Tag Archives: food

Fond Farewells, New York, May 2012

17 May

Still catching up with adventures from the last couple of weeks… eeep! 🙂

Big Booty Bread!
Chelsea, New York, May 2012

Wednesday May 2nd – Charlie and I rose fairly early – our last morning together before his holiday ends, and before the next stage of my adventure begins. I felt a bit sad that my trusty travel buddy was heading off, but also excited at the idea of spending the next couple of months in New York. I thought that we should finish as we had started – with a giant foodfest! Huddling against the rain, we made for the Comfort Diner, one of my favourite hangouts the last time I was in New York. Sweet potato fries with maple dip (or blue cheese dip, as was my preference)… yum! Sadly, as we approached, I realised that the damn place had closed down… HOW DARE THEY!!!! This left us with the difficult task of choosing one of the many, many other good food places in the immediate area of the hotel. Before doing that, though, we paid a visit to the Flatiron building, which was just a stone’s throw from the old site of the diner. An iconic skyscraper, it was finished in 1902 – fairly early in the high-rise annals of New York. It is wedge-shaped and highly impressive – unusual and beautiful. Sadly, it lost a bit of its lustre in the rain, but I still love the way that it looks like a different building from every angle; sometimes thin as a sliver, and sometimes like a normal square until you round the corner and go, ‘Woah!’

We went back along 23rd Street and paid a visit to the infamous Hotel Chelsea, where Sid Vicious killed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, and where numerous literati and famous folk laid their heads. Stanley Kubrick, Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain, Dylan Thomas, Leonard Cohen, Jean-Paul Sartre, Dennis Hopper, Iggy Pop… the list goes on. Sadly, the Hotel recently closed its doors to guests… there is apparently a handful of permanent residents still living there, but some random investment firm (Japanese? I can’t remember) bought it and has plans for its redevelopment… yikes.

After bumbling around the neighbourhood indecisively, getting more and more hungry, we eventually stopped for breakfast in another of my old haunts – the New Venus Cafe on 8th Avenue. I remember once having great waffles with bacon here, so that’s what we ordered. Sadly, after waiting a wee while, the waitress informed us that despite numerous attempts, the waffle machine was chucking a tanty and would not be serving us today… would pancakes do? Yes, they would! And so instead of yummy waffles with bacon, we ate yummy pancakes with bacon. 🙂

We went back to the hotel room and Charlie packed his last few things, and then we went to the lobby of the hotel to wait for the airport shuttle to come and get him. I think we both got a little bit tense, as the shuttle seemed to take forever getting there and in the end was fairly late… we had left a very large window of time for him to get to the airport, but things like that can still put you on edge because you never know if the van will actually turn up or not! Happily, the van eventually came… although sadly, its arrival meant the end of our adventure together. Charlie got into the van, and that was that. I was alone in New York, and he was on his way home to England. Goodbye Charlie – see you sometime in the not-too-distant future, I hope!

I had granted myself one more night in the hotel by myself. The next day, I would (for budget reasons) be moving into a youth hostel and I knew that sleeping in a dorm room is usually a pain in the ass, so I had decided to give myself this one night as a sort of break between one stage and the next. It was the smartest thing I could have done; I had a great evening of doing absolutely nothing, and I had a great night’s sleep, and it turned out to be a godsend as my time in the hostel was very busy and almost sleep-free, for numerous reasons.

After saying goodbye to Charlie I made a pitstop at the fantastic Garden of Eden Gourmet (not the last one for this trip by a long shot), and picked up a packet of Kettle Chips, a tub of hummus with cilantro (that’s coriander for those of you who speak my language!) and a box of chocolate-covered graham crackers (god’s gift to the universe, in my humble opinion). I then went back to the hotel room and built a nest. I caught up with my reading, I nibbled on my snacks, I wrote an entry or two for this blog, and I got into my New York guide books. I turned on the TV and watched a bunch of stuff I would never normally watch. First I watched the movie adaptation of Phantom of the Opera, starring Gerard Butler as the Phantom… who would’ve picked him as the a sparkling, buff King Leonidas after that? I guiltily admit having enjoyed this campy musical… although, gosh, her boyfriend/husband was a bit of a wimpy sort. Even with the mangled face and murderous drive, I think I would’ve picked the Phantom! 😉 Then I watched a couple of episodes of House, which I’ve always meant to watch but somehow never quite got round to (verdict: awesome). Following that, the TV presented me with the last half an hour or so of ‘In & Out’, an oldish movie starring Kevin Kline, Matt Dillon and the ever-delightful Joan Cusack (whose brother I still love unconditionally, even after the laugh-fest that was ‘2012’). I actually really enjoyed what I saw; I’ll have to go back and watch the beginning some day!

I really just enjoyed having nowhere to go and nothing to do, to be honest. I listened to music that I was given in Cuba, and thought of the friends that I made there; I considered my options for the next 6/7 weeks, and I slept like a baby.

Awesome afternoon.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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Will I Get A Heart Attack From Eating Fried Chicken With Waffles And Maple Syrup? Probably. But Who Cares When It Tastes This Good?

17 May

And so, after a fairly lengthy hiatus, I’m back again! The last couple of weeks in New York have been a rip-rolling ride and I figured that I was better off being out and about and living the stories rather than being stuck inside writing about them! My mornings have been early, and my nights have been late, but now I finally find a window of opportunity to sit and catch up!

Where were we? Ah yes.

Tuesday May 1st – Another early rise on the Yankee ferry, but this time there is no sunlight coming through the windows. During the night I heard the rain thrashing down, and when I woke up the sky was metallic grey. The Manhattan skyline was misty, and the tops of some of the skyscrapers were shrouded in cloud. Eurgh. Still, I have to keep reminding myself that New York is the kind of city that can be explored in rain or shine…!

The living room aboard the Yankee Ferry,
Hoboken, New Jersey, May 2012

We met up with Victoria at 9/9:30ish, as she had kindly offered to make brekkie for us. The three of us went into the galley (kitchen) of the ferry and Victoria made poached eggs (from the boat’s chickens!) with some home-made bread. Yum! We sat and chatted for a fair while before we realised that the day was racing away from us; Victoria gave us some great suggestions for pizza places etc before we ran to the Turning Point Cafe to check emails and addresses, and then returned to the boat to collect our things and say goodbye to everyone… including Pinky and Mr Brown, the little dogs, who seemed rather unperturbed by our departure! I have the feeling that I’ll be seeing Victoria again, somewhere, so saying goodbye wasn’t that difficult! 🙂

We had found that the quickest way to get to our hotel in Manhattan was to get the ferry and then use their free shuttle bus, so that’s exactly what we did. In the end, the shuttle dropped us off right outside our hotel door – not a bad deal at all! Our home for the next two days was to be the Chelsea Savoy Hotel, on 23rd Street in Chelsea. I’d stayed there before in 2006/2007 and found the place to be minimalist but clean, friendly enough, and the location was priceless. On 23rd between 7th and 8th Avenues, it’s smack-bang in the middle of the action in Chelsea, surrounded by great cafes and restaurants, and if you look down 7th Avenue from the hotel entrance at night, you can actually see the lights of Times Square! So it was a bit of a no-brainer when I was looking for somewhere for me and Charlie to stay on Manhattan. I was a little bit concerned because the recent reviews on Trip Advisor have been less than glowing, but I can honestly say that I had no issues with the place this time at all. Something tells me that some people go to a 2-star hotel expecting 5-star service… it just doesn’t work that way! Our room was clean, there were no bedbugs, the staff processed my booking right away and offered help when it was needed. Yeah, our room was a wee bit noisy, but for Chrissake it’s New York! And you’re in a busy area! Suck it up, people!

