid metaphors!!!!! The meandering bit refers to the vast number of inter-connecting rooms at the Met which mean that despite its vast size, there is more of a feeling of wandering through a rather eccentric house made up of rooms from all sections of the globe and times in history. There are the art galleries with the usual stunning array of paintings, the Egyptian and Grecian collections, the entire reconstructed rooms from European castles and so much more that a one-day visit can only be a very tiny bite.

I also experienced a common phenomenon – that the special thing I had gone to see what not what impressed me the most, but rather some unexpected gem. The large splattery beige, black and brown Pollock was my “must see” painting, but what grabbed me was the Georgia O’Keeffe collection. I returned at the end of my wanderings to sit in front of the Black Iris painting to marvel at its wondrously sensuous effects. The other enchanting item was a “no photos” room entirely made of exquisite wood inlay. It was the study of an Italian nobleman, and every inch of the walls and floors is covered in intricate wood inlay work, often creating a trompe l’oeil effect such as a view through an open window, or cupboards and doors. The impression of such a museum is – how many years would it take me to see it properly?? I limited myself to one floor, and still only touched a fraction. Oh well, you are always supposed to leave something to go back for........

First Bite of the Apple

Being a goofy tourist isn’t actually that dumb after all. After recovering on Sunday from my travel travails, and going out to dinner with Steve and Anna at a rather lovely NY restaurant (with an NZ connection through Peter Gordon) I set out on Monday on the double-decker red tourist bus that circles Manhattan, and I most heartily recommend it. Despite looking the aforementioned goofy sitting up on top and gawping at the sights, it is actually a brilliant way to get one’s bearings and gain a brief overview of where what is and which places one wants to return to. The “uptown loop” is particularly good as it covers a route that you could never manage by yourself, weaving through the Upper West Side, circling the wonderful vistas of Central Park, into Harlem, and down the Upper East Side, with all the snippets of history and goss trivia thrown in. The Harlem history was particularly fascinating and some of its upmarket housing areas quite surprising, although we did briefly skirt the slum areas, and of course our bus did not venture into the badlands. The “downtown loop” connected with this and led us through the West and East Village, Chinatown, the Financial district and of course the still-haunting gap in the skyline of Ground Zero. Despite the vibrations of reconstruction, the crowds gathered around the perimeter still gaze in a respectful quiet at the minute-by-minute time-line attached along the wire barricade, illustrated with the still-shocking photos of that morning’s destruction of 9/11.

So thus oriented, and with my weekly subway pass and NY map, I was ready to set forth exploring.

Milano, the Heavenly Duomo, and the Airport from Hell

Defintely a mixture of heaven and hell!! Out of the mountains, and through to Milano by train, in the middle of the snowstorm that we had been desperately wanting in the mountains for the last two weeks!!&^%$#@!!*&!! Mountains in the snow may be fabulous, but big cities turn into dodgem tracks with cars and pedestrians slithering in all directions. However, the Duomo dusted by snow is actually rather magical, and the inside is as breath-taking as I had been told - also the Milanese in snow boots and cold red noses are rather less daunting. The Galleries shopping area opposite the Duomo was full of fabulous shops and clothes which no doubt at other times would have been adorning the beautiful people.

The next day getting to the airport turned into a traveller’s nightmare. The snow by now was half a metre deep on the (uncleared) sidewalks, and the taxis had all either slithered into the snowbanks or my hotel had not bribed the right taxi companies, but for whatever reason, not a taxi was to be had to get me from my hotel the six blocks to the airport bus stop. So when the going gets tough, the tough get going – down the middle of the street ( the only clear route) lugging my wheelie suitcase and lurching sideways out of the path of any oncoming traffic as the lights changed!!! 20 minutes later I staggered onto the bus, and the 40 minute trip to the airport became nearly a two hour crawl past all sorts of motorway mayhem.

