Haha, I'm in New York and you're not

As promised, a little late but an exciting update of a whirlwind tour of NYC. A few months ago a friend from NZ told me she'd be in New York this weekend so I took two days off work and booked my bus ticket (overnight bus, 10 hours, $90 return). The title is not entirely accurate any more but it was true when I started writing.
Wednesday night I got on a bus at 10pm and had an as-good-as-can-be trip other than the two hour delay... Met Jo at 10am outside our hostel and started our ambitious weekend.
Our hostel (Gershwin Hotel, $55 a night for a dorm room) was very conveniently located at 27th and 5th so right in central midtown. We started with a walk south through Soho, Little Italy, Chinatown, Tribeca and all the way to Wall St (and Century 21. Fun discount shopping!) Then a subway ride uptown to hit Times Square for the first of many times.
We knew we wanted to see a show so we joined the discount queue for tickets deciding to see Chicago or Jersey Boys. For a variety of reasons we ended us at Jersey Boys, which was so much fun. It's the story of The Four Seasons, which I knew nothing about and didn't realize how many of their songs I knew. Very well done with really stunning performances -- we laughed, we cried, we eavesdropped on other tourists ("We were in Times Square and saw more people than we thought lived on the planet." - Woman From Small Town I Guess.)
Friday morning we got a late-ish start because Jo had to sort some stuff out for part two of her trip. Then it was the walking tour of New York buildings. We saw the library, with an exhibition on the development of food carts in NY, Grand Central Station, Chrysler Building, Tiffany and Co... Basically we walked all the way up 5th Ave to Central Park. Then we had The Most Fun by renting bikes and cycling all the way around this enormous park, with a detour to see the Guggenheim.
Also, in case you ever travel with me in the future, don't put me in the lead in a place without easy landmarks. I took us the wrong way twice. Jo is much more trustworthy, except in subways.
By then it was about 5pm and we wanted to have a big night out so we headed back to our hostel to get all dressed up, via Time Square for some food.
Consulting online and Lonely Planet saw us visit the gamut of types of bars from Desmond's Tavern, where the drinks are cheap and generously poured, to Vu Bar, drinking lychee martinis on a roof with a view if the lit up Empire State Building. We had a couple drinks bought for us there, which is always nice. Our final stop was Cake Shop, a hole in the wall hipster bar with a dark dirty feel. And I saw a rat in the subway on one trip between bars so there's another authentic NY experience!
Saturday was my last day and we had Big Plans. Out by 9am, we went straight to the bottom of Manhattan to take the Staten Island Ferry part the Statue of Liberty, ticking another tourist box. Then a walk up to the Brooklyn Bridge, through a neat little cobblestone area. The bridge is under repair so big metal fences mar our photos but it was still pretty and interesting. Did you know 20 people died during its construction, including the designer, who fell off a pier while scouting locations and got tetanus (which I thought was from rusty metal so that shows my ignorance I guess).
Then a ride uptown to Moma! I love modern art so it's one of my favourites and it was a pleasure to visit again. Last time I was there a friend from high school called out my name - neither of us even knew the other was in the city so it was crazy to meet on the escalators. If it was a movie we'd have fallen in love but instead he took my picture in front of a Pollack, I flew home the next day and he got appendicitis. Always travel with insurance, kids.
We grabbed a hot dog (NY experience #51 complete) and headed to the hostel for the last time to collect our bags. Then we headed to the High Line, which is this neat reclaimed old elevated railway line, now a pathway along the west of midtown. We sat there and ate donuts and people watched for a while before deciding our last hour together would be best spent drinking tea and relaxing. It was a bit of a hunt to find a cafe but we made it in the end, had giant cups of tea and just enjoyed each other's company. All too soon it was time to leave. I hated saying goodbye but unfortunately my bus wasn't going to wait for me and Jo had to go sort out her new accommodation.
Bus home was uneventful, although the 4am customs stop was painful. Now I'm home and only need about 20 hours of sleep to recover!
Hope you enjoyed The Amazing Adventures of Williams and Nobes. See you next time when Taking Toronto returns to Toronto.

Oops

Long time no post, eh. Many family members have taken time to pester me but, hey, I've been busy...
I've done a lot in the last few weeks so to highlight reel:

Fan Expo (Toronto's answer to comicon) was a lot of fun and I got to see James Marsters, Alan Tudyk, Juliet Landau, Julie Benz and John Barrow.