Anyway, we checked in with no problems (even though we were fairly early, they still let us straight in), and went to our second-floor room. It directly overlooked the crossroads of Seventh Avenue and 23rd Street, so we had a birds-eye view of all the goings-on at the Chelsea Papaya hot dog stand…! We dumped our bags and headed out again almost immediately. We went west, aiming for the High Line.

The High Line park is a piece of true civic awesomeness. Once a busy elevated train line ferrying goods in and out of the meat-packing district, it fell into disrepair when other modes of transport turned out to be cheaper, and when the area became less industrial. The last train ran on it in 1980, and from that time the weeds took control and it was abandoned. In the late 90s/early 2000s, a group of neighbourhood enthusiasts petitioned against its demolition and somehow managed to convince the city of New York to turn it into an elevated garden. It is now one of the highlights of NYC, attracting visitors from all over, with a thriving community calendar and a highly enthusiastic staff. It runs parallel to 10th Avenue and runs between (and through!) apartment blocks, businesses and The Chelsea Market. The original train tracks are still there as a reminder of it origins, but winding walkways and carefully-thought-out gardens, shrubberies, water features, art works and even birdhouses have turned the whole place from an eyesore into a joy. I hadn’t been to the High Line before (it opened to the public in 2009, which was after my last visit), but I’d followed the whole process with great interest; Chelsea is one of my favourite neighbourhoods in New York and I wanted to see what they’d do with this opportunity. I just love the fact that the structure was given to the community, and that the community have welcomed it with such gusto; it gives me hope for the human race!

We entered the High Line from the 23rd Street access stairs and started our little walk downtown. The day was still fairly grey, so there weren’t a lot of people out in the park, but you could still see how amazing the whole concept was. At various intervals there were wooden seating areas with large communal benches, and behind the Chelsea Market there was a deck area, where on warmer days they have cafe-style food and food stands. At one point the pathway opened into a large, staggered… well, I suppose you could call it an amphitheatre, except not quite as grand or curved, suspended over 10th Avenue. The focal point of this amphitheatre was a large sunken window that gave an uninterrupted view down 10th Avenue, a peaceful interlude overlooking all the traffic and activity. Providing spaces like this in a big city like New York… genius. Central Park is really being given a run for its money!

From the High Line, we got a subway downtown to one of the places that was high on Charlie’s list, and indeed mine: the 9/11 Memorial, former site of the World Trade Centre, formerly known as Ground Zero. Excuse the following digressions into past New York memories; I think they set the tone for how I was feeling when we made our visit.

Everybody has their story to tell about September 11th, 2001. Mine was fairly simple; I was at home in my room in Queensland, Australia, studying. I got a call from my mother, who told me to go to the TV immediately. I went into the living room in my sharehouse to find some of my housemates gathered on the sofa. The first plane had just hit the North Tower (8:46am, New York time). We watched in horror as the second plane hit the South Tower at 9:03am; confusion was high, but with the second hit there was no doubt that it was an attack and not an accident, as some at first assumed. I’m not sure at what point they announced it, but somewhere along the line we discovered that one of the flights was a United Airlines flight bound from Boston to LA. My housemate, Jeff, was from Boston, and his mother was supposed to be on a United flight from Boston to LA that day. One of my lasting images of the evening was Jeff, in his shorts and wrestling shirt, on the carpet on his knees, phone in one hand, desperately trying to call his family, staring at the television and hoping, praying that the flight that hit the tower was not the same as his mother’s. We watched the Pentagon get hit. Then we watched in total disbelief as the first and then the second tower collapsed. How on earth was this possible, and what the hell was going on? Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania. People kept turning up at our house, despite the late hour. By the end, we had a small crowd in the living room; friends who lived nearby, and their friends. I think we all wanted to be together, to reassure each other, to witness with each other. Eventually, in the wee hours of the morning, Jeff finally got news that his mother was safe (her flight had been scheduled for later in the day), and nothing new was coming from the news networks, so we dragged ourselves to bed, bewildered.

The next morning, the university was full of people; everybody had come in, whether they had classes or not. We all wanted to exchange news, consolidate, and console. I’m not sure exactly when Al Qaeda took responsibility, but I do remember that very early on, the Islamic Students Group at the university became very proactive in offering their support and separating themselves from this awful terrorist act. They were smart; they saw the storm that was coming in the shape of anti-Muslim sentiment. It was an early reminder that ‘Muslim’ is not the same as ‘Terrorist’, a thing which far too many rednecks seem to forget.

Anyway, I’ve seen the World Trade Centre site in a couple of different stages of its development since September 11, and I wanted to see what had finally been done with it. The first time I saw it was in May/June 2002, not long after the attacks and when the recovery operation was still in full swing. I hadn’t actually intended to visit the site; I had deliberately avoided it, in fact, because I didn’t really want to be part of the ‘war tourism’ movement. However, I was trying to find my way to the nearby Fulton Street Pier, and with all the chaos from the destroyed subway lines, I somehow popped up out of the ground right outside the site, next to St Paul’s church. The first thing I noticed was the church fence; it was absolutely covered with t-shirts, stuffed toys, messages, tiles, notes, candles, flowers, dolls, religious icons, cards, posters and offerings of all kinds. I went to take a closer look and it was only then that I noticed that I was right next to a giant hole in the ground, and that people were standing around, lighting candles and offering prayers. How could I have missed it? I spoke to the gentleman in charge of the viewing platform, and even though I didn’t have a ticket (available free nearby for timed intervals) he admitted me onto it, because it wasn’t very busy at the time. I was surprised by how moved I was. The people on the platform with me were holding each other and crying, and it was only then that the enormity of the thing struck me – this giant pit in the ground, about 16 acres in size or more, used to have giant skyscrapers in it, and nearly 3,000 people died in this place. A list of the dead and missing, peppered with photographs left by family members, was posted nearby as you exited the platform; of course, sadly, the ‘missing’ were added to the list of the dead. Dust still seemed to envelop the downtown area; the cleanup operation was on a massive scale and would continue for years. I left the site with a renewed appreciation this event had on the soul of New York. It would never be the same.

