I give you Paris

Some piccies while we wait for the train in Copenhagen:

Eiffel Tower:





Notre Dame:



Mona Lisa



Napoleon Apartments at The Louvre

To expand on the previous nights dinner

As I wait here for Danica to go and buy some shoes ;)


The dinner the other night was had here at the Capitol, it is the only restaurant within a hotel to have two Michelin stars. You can see pretty much was was on the menu here.

All up it ended being about 5 courses.
A soup pre-appetiser.
The appetiser.
The main.
Desert.
Chocolates.

I took a leap and had Pigeon for my main as it was recommended by the waiter man and it was amazing! It looked rather rare but felt cooked, the texture was like a finer roo (if you have had it) and the taste was about as strong as roo as well.


Also of note, at least for me, was the inclusion of 59 whiskeys at the bar.
59!
(Of course that includes the lesser bourbon whiskeys, but still!)

They had bottles from Speyside, Lowlands, Highlands, Islay, Islands and everywhere in between. The most expensive was a bottle of Farclas 1959, a single serve (about 50ml here) was 89 pounds - or just shy of $200. I was sorely tempted to try it, but that crossed the path into insanity so I just tried the 'cheaper' stuff (ie under 20 pounds).


Needless to say I have a number of leads for my next bottle of premium scotch.

I have to be honest...

London is not thrilling me. Bar the hotel, the service here is terrible. Any store or cafe we have been in to around here has been horribly lacking in service.

I sort of get the feeling London is a lot like Sydney except everything is triple the price.

That complaint aside, we had a lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant last night. There was a gent next to us who was dining by himself and whom we eventually struck up a conversation with about the food and what not (since he seemed to be a bit of a regular there). Lovely chap... He dropped by our table in the bar later in the night with a box of the chocolates they served us in the restaurant after dessert. I think he has been the only non hotel staff person to be nice to us here.

Saw the changing of the guard this morning. Not terribly exciting but nice to watch.

I havent taken many pictures here because quite honestly there hasnt been much thats caught my interest. After Paris, this all seems very drab.

Yes, we are still alive! Just barely...

Paris was non stop, but so SO lovely. The people were so polite and friendly, the hotel was great, food was great, sites were to die for. Nothing to complain about really, and all over far too soon.

We are in London now, and getting ready to head out for the day.

I have over 300 photos from Paris, so I wont be doing a big photo post ;) When I get a spare moment later tonight I will post a couple to keep y'all convinced I am actually overseas and not hiding under my bed.

Photos from the Statue of Liberty and one of our last days in New York, as promised.

Despite the cold, I think Mark has discovered a new hidden talent. He has quite the knack for getting in frame when you least expect it**.

Now some of you might recognise this sculpture:



It used to stand in the WTC forecourt, and is probably most remembered as the sculpture that is blown off it stand and rolled into a Starbucks in the movie Fight Club. Welly... When they were cleaning up after the whole mess they unearthed it, and it now stands at Battery Park as a permanent memorial to the people it saved who where miraculously sheltered inside its massive hollow brass innards. Its hard to see, but the whole top of the globe is ripped right open.

This is the Manhattan skyline as seen from Liberty Island. In the closer picture you can see the shadows of the buildings that used to be there but had to be demolished because of structural damage after the WTC collapsed. You cant see it in the photo, but the old Doiche Bank building is still standing - shrink wrapped in scaffolding and warning signs, waiting for someone to tear it down. Must be an insurance problem or something. I wondered if maybe all the belongings of people that had to evacuate so suddenly were still inside. After all, no one has been back in there since.





This is the only picture I could get of a church we saw on our Ho-Ho tour around Uptown NYC. Its been in the making for over 150 years and still has another 50 to go. It was so huge! I think the tour guide said something about it being the 3rd largest church in the world or something like that.



Ducks! Since y'all are probably sick of squirrels.



Central Park and things in Central Park (including me on a pile of mucky old snow - that was the ONLY snow we saw despite the weather):













Liberty Striding Forward:





** Most pictures staged

A few observations about NYC

It was cold, the coldest place I have been to, the other morning it was -11 with wind chill, the puddles from the previous days rain were frozen (which provided a difficulty for Danica at times!), we bought a bottle of drink, left it in a bag that we had with us, and at the end of the day it was still cold enough to just drink.
It was just all round freaking cold.
Luckily the next few places are all a lot warmer - comparatively.

So;

• Their streets and pavements are awful. If Sydneysiders get a major pothole they complain and it gets fixed. Here it is like the dirt roads of back home sprayed black to simulate tar and then put to use.
• If New Yorkers came to Sydney and tried to walk around like they do here, they would most likely be in the hospital within half an hour of leaving their hotels. People here just walk out, and the drivers are surprisingly tolerant. Pedestrians seem to have a lot more right of way here then they do in Sydney.
• The indicator lights of cars are integrated into the stop/parking lights. So you don't have a separate indicator, your brake light just blinks, which makes things hard to gauge. Mind you, they actual use of indicators seems to be a voluntary thing with the drivers.
• New Yorkers are very polite, in fact I think it is most Americans. They always say 'excuse me', hold the doors/lifts and so on. This is one stereotype that the movies got wrong - the whole arrogant, "get outa my way" thing.

That's about all I can think of for now. Maybe more after another flight (oh yay).

And here is another picture of a squirrel.

Because everyone loves squirrels.

Update while waiting for planes

We're currently waiting for our flight to Paris. We got here fairly early in case the lines were long and security tight but it wasnt as bad we had anticipated. My biggest gripe (with the security) is that they dont tell you what is going on. Its always just "Please stand over here Miss" or "Hold on a second" while the security guard walks off and leaves you sitting confined in your own special little area to go speak with someone in hushed tones. I don't like it.