Needless to say the airport was closed when I got there, and a reality TV script ensued of desperate queues at check-in counters, lines snaking in all directions, and would you believe it NO E-MAIL CONNECTION!!!!! I threw a minor hissy fit at the “Internet connection” office people who told me that they used to have one, but it broke!!!!! A kind man in a nearby queue took pity on the crazy lady, and came to my rescue with his Blackberry to e-mail Steve in NY to say I would be delayed. He even thoughtfully asked me for a secret code that Steve would know could only be me, hence a special little note added that “Oscar would love the snow”....

A delightful night followed when I discovered the useful piece of information that it is more marginally more comfortable to sleep on the carpet in front of the check-in counter than on an airport chair – in case you ever need to know to stake your claim. The next day the planes did get moving and after yet another McDonald’s airport meal in Frankfurt – my third in 24 hours- I made it to NY to meet up with Steve and Anna. We do take international travel of zooming around the globe at the flick of our credit card hugely for granted, so perhaps a little stint on the floor of Milan airport is a not-so-bad reality check.

Mountains as far as the eye can see

The Dolomites were as amazing as ever, with snow stretching in endless slopes, and my skiing varying from pretty good to ....... well..... The villages are all incredibly Heidi/Sound of Music, and there is even an Edelweiss Valley.... But much good wine was drunk, good food was eaten, and good conversation was enjoyed - the photos give a teeny taste.

Lake Garda, Cat Pee, The Dolomites and Ice Cream Snow

My last day in Vigevano was planned to be a trip to Milan, but a rail workers' strike changed our plans to a much better option as it turned out. Katy drove us to Lake Garda and the winter light on the lake with all the beautiful old hotels lining the shore was just magical. We took a boat to Isola dei Pescatori (Island of the Fishermen) which is one of the beautiful Borromeo islands in the lake. It is still the home of many traditional lake fishermen, their dozens of cats, and a pervading aroma of cat pee due to the lack of rain to wash it all away!!!! Despite this it is a beautiful place which made me wish I could paint to capture all the changing shades of light and colour on the water, the mountains and the lovely old buidings.

The next day it was off by train and bus to the Dolomites, past the towering cliffs between Verona and Trento, with teeny hillside towns and monasteries watching over the valley as the train slid through. The bus trip from Trento to Campitello is more ooh-aah territory as we passed through town after town straight out of the Tyrolean picturebooks, as this is regarded as Sud Tyrol rather than Italy by many inhabitants for whom Austrian German is the first language rather than Italian.

I have now spent a week zooming all over hundreds (quite literally) of kilometres of snowy slopes covered in ice cream snow. Alas the ice cream is becoming a bit too frozen as we need more fresh snow so I am doing my skiing early in the day while the grooming and man-made snow keeps things nice, then I go sightseeing in the afternoons. We hope to go to Bolzano on Tuesday to see the Ice Man, then it is off to Milano for a brief morning's sightseeing before heading to NY to see Steve and Anna.

Ciao and love to all.

Vigevano

Katy Hannan collected me from Milano Linate airport and has brought me to stay with her in the lovely historic town of Vigevano which is every woman's dream as the shoe capital of Italy. I have done my bit for the local economy by acquiring the obligatory minimum of two pairs of shoes from the local market. Katy's apartment is a very stylish place in a remodelled section of the walls of the ancient fort - my bed is under some very ancient looking beams, so, please, no jokes about old ruins in the same room. The inner part of the town is all cobbled streets and tantalising glimpses of courtyards through iron grille gates, plus a lovely piazza for leisurely strolling.

Tomorrow we go to Milano for a day of sightseeing, so I hope I do not feel too much like the country-cousin-came-to-town alongside the elegant Milanese women. I am pleased to hear that the scaffolding is off the front of the cathedral, so I shall have an unobstructed view of the clean and shiny version of the building's facade.

On Friday I shall be off to Campitello, where the Internet cafe is "out of action for the winter"!!!!!!!!! so my next update may be a while.

Last Days of London

The last weekend in London has been rather a blur of activity - meeting up with Mary Thoreau, the British Museum, the Lion King, and sung Latin High Mass a Westminster Cathedral - whew!!!!!