On the same trip I passed through Grand Central Station and came across a message board just off the main concourse, again lined with flowers and lit candles. On the board were posters of the missing and the lost. My heart broke at numerous posters which read along the lines of, “Missing: John Smith. Last seen 8:15 am, Sep 11 on the XXXth floor of the North Tower WTC. If you see him, please call XXX-XXX-XXXX.” All I could think was that these people were not coming home; it was 8 or 9 months since the event and they were simply not coming home. But hope springs eternal; I saw one poster for a missing man with a note scribbled on it: FOUND. Apparently in the aftermath, he had gotten lost and, without his diabetes medication, had somehow slipped into a coma. He had run from his office without his ID, and was admitted to hospital with no identity, only to be found some time later. Miracles do happen. Sadly, not enough on that day.

The feeling I got from New York on that trip was one of sadness; deep, deep sadness and loss. But I also felt a kind of hope, and of community – people were banding together, and trying to get through it together. It was elsewhere in the country that the hatred seemed to be brewing, an unadulterated hatred for Islam in general and the outside world. And I seem to remember thinking, “Surely it’s the New Yorkers who have the most right to that kind of thinking, and yet they are trying to turn this into something more cathartic.” It was a bit of an eye-opener for me.

A few years later I visited the site again, this time with my mother – I think it was in 2007. By this time, the recovery effort was finished and Ground Zero was basically a building site surrounded by mobile construction trailers and chainwire fence. You couldn’t actually see in to the site, but there was a display showing a timeline next to the subway station. Unfortunately, sites like this often draw the nutters – the shouters, the touts, the religious zealots waving their religious tome of choice and telling us that we would all go to hell if we didn’t do whatever it was they were doing. A site that should have been a place for quiet reflection was more like an ugly carnival; a man playing Amazing Grace on his flute was drowned out by a large woman screaming at the top of her lungs about how 9/11 was punishment from God for all the bad Christians out there, and a bunch of guys selling 9/11 t-shirts – complete with images of the burning towers on them – were shouting out their wares. The final straw for me was an Indian family I spotted next to the fence. The four of them lined up against the fence, put their arms around each other, and gave big, beaming smiles for the camera. And I thought, “Are you freaking kidding me? You’re going to go home and show your friends a picture of you SMILING next to the fence at Ground Zero?!?” They were not terrorists; they were not America-haters; they were just bloody ignorant. I think it’s difficult for some people to differentiate between a tourist site and a memorial, you know? I see it all the time, and from people of all nationalities, including Americans, Australians, you name it. You go to New York, you see the Empire State Building, and you smile for the camera. You go to the Rockefeller Centre, and you smile for the camera. You go to the World Trade Centre, and you smile for the camera. Except you don’t. You shouldn’t. Sigh.

Well anyway, it was with these previous experiences in mind that I went to the memorial. I had been terrified that it would have been turned into some over-nationalistic display of “WOOOH! YEAH! AMERICA! SCREW YOU GUYS, LOOK WHAT WE CAN DO!” Some of the original plans for the site had been to build two more towers, only taller, in a gesture of defiance. I’m happy to say that whoever made the final decisions had their head screwed on right. The combination of the memorial pools and the new skyscraper (now the tallest building in New York, and still on its way up) is one of taste and respect; respect for the victims, respect for the visitors, and respect for America at large, but without a whole bunch of over-wrought Americana. Thank goodness. (Although I wonder if the multi-billion dollar price tag might not have been better spent elsewhere, say, helping poor families or pulling America out of its debt crisis…) It is easy to become cynical about the events of 2001, especially in the wake of George W. Bush’s hate-fuelled foreign policy rhetoric and the messy, unwelcome and unsuccessful wars that followed, but I mustn’t forget that nearly 3,000 people died that day. People who were just following their daily routines, drinking a coffee or whatever, and then the world crumbled down around their ears. Terrible.

A memorial pool at the World Trade Centre Memorial, set in the ‘footprints’ of one of the towers,
New York, May 2012

Hmmmm. I promised myself I wouldn’t wax lyrical about this, but here I am. Stop it, Tara! Moving on… our visit to the memorial. Until the whole site is completely finished, numbers are limited, so in order to get in one must book one’s free tickets online OR go the the Preview store on Vesey Street, next to St Paul’s church. We did the latter, and were lucky enough to get tickets for the next entry, only half an hour away. I grabbed fries at a Burger King, and Charlie grabbed a Cinnabon (his first!) to tide us over as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and then ran for the site. We went through a fairly simple security screening, and then… there we were. The footprints of the two original towers (about 8 acres in total, if I remember correctly) have been turned into giant, square pools, descending into smaller and smaller squares; each side is a waterfall, pouring into the middle and eventually disappearing into the void at the bottom. The squares are lined with bronze panels, each with the names of the victims punched into the metal. The names are grouped according to whether they were first responders, on a certain plane, or in a certain building; allowances were made where family members asked for names to be put next to each other. So many names. The waterfalls are surrounded by a swathe of trees, including the ‘Survivor Tree’, which was just a stump when discovered in the ruins at Ground Zero, but was taken to a nursery, cared for and nursed back to health. It was then knocked over by a storm, but true to spirit it survived – it now holds a place of honour in the mini-forest on the site.

One World Trade Centre, still under construction but already Manhattan’s tallest building,
New York, May 2012

By this time, the sun had come out and it was actually warm. Charlie and I wandered around, fairly subdued, and watched the crowds react in different ways. People taking a moment of silence, families walking around looking for a particular name, and kids oblivious to that running around and playing. I don’t begrudge them that; their parents will fill them in when they’re old enough to understand. I tried to ignore a woman and her husband (by their accent, from California or somewhere West) posing and smiling by one of the tower footprints, and we just sat for a bit. Hard to imagine the horror in that tranquility, really; that’s probably a good thing. Happily, the ticket system seems to have kept the nutters out, and a large security presence also helps people remember how to be respectful… mostly!

We left the site with our tummies rumbling, so we jumped on a subway headed for Harlem and for Amy Ruth’s soul food restaurant. Ah, Amy Ruth’s. Yumyumyumyumyummmmm. Previous visits have brought a spectacular feast of good, old-fashioned comfort food, and this visit was no different. I was so preoccupied with my meal that I can’t even remember what Charlie had; I can tell you, though, that my fried chicken with crispy waffles and maple syrup, with a side order of buttered corn, was criminally delicious. The music playing there was great, too – a bunch of Motown classics with a heavy dose of Sam Cooke, one of my favourites.