Anyhow... Monday night - Saw Avenue Q at the John Globe Theatre. It was most excellent. Many thanks to Robert (aka Killer) for the recommendation. Basically it is a rather tongue in cheek take on Sesame Street with puppets and singing included but, as you would expect from a childrens show parody, is full of bad language, adult themes and sex.

Tuesday we went and did the tourist thing and saw the Statue of Liberty, floated past Ellis Island but didnt actually go see it, the former WTC site, and took a big bus ride around downtown on a hop-on-hop-off tour. The photos are on my camera though, so a picture update will come when we are in Paris.

Wednesday we did the bus thing around uptown, went to the Museum of Modern Art (which was dissapointing because their Dali was out on loan) and did a bit more wandering about on our own. Later that night we went to a restaurant called wd50 which was pretty tasty. Their menu is a weird science of tastes and textures. After that we stepped outside to see the eclipse, then went to the top of the Rockerfeller Centre for a beautiful night time view of the city.

This morning we went to the Museum of Sex, dropped off in a few more stores, then got our frozen butts to the airport.

All in all NYC has been very good to us. People have been friendly, the accommodation was great (after we moved hotels) and the sights and sounds were all worth traveling for. Saying that, its not unlike other cities. Its just a lot bigger than our own and hence the mysticism. The food hasnt been exceptional, but what meals we did have were fair to good in quality. wd50 was excellent.

So... See you in Paris!

It's cold

-6 to be accurate.

Update time!

OK. We have been super busy and tired thus explaining the lack of updates. So this will be a big one.

Friday - Explored and then met up with Tammy (HazMatts lady) at a Yakitori restaurant in St Marks Place called Oh-Taisho. We had to wait to get in (as seems to be the trend with restaurants around here) but it was worth it. The food was very yummy. Then we went to some Irish pub around the corner for a drink before battling it out for a cab home. It was freezing!

Saturday - Mostly we kicked about the hotel room as we were both feeling a little under the weather. Met up with Tammy again in the afternoon and then did some more wandering about and flirted with the idea of shopping and Central Park. It got a bit dark a bit quickly through and retreat was declared.

Sunday - 5th Ave and Madison Ave were set firmly in my sights and so it was declared we would spend a day walking around throwing cash at people. Got some new gloves and a new scarf from Burberry. Was a little disapointed with the stock in Chanel and LV. Tiffany's is massive here too. And crowded! I couldnt believe how busy it was.

In the evening we went to a theme restaurant called Jekyl and Hydes downtown. Basically it was a horror theme place, with every b grade prop you could ever hope for stuck to the walls, entertainment included. Naturally, our dear hero was picked for an interactive challenge during the evening involving a sphynx and his jealousy of Mark's goatee.

Pictures here:







And this was the steaming drain system outside:



Monday - More shopping! This time downtown in SoHo area. Much, much different to the Broadway area.

We also swung by the Rockerfeller Centre. Its quite pretty at night time. :)





We visited the Statue of Liberty today, but more on that later. Too tired!

History and such

Well, Kosovo declared independence today. And what a fuss was made over here in NYC! All day there have been crowds of people with flags and whistles running around, convoys of cars with people and flags hanging out every window while their horns blare. It was really cool (if not slightly confusing as we had no idea at the time why on earth this was all going on) to see.

Tomorrow is Presidents Day. So there are sales on all over. It is going to be awesome.

Pictures!

Figured we should post some pictures! Haven't taken many yet as we have been doing more walking than we have sightseeing (and perhaps more sleeping than walking).

Our hotel is right near Times Square on 42nd Street. Ze view from our room:





And this is the view on the corner:




We went for a bit of a wander and found this really cool tree sculpture thing in Madison Square Park:



And there were a bunch of squirrels running around. Too fast to catch pictures close up but we managed a quick snap of this one that sat still for all of 2 seconds:




There ya go!

Some place a little more like home

Well, we moved hotels this morning and are much, MUCH happier.

Also had our first "Are you an Aussie, we're Aussie too!" moment while checking out this morning. Its funny, I never thought I had that bad an accent but more than one person has already pointed it out. Finally. Cultural identity ;)

I forgot to add - on headphones and adapters

The crappy headphones you get on the plane can be hacked apart to make an adapter so you can use your better headphones.
(Note to self - buy headphone adapter)


But then on the fipside, why go to all that trouble to hack an existing standard like the 3.5mm stereo jack?
Bah!



While we were just sleeping we managed to reboook a hotel - we are now at the Times Square Hilton, which is HEAPS better and just a small increase on the price.



Now to sleep some more.

Hello New York!

Some initial observations;

• Babies + planes = bad
• Two long haul flights and multiple time zone confusion = much sleepiness
• It's really cold when you are 11.5km's up (-59 C cold)
• Steam really does come out of holes in the pavement in NY!
• And they have cops stationed outside Macca's, maybe they were just waiting to pickup dinner....
  

The flights were good, mostly. I got pulled aside to be explosives tested and Danica got bag searched, both before we even left Sydney. We specified vegetarian food so we were always the first to be fed and it was really nice as well.
No major delays with our flights, but a few less than ideal seat mates.

Our current hotel at the Paramount is, well, crap.
It's about 3 x 3. A dinky, hard little double bed. The fridge is locked.
But the killer is there is NO sound proofing. And we are about a block away from Times Square, so it is super noisy (and the steam heater is making noises too).
We are looking to find a new hotel tonight/tomorrow (NY time - it's now just 20:20).


Despite the rough start, it is Valentine's Day, and I couldn't have hoped for better company both today and on the trip :)


But now, to sleep....hopefully.