Mary (my co-author for the two books is running a language school in Spain and was in London for a conference. We met up for gossip and coffee before I hit the British Museum with K&D. We did the "Lonely Planet five must-see sights" which of course only scratches the surface, but gave us a great taster, as we oooohed at the Elgin Marbles, aaahed at the mummy collection, whizzed by the Rosetta Stone, zoomed down to the Benin Bronzes in the basement, and were suitably impressed by the splendid dome of the Reading Room.

The Lion King was a stuning performance with top-calibre performances, music, costumes and enchanting animals. The Hyenas were probably my favourite, but a surprising beautiful acrobatic ballet segment was a close second. Thank you Father Christmas and K&D for the ticket.

A change of pace for the morning saw us absorbing the beautiful choral music at Westminster Cathedral, and dredging up the forgotten memories of singing the Pater Noster along with the little postcard choir boys.

Tomorrow is dealing with the Tube strike to make my way to Gatwick and on to Milano...... Ciao .........

The O'Sullivans of Killarney

It is a miracle that Auntie Annie O'Sullivan ever made the connection with our long-lost O'Sullivan relations in Killarney as the name is everywhere in Kerry. In the space of 100 metres in the main street of Kilarney there is O'Sullivan's Bike Sales & Service, O'Sullivan the accountant, O'Sullivan Photograpy, O'Sullivan's Pharmacy, and O'Sullivan's Bike & Outdoor Shop, then at Beaufort Bridge I turned down the road to the old O'Sullivan farm, beside O'Sullivan's Foodstore................

So I found my old Irish cousin, Danny O'Sullivan who at 90 years old is still milking his 18 cows twice daily in his modern cowshed, except when they are dried off in Dec/Jan for calving - scarily he is still driving too. He is full of the Irish blarney, and despite my only understanding 1/3 of what he said because of the thick Irish brogue, he regaled me non-stop for three hours with tales of family folk-lore. His mother was a great cook apparently, and meals for 15 were no problem - often including many Republicans on the run......... As a small boy he was drilled in not telling anything to anybody, especially the Black and Tans, even an especially Irish saying, "Mister, there's not even a house where I live.." We also had a very pious cousin called James who used to come to Danny (a lifelong teetotaller) early in the evening before a visit to the pub so "I can say my Rosary now in case I'm too drunk to say it when I get home.." On the day of Danny's Confirmation he walked two miles early in the morning there and back to do his farm work, put on his best suit then walked four miles there and back for his confirmation, came home, took off the best suit and helped with the milking!! Obviously a recipe for a long healthy life...

The new house that Danny built in the 1950s stands beside the stone house that O'Sullivans lived in probably for hundreds of years - Republicans on the run and all - it is now used as a farm outbuilding and the old kitchen fireplace is used for an activity that would give Kevin the horrors. He feeds his cows silage in winter, so every few days there is a large plastic and netting cover to dispose of. Danny gave me the prime fireside seat to warm myself as he prepared his ritual. A sheet of newspaper in the fireplace was splashed with diesel from the tractor with a brush and an old paint tin - 90-year-old Danny then lit this, and when it didn't burn so well, more diesel was splashed all around. He was very pleased with himself that he was drying me off after our ramble through the muddy farmyard, while I was trying to edge myself discreetly away from the roaring flames!!!!!

However despite these activities he is a very spry fellow and wonderfully full of stories. The surrunding Kerry countryside is very beautiful and quite like New Zealand in many ways. Echoes of the past were noted in the sign outside the cathedral in the evening where there was a benefit concert for "Homeless Kerry Emigrants in England" - despite the Celtic Tiger there must still be some who fall through the cracks.

So a few Irish beers, and a quick and too-brief drive through the stunning countryside, and onto Ryanair back to London.

Squashed Rocks, Volcanoes and Dinosaurs

Today was the Natural Histroy Museum, with lots of dinosaurs, all manner of tectonic plate models, varied samples of squashed rocks (as seen here) and a huge map of the world with volcanoes flashing red - and no New Zealand!!!!! Ah well, it does stop one from getting delusions of grandeur, and thinking that everyone, especially the Brits, knows all about the home of the mighty All Blacks..........well, at least that we exist ................