After eating, we decided to take a little walk through Harlem. We only walked from 116th street to 125th, but already I could see changes since the last time I was there. 125th Street had already been ‘revitalised’ when I last visited, but one thing I spotted that surprised me was yellow cabs. In 2005 or 2006 I went to Amy Ruth’s for dinner with some friends; we were planning to head to the Apollo Theatre afterwards and wanted to catch a cab. I asked the restaurant manager where we could find one and he looked at me with something that seemed like pity for my misunderstanding. “Honey,” he said, “We don’t get no yellow cabs up here. This is Harlem.” He was so matter-of-fact about it. I was very surprised. He went out and found us a ‘gypsy cab’; he negotiated the price for us and told the driver to look after us… or else. So seeing yellow cabs on the streets of Harlem told me that maybe things continue to look up for the area. I’m sure that, like any neighbourhood, it still faces its share of problems, but it’s very hard for me to marry my mental image of 1980s Harlem (crime-ridden, scary, dangerous, mostly negative) with the Harlem that I see today, which seems quite the opposite.

125th Street, as always, was a hive of activity; 2 guys had a boom box and were dancing to jazz on the street, and there were stands and stalls stretched along the pavements. Charlie and I were exhausted, and decided to head downtown. On the subway I spotted a man in black trousers, a black leather jacket, and with a peacock feather stuck on his lapel. Natty dresser – I loved it! We got off the subway at Times Square – I think that after the initial shock had worn off, Charlie really liked it there! We sought out a few of the unmissable ‘I HEART NEW YORK’ t-shirts for Charlie and then decided to walk home in the hope of getting our dinner to settle. Just next to Madison Square Gardens we discovered a multi-storey comic book store (Midtown Comics), so of course a visit had to be paid! I was surprised to find that there is a series of novels based on the TV series Supernatural… how did I not know this?!? I resisted temptation but may have to give in at a later date. I just hope they’re not rubbish. The gospel of Sam and Dean, eh? Ha ha ha.

We walked through the Fashion District and passed a bunch of little bakeries before reaching 23rd Street. I finally took Charlie to see one of my favourite places in New York, and one of the reasons I love Chelsea. Just a few doors down from the hotel is a small market store called The Garden of Eden Gourmet. Inside, it is a beautifully-lit wonderland of delicious food and tantalising treats; each apple is wrapped before it’s stacked (terribly wasteful but very attractive), each tomato looks hand-picked. Their chocolate selection is drool-tastic; their salad bar is divine. Charlie’s first response: “Why the hell did you wait so long to bring me here?!?” And that’s why he and I will always be friends; a shared interest in the good stuff!!! 🙂 The man behind the cake counter asked us if we needed any assistance. “No thanks, we’re just drooling.” He replied, “Ha! I do that too!”

We went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening just relaxing; after more than a week of running around and having to be friendly in hostels (and to the crowd at the guest house in Philadelphia), it was nice to just be able to hang out together somewhere quiet with no disturbances. We read, we wrote, and we went to sleep. Charlie’s last night, boo!

Just a thought to round off the day: I keep seeing advertisements on the roof of cabs for ‘Flashdancer’s Gentlemen’s Club’ or ‘Sparkles Gentlemen’s Club’, etc. Why are they called Gentlemen’s Clubs when the kind of people who go there are generally the antithesis of a gentleman? The mind boggles.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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How the hell did we end up on Bowery AGAIN?!? The Long Walk, April 2012

5 May

Tara shows the Obamas how it’s really done,
New York, April 2012

Monday April 30th – I woke up on the Yankee Ferry with the sun streaming through the windows and, despite my few hours of sleep, I felt pretty spritely. After getting ready, Charlie and I crossed the gangplank and then the road to a little cafe called the Turning Point, where Victoria had told us they had free Wifi. I grabbed a corn muffin with butter, and Charlie had a chocolate muffin with a ‘Charlie’s Chai Shake’ (who could resist ordering a shake named after them?), and we mooned over the view from the giant windows. New York! Woo hoo! 🙂

We briefly got in touch with the world at large, checking addresses of places we wanted to go during the day, before setting off. Our aim was to hit the East Village and then keep walking south, through NoLita, Little Italy, Chinatown and then into the Lower East Side. A big walk! We made a short detour to get some tickets printed at a nearby apartment building that offers concierge services to the Yankee, and then decided to get the NY Waterways ferry over to Manhattan rather than the bus. We raced down to the pier and managed to snag tickets (steep at $9 each!) just before our ferry left; the guy on the ferry looked peeved but at least he waited for us!

We had wanted to take the ferry for the views and the breeze, but as it turned out there was no outdoor seating – d’oh! We enjoyed the view from the smudged windows, though, and still took some joy in our very brief (8-minute) ‘commute’ to the city. After arriving, we transferred to one of the free shuttle buses, which dropped us back in the West Village on 7th Avenue. From there, we tried to beat a path almost directly east, towards the East Village. We passed by the Stonewall Tavern, the firing point for the riots in 1969 which essentially started the gay rights revolution; I made a mental note to come back at a later point for a better look.

On 8th Avenue we made another shoe stop for Charlie, and when he stopped to pull a drink out of his bag he discovered the chocolate-covered bacon that we’d bought in Philadelphia and still hadn’t quite had the guts to actually taste yet. Well, we thought, there’s no time like the present. So, there in the street, we took a bite of our chocolate bacon. Putting it into my mouth, I knew I was probably committing a crime against something, but I did it anyway. I chewed slowly, and I have to admit that I couldn’t decide if I loved it or hated it. It tasted burnt and salty, and then the sweetness of the chocolate hits you and… well, it’s just a wierd combo altogether. It’s not often that I’m short on words, but in this case, I have nothing. What I will say, though, is that one bite was enough for both of us. We chucked what was left of it in the bin, satisfied that we had at least tried it. Bleh. Both of us needed a long slurp of water after that experience!

We continued our walk almost directly eastwards until we reached Astor Place, the ‘entrance’, I suppose, to the East Village from Broadway. The East Village is chronically trendy, in a pierced, tattooed, rockabilly, alt-rock kind of way. We wandered along 8th Street (renamed St Mark’s place in the main heart of the neighbourhood) and peered into numerous tattoo parlours and shops full of t-shirts with witty slogans, but our main destination was St Mark’s Comics, a place I had visited many years before and thought Charlie might like to see. On my last visit there I had made the mistake of wearing my ‘I HEART NERDS’ t-shirt and asking the guy behind the counter where I could find a copy of Jhonen Vasquez’s Squee compendium, making it appear as if a) I actually knew what the hell I was talking about when it came to comics and b) he might actually have a chance of getting into this English chick’s trousers because she hearted nerds. Of course, neither of these things were true and I spent a fair amount of time fending off the small talk of an over-eager (but, I suppose, harmless) boy who bore more than a passing resemblance to the Comic Book Store Guy from The Simpsons. Yikes! Mental note to self: Yes, you love nerds, but not just any nerds. Next time you’re going to a comic book store, leave the t-shirt at home!

