I'm back

hello, hello, hello.

I have returned from the city of insanely tall buildings, insanely big portions and insanely good weather (for the past week, at least.)

I cannot EXPLAIN how hard it was choosing photos to put up. I've just been sitting here agonizing over the choice for about 20 minutes!!!

But...

here they are.

NYC, dahhling.

so much blossom, everywhere. spring had most definitely sprung.

the view from the top of the rockefeller centre. noice, eh?

everyone loves a bit o' warhol. At the MOMA.

now this was COOL. An art installation called 'the artist is present.' The woman in red was the artist herself, and anyone was invited to come and sit opposite her and sort of, be part of the art. She was so still, and the installation was in the museum for a month. With her there, every single day. Impressive. That's dedication for you.

More blossom. PLUS a polar bear called Gus - I was instructed by a friend back here in England to let her know whether Gus the polar bear still lived and Central Park zoo, because she used to live in NYC when she was a little kid and he was her favourite!! He was still there! Although asleep when I found him!!

I loved it, loved it, loved, loved, loved it.

For a first trip out of Europe, it was pretty damn good. Lived up to all my expectations.

We were incredibly lucky with the weather - apparently it had been raining ALL week before we arrived. But the sun shone for us, every day! Lucky, because I have a tendency to pack rather optimistically, so had a heavy suitcase pretty much full of dresses.

We climbed the rockefeller, went to the MOMA, central park & the zoo, dylan's candy bar (mmmmm), did lots of shopping in the department stores and went down to greenwich village, took the staten island ferry, spent far too much money, etc etc etc! We also, for anyone that's into this kind of thing, went to the opera at the met, which was incredible. We got upgraded to a box for only 50 DOLLARS for all four of us, so ended up sitting in seats that would have cost us 300 dollars each at full price!! We were nearly dead centre, it was awesome. We watched 'the magic flute' - They did it really well, emphasizing the slightly pantomime-like sense of the story, so it wasn't too heavy, even though the music is absolutely amazing. And they pulled off that more technical aspect too.

I suppose I was a bit skeptical, just because... I'm not sure... maybe because I figured us Brits 'do' opera better since we're.... closer to the european countries where a lot of it was written? To tell you the truth, I'm not sure where my reasoning lay. But anyway, the americans proved to me that they can do it too. (with kandoo...... no, probably not.)

So. I heart New York. Never did get me one of those T-Shirts though....