Royal Opulence

Hampton Court enchanted us with its beauty and depiction of life at the time of the various Henries, William and Mary etc. History does come to life as you wander under Anne Boleyn's Gate, and down a corridor which one of Henry's wives (Catherine Howard??) is believed to haunt, as she ran down it in desperation to plead for mercy from Henry to avoid her execution, but was caught by the guards before she reached the King, and dragged back, to be ultimately beheaded!!! Puts "a bit of a domestic" in a whole new light.... It also inspired us to come home and search the Internet for little bits of history that we were vague on. Exactly why did Wolsey fall from grace, and hence lose Hampton Court to Henry???? What did happen to that Prince John who was kept hidden from the world??? (Coincidentally that was the film on BBC TV that night.)

Even in winter the gardens were stunning, but Kath and I decided to give the Maze a miss as we couldn't even figure it out on the aerial view plan outside - search parties would have been needed for us at dusk, we are so directionally challenged! The vast size and extravagance of the palace and gardens certainly remind us of the difference between the haves and have-nots of those eras, and make the mansions of Lakshmi Mittal or Bill Gates seem like summer cottages.

Happy New Year

The New Year fireworks at the London Eye certainly lived up to the "spectacular" label - great fun with all the crowds on the Embankment, and more police to the square metre than I thought possible - no doubt aimed at deterring bad behaviour from the harmless drunks or the less harmless types that London has suffered from this year. The most dangerous thing we came across was the abundance of horse poo on the roads from the wonderful police horses that calmly stood amongst the seething crowds.

Getting home was a major mission due to the Tube strike, and the decidedly strange way that the police had blocked off streets and funnelled all the crowds in one direction. This caused a rather claustrophobic jamming of everyone into confined routes, until at one stage in a narrow street leading up to the Strand I had to say to K&D that I would have to wait in a little space in front of a pub for the crush to dissipate, as I could not cope with being jammed in to such a degree. Fortunately after a while the police held the oncoming crowd back to allow the street to clear so we could get through.

Today we went to The Science Museum which is the sort of place I could imagine Kevin spending days at - there was one marvellous working model of a steam-powered factory, similar to the one powered by a steam engine on display that used to power 1700 looms by an ingenious combination of pulleys and gears - my Uncle Howard would probably just have spent his whole time staring lovingly at this one item. I felt a real museum piece myself as I watched children manipulating a model of a slide rule (as used in my high school days) as if it was from the same genre as Babbage's mechanical calculating/computing machines. Other delights were the actual lancets used by Jenner to inoculate a little boy with cowpox pus, followed by smallpox pus (where was ethical approval in those days - was the little boy even asked his opinion ????), as well as Babbage's brain!!!Tomorrow is Hampton Court .....................

Portobello Rd and Hyde Park

Today was a "neighbourhood" day, starting with wandering through the stalls of Portobello Rd. Nana's china and cutlery was heavily represented, along with every variety of beautiful and bizarre antiques. The food and vegetable stalls were rather mouth-watering, so we gathered our bag of fresh ciabatta and croissants for a leisurely lunch. Kath made sure I walked it all off afterwards with a very energetic ramble through nearby Hyde Park, starting at the ginormous Albert Memorial, then on to the more symbolic Diana memorial - I think that bit of water I am standing beside in the photo represents Camilla - a very rough patch indeed. We then came through the most expensive residential street in London - Kensington Palace Gardens - which is largely embassies, but some have now been sold off to private buyers. The one I am standing on front of is described below:

Kensington Palace Gardens is a private road running alongside Hyde Park, literally only a stones-throw away. There are just 21 buildings, most of which once served as embassies. But with cash-strapped countries starting to sell off their expensive embassy buildings, you may just get lucky, like these new residents:

- 18-19 Kensington Palace Gardens was recently sold to Indian-born steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. The price-tag was a staggering 70m pounds, making this the world's most expensive private residential home. The 12-bedroom property has enough space for 20 cars, and the building's marble was imported from the same quarry that yielded the raw material for the Taj Mahal.

Tonight we are off to the fireworks beside the London Eye................