Anyway, we paid a visit to the scene of the crime (the guy from the last time was nowhere to be seen), and Charlie once more found a few gems for his collection. We walked a bit further before heading south down 2nd Avenue and into the NoLita (North of Little Italy) district, which is full of very expensive clothes shops, designer boutiques and large storefronts that seem to have very little in them – but what they do have costs a bomb! I made a detour into Desigual , a wicked Spanish clothes designer. Many is the time I have salivated over their brightly-coloured skirts, jackets and dresses but I’ve always walked out of their boutiques empty-handed, and today was no exception. The cost of one of their jackets is about equal to a week’s travel budget for me, so I had to take it easy. Boo hoo! We also stopped in a handful of skate shops but Charlie was equally as appalled by the prices as I was, so despite our little dip into the world of trendy designers, we both left the area empty-handed.

We zig-zagged our way across numerous streets, finding ourselves on Broadway and then on Bowery, and then somewhere else and then Bowery, and then Bowery AGAIN; I felt like I was in the twilight zone! All roads lead to Bowery! There are worse places to be, I suppose, but it was never our destination or our intention to end up there!

Next stop was Little Italy – or what’s left of it. As Chinatown has grown, Little Italy has shrunk, and now all that’s left are a few delicatessens and a handful of restaurants. Last time I decided to eat in Little Italy I ended up paying about $20 for 4 ravioli which had been microwaved; I later went up the road and ate a slice of great pizza for a few bucks. Buyer beware!

Cheeky dragon and cheeky Tara slurp ice cream at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory,
New York, April 2012

I think I’ve said this before, but one of the things that I love about New York is being able to turn a corner and find yourself in a neighbourhood with a completely different vibe. This is particularly true for this area; Mulberry Street still retains a distinctly Italian feel and then you go one miniscule block across onto Mott Street and find yourself in Chinatown, with all the charms that brings – a hustle, a bustle, people nattering in Chinese, little waving Feng Shui cat toys, tacky plastic knick-knacks, and knock-off Rolexes. Water rolls out of the fish markets, so you have to pick up your feet to avoid treading in a puddle of fish juice; roasted ducks hang in the windows; buckets of dried shrimp stand outside grocery stores. I always feel at home in Chinatown, regardless of the relentless noise and activity; I guess that’s what comes from growing up in Hong Kong! As you wander southwards down Mott Street, the street becomes narrower and more lanes sprout from each side. We took a turn on Bayard Street, in search of the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. This place makes their own ice cream in a range of flavours both exotic and everyday, from durian to black sesame and from vanilla to chocolate. Their logo is one of my favourite company logos ever: a cute, fat little dragon slurping a cone of strawberry ice cream. We both had a cone (mine was double chocolate Oreo) and stood outside, watching the eclectic crowds come and go. I sniffed haughtily at the Haagen Dazs down the road as we passed; from what I understand, Haagen Dazs heard that the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory were doing well and got snitty that some of ‘their’ market was being stolen, so they opened a rival shop nearby. I might be mistaken in this belief, but it wouldn’t surprise me, coming from a company that allegedly played dirty with Ben & Jerry’s in the early days and tried to have them closed down! Well, I gave my money to the locals and will continue to do so. Take that, corporate scum!

Continuing down Mott Street, we stopped into Aji Ichiban, a Hong Kong-based chain store that sells exotic snacks. Pickled plums, haw flakes and dried squid abound. Yeep! Crossing Canal Street, Mott eventually turned into a cobbled lane, and we decided to make a turnaround and head for the Lower East Side. And somehow… despite checking the map for street names and the direction we should take… ended up on Bowery! Again. AGAIN!!! Checking the map again, I managed to avoid a nervous breakdown when I discovered that I wasn’t hallucinating; the road we had started on changed its name partway along. Phew!

We ended up on Eldridge Street on the Lower East Side. Traditionally, the whole area was home to the Jewish community in Manhattan, but over the years Chinatown encroached and from what I understand, a lot of the Jewish locals picked up sticks and moved to Brooklyn. There’s still a few Jewish businesses in the area, but even over the time that I’ve been coming to NYC (the last 10 years or so), I can recognise changes in the district. The pickle sellers and bakeries have slowly disappeared and been replaced by Chinese restaurants and the occasional glitzy gallery. We wondered through the old heart of the neighbourhood, though, heading straight up Eldridge and crossing over Delancey. I always get a small, silly thrill out of that; there was a cheesy little movie in the 80s called ‘Crossing Delancey’, which my mother used to love. It was a romantic comedy about an arty, snooty girl whose traditional Jewish grandmother enlists a neighbourhood matchmaker to find her a husband. The matchmaker picks a lowly pickle salesman, which doesn’t please our little snob at all, and from what I remember she treats the poor guy like crap but for some reason he keeps running after her until he wins her over. I never particularly liked the ending, because I don’t think she deserved to get the guy! Still, it was a bit of a classic, painting a picture of a time and a place, and it starred Amy Irving (aka Mrs Steven Spielberg) who was big news at the time, so it’s become a bit of a thing for me to ‘Cross Delancey’. 🙂

From Eldridge Street we turned on to Rivington, which is home to quite a few interesting little shops and cafes. We popped in to Economy Candy , which has been open since 1937; it sells a massive selection of sweets and chocolate from all over the world and from different eras. Gumballs, Pez and Jelly Belly abound, as well as hand-made choccies. Yum! We passed TeaNY, Moby’s tea shop (where I plan to spend a bit of time later), and picked our way around the endless roadworks that seem to continue in the area. We then kept walking until we made it to Ludlow Street, where we took a left and walked until East Houston, where we stopped at… Katz’s!!!

Katz’s Diner, where Sally had her infamously pleasing sandwich with Harry, Lower East Side,
New York, April 2012

Katz’s Delicatessen/Diner is a bastion of the Lower East Side, open since 1888. They’re famous for their pastrami on rye sandwiches, and other traditional Jewish and New Yorker fare like matzah ball soup, Reuben sandwiches, corned beef sandwiches and pickles. I think their continuing fame, though, comes from a more recent source: they were the site of Meg Ryan’s famous ‘faking it’ scene from ‘When Harry Met Sally’… now everybody goes there so that they can say, “I’ll have what she’s having!” The service has really gone downhill since I was last there; I reckon that they think they’re catering for more of a tourist market and thus don’t have to worry about repeat business, which is a shame because they really have great sandwiches. You have to order at the counter before sitting down and the guys were more interested in chatting to each other than actually communicating with the customers. Mine asked me, “You want mustard?” I said, “No thanks.” So then he reached over and slathered mustard all over the bread. Sheesh.

Where Harry Met Sally – a pastrami on rye with pickles and fries at Katz’s Diner, Lower East Side,
New York, April 2012

Anyway, we squeezed onto a table (the place was packed with people from all over the world) and munched our shared pastrami and rye with a side of fries, nibbling on our complementary pickles. I’ve never really been into pickles, but the ones at Katz’s are pretty damn good. We then continued along East Houston, looking for the Yonah Shimmel Knishery. I knew I’d seen it somewhere around there years ago, and lo and behold, my memory was correct! I’m so proud when stuff like that happens! We barrelled right in and ordered a potato knish, which is basically a big fat traditional Jewish pastry stuffed with potato (or whatever filling you’ve chosen!).  They’ve been making knishes here for over a hundred years, and not much about the shop has changed. It’s good, hearty, basic fare, and I’d underestimated how big they are – we each only managed a bite or two before having to give up!

