New York City

After months of backpacking to places where we knew no one and nothing much, it was exciting to be landing in the States to spend some time with our families here.

First stop NYC. We have stayed in NYC for 2.5 weeks with May's uncle and au

nty in Great Neck - the place that was the inspiration for Great Gatsby, and since WW2 has had a large Jewish population. It's easier to find Challah here on a Friday than it is to find a taxi. Rodica and Adi, Barbara & Vincent and everyone were really welcoming, hospitable and generous and we felt right at home. We loved playing with baby Rebecca and hanging out with Alan, Kelly and their kids.  we even got to put our Romanian to use, though after 5 months in South America we would slip into Spanish by accident every once in a while.

 

 

 

 

We had a ball celebrating May's cousin,  Barbara's wedding to Vincent. The wedding was at a beautiful house and garden in Westchester, upstate New York, overlooking the Hudson River. We watched the sun set over the water to the sound of Barbara and Vincent exchanging vows, with baby Rebecca happily watching on in their arms. Everyone was really friendly and fun; we shared cigars with the groomsmen, danced with new found friends and their kiddies, met more family and friends, and Sam was pulled aside to be told by Dede that he had the best dance moves. After meeting us at the rehearsal dinner one of Vincent's cousins very thoughtfully made us a DVD of two old 1930s Australian films that he liked.



We expected that all the clothes shops in the US would be cheaper than in Australia, but they totally weren't, other then our favourite find: Second Time Around, a consignment store chain. We did have fun in some of the over the top  touristic stores in Times Square though like the  M&Ms store, Hershey store, Disney store. A little off the beaten track we found Thompson St just next to  Soho, where we spent a while playing board games at the Uncommons,  and visiting the chess and checkers store.













 





 

Also Orchard St in Lower East Side where there was very edgy art and fashion stores, including one with a full bar, and a drink special for "waiting boyfriends": a shot of whiskey and a beer, with the Godfather movie playing on a projector. 



We explored the newer trendy areas  in Long Island City and Williamsburg a bit too, which were awesome though not as lively as Manhattan. We visited a very hip rooftop garden (featured in several gardening blogs etc), but it turned out not to be a community garden, but a for-profit place and smaller than it looked in the photos.












To further our education we decided to visit a bunch of museums - our favourite was the Met (which definitely needs multiple days!), and the Jewish Heritage Museum. The Natural History Museum was interesting, but unexpectedly confronting because it is full of stuffed dead animals "collected" in the 1930s standing in lifelike poses, including a herd of elephants. MOMA and the Guggenheim were interesting, the 9/11 memorial is moving, Intrepid was awesome, and the really surprisingly fun museum was the Paley Centre, which is an archive of old TV and radio broadcasts you can search through; like a curated Youtube. We watched the live broadcast of the first steps on the moon, listened to WW2 radio broadcasts, the original coverage of the twin towers being attacked, then lightened up a bit with Conan O'Brien and Sex in the City.





 

Some of the places we enjoyed the most were a bit off the beaten track - we went three times to see local stand up comedy at the Stand, in Gramercy. Nearby is Union Square, another favourite place because it is always busy with interesting things like demonstrations, street theatre, picnickers, farmers markets, and winner takes all chess. We also visited the Brooklyn Tabernacle for a Sunday service, a huge Methodist church in downtown Brooklyn. They have a congregation of 12,000 and a Grammy award-winning gospel choir. It's a very moving service, and people really do stand up spontaneously in their places and praise the Lord.



Central Park is really beautiful, and surprisingly so given it was totally dodgy in the 60s, and it seems that most of the money used for its restoration came from wealthy donors like Donald Trump, who have collectively put in $800m since the 70s to make it beautiful. Even the suburban gardens in Great Neck are amazing, with beautiful old elms, oaks, maples and plane trees everywhere and large forested parks and wetlands here and there throughout.







 

Because we stayed outside the city, every day we caught the train and subway - compared to other places it was easy, safe and rarely crowded, so it was a breeze. Bizarrely you can buy beer on the train platform to drink on the way home, we called it the Long Island Rail Roadie.

We were very excited to try some of the street food in NYC - the best was bagels and pizza. Best coffee was at Starbucks; all the trendy places make really sour coffee, perhaps because they always drink with milk or water not as espressos. Best burger was also at a chain: Bareburger, which makes  organic & sustainable beef, turkey, bison, elk burgers, with myriad options for bun, salad, cheese, sauce, everything. Turkey bacon is also as good as we always hoped it to be: why can't we get this in Australia?





Other favourite NYC food: Peking duck, Texan barbeque, popcorn specialists "pop karma" on Orchard St, magnolia bakery, gyoza in Chinatown, meatballs in Little Italy