Labour weekend I caught up with lots of people, saw a show at absolute comedy, made two trips to Toronto Island and had an all round excellent time :) Work has been manic since then because I have two short weeks in a row so I have to do ten days work in 6 1/2 days... Not so clever.

This Friday I did a Haunted Tour of Toronto and learned that I live across the road from the biggest unmarked mass grave in Toronto. They dumped a bunch of cholera victims in the area because at the time it was already consecrated ground thanks to the cathedral. The tour was fun, but also sad because it turns out every ghost story has to start with someone dying. The ghost stories themselves were funny, but when each starts with "After his wife and child died he threw himself into a well" or "The fire on the ship killed more than 100 peope..." or "Her lover left her so she shot herself". Not as funny when there's a tragic story to match.

This week I'm headed to New York so expect a delayed update, but probably a big one. Any suggestions are welcome - I've been before but am meeting a friend from NZ so we'll see different things and stay in a different place. I'm taking a bag that's twice as big as I need so I can shop while I'm there!

What I'm reading: Alligator, by Lisa Moore. It's okay but not great, set in Newfoundland which is fun.

Just finished The Anansi Boys, which follows on from American Gods and was a lot of fun. I really can't recommend Neil Gaiman enough :)

Busy like a beaver or a bee or some other alliterative animal

I have my first weekend home in four weeks to look forward to, and all I think I want to do is sleep! Not the exciting life you want to hear about, I know, but man… I’ve been out of the apartment every day this week from 8am to 10 or 11pm and that’s not changing tonight.

Tuesday was the amazing double feature of The Princess Bride and Labyrinth at Yonge-Dundas Square. Such a good pairing – I want to marry whoever came up with it. We had a pretty good turn out too, especially for the first movie. And tonight is “The Ex” – junk food, rides and sideshows galore I guess. I’ll eat fried food til I’m sick and try to win a giant stuffed bear ;) Tomorrow I’m hosting a par-tay for a friend’s birthday and Sunday I am sleeping. All day. And not doing anything else (except all those errands I have to do).

This week’s book review is Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris.

It’s a few years old, and well worth reading, especially if you like books written in unusual ways. This one’s gimmick is that it’s all in first person plural – we ate lunch, we asked questions. It would remain just a gimmick if the story wasn’t also fun and compelling. If you’ve ever worked in an office it will probably resonate a little too strongly. How often do you get home and say things like “Our coffee machine broke today so we were all a bit frustrated.” Or “Today was great, we got free pizza!” – Ferris calls it the “corporate we”.

The story revolves around a group of office workers in an ad agency with the threat of layoffs looming over them. With endless gossip (some true, some false), a few tragedies and a bit of farce, Then We Came to the End was a really fun read. There are inept guards, fired staff coming back to steal chairs, a giant totem pole and endless pranks. I wish my office was this funny, but am relieved it’s not this dysfunctional!

On another note, I’ve started watching season 2 of Treme so I have two shows I’m working my way through (The Newsroom is the other) and will soon add the NZ series The Almighty Johnsons to that list, as soon as I buy a DVD player ;) Treme, set in the area of that name in New Orleans, has a lot of the alumni from The Wire and is about musicians finding their feet after Katrina. It’s moving, musical and a really beautiful look at a broken city. It hits a little too close to home sometimes as parallels to Christchurch come up, but I would highly recommend it to any of you.

Another week another long weekend (late!)

[I accidentally posted this in my travel blog so was confused about why it wasn't showing up online... fixed it now! Enjoy this late news.]

Through no specific planning and a series of excellent coincidences I have three long weekends in a row. Count'em! Three! And I've gotten outta the city for all of them because that's what us city dwellers do - escape the concrete canyons for a few days so we can say things like "Yeah it's pretty, but what would you do all day?" (I have said that at least four times in the last two weeks and plan to say it at least once in the next two days...)

So I don't have a lot of Toronto updates - the weather's been rubbish, I've been working hard and leaving lots.

I'm headed to the Niagara region this weekend which is where the wine is made - it can't possibly compare to the Hawke's Bay syrah (can you mail that to me or is that illegal?) but it's always nice to do a wine tour - especially if you're not the driver.