Continuing our marathon day, we got the subway to Times Square and paid a short visit to Bryant Park. It’s one of my mum’s favourite places; I brought her here in 2006 during the wintertime and we had warm apple ciders while watching the ice skaters glide around. It looks very different in the warm weather; the market stalls had gone, as had the ice, and been replaced with a sprawling green covered with New Yorkers enjoying the sunshine and lolling about in chairs. We went around the corner to the New York Public Library, the entrance of which is guarded by two serious-looking lions. I still think of Ghostbusters whenever I see it!

A picture speaks a thousand words,
New York, April 2012

Next, we went to Madame Tussaud’s; a few of my students have been there and raved about it, so I figured we should give it a try. At first the entry fee seemed exorbitant, but having been there now I can honestly say it was worth it – I had a ball! Who would’ve thought that wax mannequins could be so much fun?!? I got snatched by King Kong, cuddled up to Johnny Depp, kissed Patrick Stewart (“Make It So!”), yawned at Kim Kardashian, and flirted with George Clooney. I presented the news, and then got a hug from a guy in a Hannibal Lecter mask before being shoved down a ‘corridor of terror’, where Charlie and I both nearly peed our pants with fright. Repeatedly. It was dark and misty and they paid staff members to jump out in front of you, grab your arms and chase you down the corridor. Common sense tells you that nothing bad is going to happen, but when a creepy stranger is sneaking up behind you and following you for no reason, you can’t help but get the heebie-jeebies! We must have screamed pretty loud, because when we got to the end, the family that had gone in before us were laughing their asses off. Whoops!

Recovering very little of my dignity, I sang with Stevie Wonder and then made a very important phone call on the White House Red Phone before issuing a statement to the press; I hung out with Frank Sinatra, boxed with Muhammad Ali, asked Steven Spielberg how he had managed to make such a big cock-up of Indiana Jones 4, and nearly got eaten by The Hulk. It was AWESOME!!!

Batter Up!
Yankee Stadium, New York, April 2012

We left with some reluctance, but our next adventure of the day was to be even more awesome… we were headed to YANKEE STADIUM in DA BRONX to see the NEW YORK YANKEES play some baseball against the BALTIMORE ORIOLES! Woooooohooooooooo!!! I really need to use more capitals to express our EXCITEMENT!!! 🙂 We hopped a subway at 42nd Street which took us all the way north, off Manhattan and into the Bronx. From the subway station there, we followed the general movement of the crowds to Yankee Stadium itself. We were SO excited. The place was literally buzzing with the hum of excited fans both old and young, and the smell of popcorn and hot dogs filled the air. We found our seats and took our place in the crowds, and waited for the fun to begin.

Boy oh boy. What a night. What a night! I’ve never been much of a fan of spectator sports but I could really see myself getting into baseball. The show was as much in the stands as it was on the field! From the outset, we knew there was no hope for the Orioles. This was Yankee Stadium, filled with Yankee fans who were not afraid to boo and hiss at the away team. Screeching and shouting filled my ears, words of enouragement for the good guys and of dismissal for the bad guys. “YOU SUCK!!!!” screamed one Yankees fan to an Orioles pitcher who kept pitching foul balls. A pre-recorded, swanky, flashy introduction was given from the Yankees, giving us the rundown on all the players, their numbers and their positions; no such consideration was given to the Orioles…! I guess that when they play as the home team, that’s when they get the perks. Let’s hope so, anyway!

We’re at Yankee Stadium! GO THE YANKEES!
The Bronx, New York, April 2012

Before the game could start, we all stood for the Star-Spangled Banner; about halfway through we had to stand again, this time for ‘God Bless America’, sung in honour of American troops. Throughout the game, there were puzzles and quizzes set for audience members, and there were spot prizes. There were singalongs, and dancealongs, my favourite of which was YMCA. Everybody was up and dancing, including the guys who were straightening up the dirt on the pitch between innings; they dropped their little drag-dusters and threw their arms up in the air with the rest of us! There were birthday messages, and a request from one young man to his girlfriend: “Will you go to Prom with me?” Cheesy, but cute. The cameras swung from the game itself to the audience fairly frequently, giving everyone a chance to wave and say hello. It was so much fun!

The food vendors were my favourite part. They came winding their way down through the stands, shouting what they had for sale. I had already bought my $7 popcorn on my way in and was stuffed; I didn’t even have room for a hot dog, dammit! It was great listening to them. “Hey you! Beer? Beer? You drinkin’? Beer?” And the accents…! “Hawt chawclit! Get ya hawt chawclit!” (That’s hot chocolate to you and me!) One guy even got a bit creative: “Hawt chawclit! Yummy yummy in ya tummy!” I loved it!

The teams, for their part, did a lot of gum-chewing and hat-adjusting and spitting and crotch-grabbing; they pitched and they batted and they ran and they put up with all the screaming. In the end, after 9 innings, the score was 1-2 to the Yankees. Of course!

As we left, we did a little jog to warm ourselves up; it was freezing in the stadium and I couldn’t even feel my hands any more! Thanks to the Yankees win, we were treated to the aural delight of Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York New York’ as we ran out of the stadium; people were singing along, including me. As Ol’ Blue Eyes sang, ‘King of the Hill’, I flung out my arms and I thought, “Oh yeah! I’m in New YORK!”

Totally. Kickass. Night.

The New York skyline as seen from Hoboken, New Jersey,
April 2012

We got the subway back to Bryant Park and walked to the Port Authority before catching our bus back to Hoboken. The view over the Hudson to Manhattan was hazier tonight, which warned of possible rain tomorrow, but was still just as beautiful. Our last night on the boat – sob!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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From Philadelphia to New Jersey (via a little place called New York City), April 2012

3 May

Sunday 29th April – Our last morning in Philadelphia and thus, our last breakfast at the Thomas Bond House – cantaloupe with raspberry sauce, egg souffle, sausages, home-made muffin bread, a salad with dill mayonnaise, and the usual choice of sweetbreads (I went for the orange and poppyseed). Considering that my breakfast at home usually only stretches as far as a boiled egg and a single piece of toast, this is a big deal! I’m not sure how long I can keep up this rate of consumption without actually making myself sick…!

