New York City

This morning I awoke to the sound of workmen outside my window. Freddie and Jack are having a paved walkway put in to take clients around the back where they have a home office. One workman was speaking in English, another was speaking with a strong Spanish accent, and the other was speaking entirely in Spanish. Somehow they were all communicating to each other perfectly. It made me think of the diversity of cultures here in the US. And one of the most diverse cities is of course New York.



Something I had not known, is that New York City was originally founded by the Dutch East India Company. It was called New Amsterdam back then. It was taken by force I believe, and renamed New York.

It is an impressive city by any measure. Incredibly dense, with amazing buildings on every corner. We saw the city from the top of some of those buildings, The empire state building of course, and the Rockefeller centre, which I thought was an even more impressive view.

But first things first, we were visiting Shana and her husband to be Sean, who live in brooklyn. We navigated the city to Shana's workplace, grabbed the key and then found our way to their house where we faced a different challenge. Two of the cutest puppy dogs you've ever seen, and they needed to go walkies.

We stayed with Shana and Sean for 4 nights, and really enjoyed our stay, they are a fun couple even while stressed out with last minute wedding preparations. Each day we took the metro into Manhattan, it's ridiculously easy to get around there.

We did a tour of radio city, a crazy Art Deco theatre, and saw the Rockettes rehearsing. We found out all about the Rockefeller Centre. Rockefeller senior was this ruthless business man, and Rockefeller Junior was a philanthropist, who married the party girl of the era. Together they spent all of the money Senior was making on impressive buildings, with amazing and sometimes politically inappropriate art works. The results are several blocks of amazing buildings.

We saw a broadway muscial, which was excellent. Broadway and time square make quiet a site if you havn't seen it. We spent a day walking around central park, which I think is an incredible place. 222 acres of park land right in the middle of the island. And 85% of the park is privately funded.

Our only regret is that we didn't get to see the statue of liberty. To go to the crown you need to book around 3 months in advance. But fortunately we will be back to the big apple before we come home, and will have time to go to see it at least if not climb to the crown.

Our time in New York went by quickly, and before we knew it we were jumping on a bus to take us to Washington DC...