On the books front I've been on a bit of a thriller binge (Tess Gerritson - so good/so creepy) which is fun but bad news for my mental health. The other day I went to hang up my towel and had to pull the shower curtain back to make sure no one was there. Last night there was a thunderstorm and I woke up thinking it was camera flashes and that someone was in my room. So I should find some kind of calm, peaceful, happy books. Boring books, in other words ;)

I would like to highly recommend Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce series as a sort of nostalgic but still gripping murder mystery series set in the 1930s. Featuring 11-year-old Flavia solving murders through her in-depth knowledge of chemistry, ability to disarm even the most suspicious villager, and keen skills of observation. And her unwaivering ability to get kidnapped. The first book is called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, the second is The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Purse.

Next week is Movie Week (Labyrinth, Princess Bride and Singing in the Rain are all playing in the city - it's like someone was inside my head...), then Party Weekend (a friend's birthday party being hosted on my roof), then "The Ex" (some kind of festival/party/something in Toronto - like Show Weekend I guess). So it's a busy time in and out of the city :)

Peace out.

Hillside and holidays

Guess what I didn't do today? Something that most of you suckers had to do on Friday, that I got to skip... That's right, long weekend for me this week!
The event that inspired the day off is a music festival called Hillside which is on an island on a lake about an hour from toronto. Today was just the evening but I already saw a few great acts including one I would highly recommend - a singer called Maylee Todd. Very hip, very fun, reminded me a bit of Pink Martini.
Two more full days to go, plus fun stuff like workshops, drum circles and really good food.
Out was a quiet week for me, although work was busy and promises to be the same next week, too. Without it being entirely intentional I managed to line up three long weekends in a row so it's looking like a nice way to end the summer.
Now I really need to sleep or I won't make it through tomorrow's line up!

On Pulitzer Prize winners and Baseball

Well, another week, another missed deadline – story of my life. Maybe it’s because I have too many deadlines in my job! (Good excuse, I’ll keep using it.)

This week I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which was fantastic.  I only realised after finishing it that it won a Pulitzer prize (well deserved). I’ve read quite a few Pulitzer prize winners and I think I’m going to hunt down some more because I’ve really loved all the ones I’ve read. They seem to pick stories that are unusual, told in a creative way and are on a topic that’s a bit off the beaten path.

Recommendations from the Pulitzer Prize list:

2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

2006: March by Geraldine Brooks

2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

2011: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Also, The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, was a runner up.

I went to the baseball yesterday and now I have an interesting and important debate for you all to think about. This morning I said to my colleague “I went to the baseball yesterday.” And he said unless I went to a baseball, I had to specify that I went to the baseball game. I’m 100% certain that in NZ we would say “I’m going to the rugby” (or cricket). Now, just because rugby and cricket don’t include the word “ball” in their name doesn’t, to me, make them different to the rest of the sports. The name of the sport is baseball. You would say “I play baseball”, “I like baseball”, “Baseball is a waste of time and money.”

So that’s my rant/query. What’s the difference between the word rugby and the word baseball that I can’t use them in the same way?

Birthdays that never end

Happy weekend! This weekend I'm in Hamilton to visit some fam damily, hence the slight lateness of this post.

Last weekend was a busy one. I had birthday drinks on Saturday - very low key and fun. Almost all my favourite people made it :)

Sunday was the Pride Parade. Toronto's Pride fest is one of the biggest in the world and it went for almost 3 hours! It was great to see do many people able to wear their private face in public with total acceptance. Our mayor didn't make it (shock) and there wasn't a float or even a rep from the conservative party but it was great to see groups such as churches and the armed forces out.

That night we tried to go see the Canada Day fireworks but managed to miss them, BUT lots of people were at the beach setting off their own so we still got a show. Went to Cherry Beach on Monday, which is not nearly so nice as the island but is loads better than no beach.

Thursday was my birthday so we got cake at work and I had drinks with some friends that night. Call from NZ, package from China... Not a bad time I guess. Of course I'm skipping right over the fact that my birthday gift from NZ got sent back and I had to make three calls before the China one got me...

Be the donut, not the hole, my friends.

Written on my phone so feel free to mock any bizarre errors.