We finished breakfast and then had a little bit of time to kill before we had to leave, so we just took our time in our room, packing up and sorting things out. At around 10:45 we said goodbye to the lovely staff and went out onto the kerb to wait for a taxi, and within about 30 seconds one had rolled up. He was gesturing wildly as he pulled in and I thought, “What on earth…? Is he okay?!?” It was a few seconds later that I realised his radio was blasting, playing Diana Ross’ “You Can’t Hurry Love’ at full volume, and he was just singing along! This is definitely the kind of guy I could like, I thought. We chatted on the way to the Greyhound station; we talked about good radio stations, how people in Philadelphia can’t seem to stop honking their car horns (“These people here, they live on they damn horns!!!”), how singers like Diana Ross don’t have to work as hard as they like people to think… actually, I made a jokey comment about how I sing in the shower and I find it pretty easy, but I don’t get paid for it, and he cheekily said, “If you sing in the shower, and the shower get cold, he tellin’ you to get out!” and then he laughed a hearty laugh.

We arrived at the Greyhound station and were almost sad to get out of the cab! Still, off we went, and before we knew it we had checked in and were waiting for our bus to New York City. It was a totally uneventful journey. After nearly a week of running around Washington and Philadelphia, I was totally pooped, and I slept soundly the whole way. I remember opening my bleary eyes and seeing a corner of the Chrysler Building and thinking, “Oooh, we’re here,” and then dropping off again until we hit the Port Authority Bus Terminal!

I would like to digress a little bit here to tell you how I feel about New York. I’ve visited this city a number of times, and each time I’ve just added to the list of things that I’d still like to do and see. I always felt that I would really like more time to slow down and just see New York from more of a local perspective (if that’s possible, for a non-local!). I feel very passionately about this city; I know it’s such a cliche, but I love it. It has a certain energy, a feeling of movement; you can stroll from only one street to another and find yourself in a totally different neighbourhood with a totally different flavour. I want to fully explore as much as I can while I’m still of an age (and while I still have enough freedom, financially and responsibility-wise) to be able to enjoy it. For this reason, I have put aside just under two months to spend here. I sense that New York could be quite a lonely place to live as an outsider, but I think that for two months I’ll be able to keep myself entertained, and I’m sure I’ll meet people through swing dance or other random avenues. Charlie leaves in two days, and then I’ll be on my own until June 10th, when my friend Cameron arrives. I can’t wait to start this part of the adventure – it’s been a long time in the planning!

Arriving at the Port Authority Bus Terminal was a little bit like coming home. After spending a month or two travelling through totally unfamiliar cities, I was finally in a place where I could navigate and find my way around without having to think too much. Phew!

The first thing I saw at the bus station was a mother and her ridiculously cute little girl; they were waiting for someone to meet them and the toddler was playing with her mother’s phone. Sensing an opportunity to teach her daughter some phone etiquette, the following conversation occurred:

Mother: Okay baby, say ‘hello’!

Daughter: Hewwo!

Mother: Now say, ‘hello Daddy’!

Daughter: Hewwo Daddy!

Mother: Now say… ‘AlrightAlrightAlriiiiiight!!!’

Both myself and the luggage handler nearby snorted with laughter as we caught a glimpse of the confused little face staring up at her mother!

Our first mission was to find Victoria, who was to be our host for the next couple of nights. We booked our room through AirBnB, which is a handy service that allows people to book rooms with people in their homes, or to rent out whole apartments from private owners. The system seems to work really well, and so far my (limited) experience has been very positive! Charlie and I had booked two nights and Victoria had kindly offered to come and meet us at the bus terminal to show us the way.

Victoria and her husband Richard, both artists, are the owners of a historic ferry boat called The Yankee, which started life as a pleasure tour boat for rich New Yorkers, and was then refitted and turned into an Ellis Island Ferry, transporting steerage passengers between Ellis Island and their lives in the New World. After that fascinating stint, The Yankee was enlisted for different purposes during World War One and World War Two. Quite the history for one boat. Victoria and Richard acquired it and have fixed it up and decorated it beautifully; it is now docked in Hoboken, New Jersey, overlooking the Hudson River and the Manhattan skyline. As soon as I read about it, I knew that I wanted to visit, and luckily Charlie had been of the same mind!

We had arranged to meet Victoria at a bakery and it took us a little bit to find it, but we got there in the end. Victoria had told me that she was easy to find, thanks to her multicoloured hair; she was indeed correct. My first impression of her can be summed up easily: she was stunning. I walked into the bakery and there she was, a vision of awesomeness: a wonderful shock of multicoloured hair, tied up with tartan ribbons; a tartan skirt; long stripey socks; a button-up shirt under a military-style khaki jacket, and, last but not least, a pair of rollerblades, on which she was zipping around while surveying the bread on offer. In many ways, it reminded me of my wardrobe from when I was a bit younger, which was a wild and multi-coloured affair full of tie-dye, patchwork and tartan; seeing her dressed like that made me want all my old clothes back!

As it turns out, she was just as friendly and lovely as she looked; the three of us chatted all the way to Hoboken about this and that, and the journey was surprisingly easy – the bus left directly from the Port Authority and, thanks to the Lincoln Tunnel, was in Hoboken in about 15 minutes. We got off the bus and made the short walk out to the waterfront, which has obviously been through a whole bunch of ‘urban regeneration’ programmes. Old warehouses and woolstores converted into red brick apartment blocks – you know the look. The ‘boardwalk’ area had apparently just been rebuilt because a while back it had just fallen – ker-plunk – about 6 feet down! So, it was all very shiny and neat. On the whole, though, even though it was more manicured than I expected, it was quite beautiful, and there was enough greenery to keep the peace. And the view….! Oh, the view. The whole of Manhattan laid out before you, shining in the sun. Nothing quite like it. I was quite dazzled.

We approached the Yankee through a small dog park and along the pier, and we met three young men coming in the opposite direction. Victoria introduced one of them as Jacques, who lived on the boat with them, and turning to greet him I found myself dazzled all over again. Peeping out from underneath a woolen beanie was a pair of stunning eyes and a face that had no business being that handsome. Did I giggle like a schoolgirl and twirl my hair? No, thankfully. I think I managed to maintain my British composure… phew! 😉

The boys went on their merry way and we entered the Yankee via a gangplank, whereafter we were mobbed by a pair of sweet wire-haired daschunds, one a miniature called Pinky and the other an 18-year-old gentleman called Mr Brown. I am so enjoying having so many dogs around on this trip! We had time for a quick gander around the boat before running off to explore New York at Victoria’s behest. First impressions of the boat? Ah. Sigh. Cosy, warm, colourful and homely for the main living areas, filled with comfy armchairs and hand-made cushion covers and furniture. Outdoors, five chickens cluck and shuffle with utter contentedness. The upper deck, where Charlie was sleeping, had wooden floors and was lined with passenger benches, with a wood-fire stove at the heart of it. Just delightful.

Anyway, without much further ado, and with the promise of a boat tour later, Victoria walked us to the city-bound bus stop, even running ahead of us at one point when she thought the bus might be pulling up. We passed a local museum which I must investigate at some point in the future! Before we knew it, Charlie and I were back in the heart of Manhattan.

The unrivalled magic of a Fat Witch Brownie,
New York, April 2012

A short subway ride later, and we were at one of my favourite places in New York: The Chelsea Market. A veritable cornucopia of tasty food, this is my go-to stop for a good lunch. It was absolutely packed; lots of The Beautiful People out for a Sunday afternoon snack and stroll. The Chelsea Market used to be a Nabisco biscuit factory and lay in disuse for a while before some genius came along and decided to redevelop it into a trendy food emporium. Now it is filled with small specialty stores in a sort of urban-retro-steampunk (!) setting. There’s Eleni’s, a place that only makes decadent iced cupcakes and cookies; then Fat Witch, which specialises in the best brownies you’ll ever eat (unless you try mine, of course!), Amy’s Breads, Ronnybrook Dairy, People’s Pops, who make gourmet ice lollies… everything looks amazing. I was like a kid on Christmas morning; I could barely believe I was back in New York, and it lent an air of the surreal to the whole experience for me. I wandered in a bit of a daze, trying to take in the fact that it had been five years since I was last here, and it basically seemed the same.

For lunch, I decided to go for my favourites; I went straight to Amy’s Breads and bought their amazing semolina, raisin and fennel bread (a party for the tastebuds!), and then crossed the corridor to Hale & Hearty Soups (a chain, but a good one, and the soups are made on the premises) where I chose a Curry Shrimp and Roasted Corn Bisque – be still my heart. Charlie grabbed a sandwich from the soup place, and we commandeered a table nearby to feast upon our goodies. The soup was incredible; the bread was just as good as I remembered it. To round off the party, we rolled into Fat Witch and bought a couple of their unwrapped brownies (which are half price, if you come at the right time of day). I had a milk chocolate chip one, and Charlie went for the double chocolate, both of which were supreme. Sighing happily and licking our fingers of the last brownie crumbs, we decided to go for a bit of a walk and explore Greenwich Village, aka the West Village.

Classic fire escapes,
New York, April 2012

We started by walking east along 14th Street, and when we spotted a sign that said ‘Young Designers Market’ we detoured and went inside. There were clothes and there was jewelry, but the thing that caught my eye was the stall selling feathered headbands – just perfect for swing dancing and general dress-ups! I dithered over a few of them and ended up with a red one, a green one and a brown one. I was in love! I later spotted a bunch of stalls along 5th Avenue selling feathered headbands, but to be honest most of them looked flourescent and a bit tatty – and they were slightly more expensive – so I’m happy that I bought mine when I did. I guess they must be quite popular in New York now, which would normally steer me away from wearing them, but they just look so good. Now I just need to start wearing fancy dresses every day so I can wear the headbands with them! 🙂

We continued our walk and started heading downtown along 7th Avenue, into the West Village, where the orderly street grid system disintegrates and it turns into a series of diagonals and lanes, some lined with beautiful townhouses (would they be considered brownstones? I think so) and tucked-away businesses and boutiques. We stopped in an overpriced trendy gadget shop and gawked at the designer cookware. A shop attendant said a bright, “Thank you!” to a customer who was leaving, and then blew a giant farty raspberry when the customer ignored him. I definitely felt that the assistant was somebody I could have a lot in common with…! Manners cost nothing, buster!

We wound our way through the streets, taking detours through whatever looked interesting, but generally sticking to 7th Avenue, Bleecker Street and Houston (pronounced ‘How-ston’, not ‘Hew-ston’, in New York). I collected business cards from any restaurants or cafes that I thought I might like to visit later, and we poked in more than a few shopfronts. We stopped to watch a game of street hockey (on rollerblades!), and Charlie was in awe of a basketball game being played by a bunch of local kids in a caged square. Welcome to New York!

Times Square,
New York, April 2012

When we’d finished our little circuit, we ended up back at 14th Street and caught the subway up to Times Square, emerging in the chaos just as the sun started to set. Times Square is positively insane. Even at night, the bright lights make it seem almost like daylight, and the sheer volume of human traffic is immense. It’s a throbbing, pulsating human centre and you have to have your wits about you or you risk being collected by the swarm and pulled in a direction you’d never planned to go in! The billboards and neon threaten to overwhelm you almost as much as the people. They scream, “BUY BUY BUY!” and the constantly-changing ticker-tape messages just keep on runnin’. Perversely, I quite like it. I hate advertising and all that rubbish, but there’s definitely a frenetic energy going on that is quite captivating, and I’m not yet so cynical that I can’t get swept up in the excitement of it all! We went for a lengthy walk around. I could sense that it was Charlie’s turn to be dazzled; even after seeing two large cities like Washington DC and Philadelphia, Times Square can still be like a smack in the face with a wet fish. I was happy to be seeing it through his eyes, remembering what it was like the first time I came.

Scattered around the square were a bunch of people in costume, much like Fremont Street in Las Vegas. We spotted Mickey Mouse, Elmo (cunningy hanging around right outside the Toys’R’Us to catch the kiddies as they went in or out), Iron Man, Hello Kitty and the Statue of Liberty, among others. Charlie had a veritable shoegasm at a number of sports stores… he’s quite the collector and all of these limited-edition shoes had him in a bit of a tizz! I was just happy to toddle along and keep him company; it was refreshing to be in the company of a guy who was distracted by shoes (and sexy cars, which he frequently salivated over in the street) rather than the chests and/or bums of random women walking past!

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
Times Square, New York, April 2012

From Times Square, we went upwards and east, where we passed by Radio City Music Hall, home of The Rockettes, and a number of tempting smells from street vendors before making it to the Rockefeller Centre. We considered visiting the Top of the Rock (an observation deck with apparently spectacular views over Central Park), but the monumental queues deterred us; I’ll have to do it another day, preferably when I won’t be wasting 3 hours of my time in a queue! We went around to the front of the Rockefeller Centre and admired the bronze statue of Prometheus (overlooking the space that becomes the famous ice rink during the winter) before walking out to Fifth Avenue where, it being Sunday night, things were fairly quiet. It was getting pretty late by this time and, mindful of our journey back to Hoboken yet to come, we decided just to stop at the first place we came across for food – and that turned out to be TGI Friday’s…! Sigh. All the food of New York, and we ended up at a TGI Friday’s! Still, I’ve visited TGI’s in Cairo, Prague and Southampton (!) so I figured I might as well give one a try in America. And on Fifth Avenue of all places! Both of us ordered a Kansas City BBQ Burger (which came with bacon, cheese and onion rings) and, when we were finished, decided that we should walk back to the Port Authority Bus Terminal for a bit more exercise… I’m pretty sure that even with all the walking we’d done, we hadn’t done enough to compensate for the ridiculous size of that burger!

Charlie had been charged with a mission to find a packet of Twinkies while in America, and so far our search had borne no fruit – has Hostess gone out of business? Anyway, in a random Duane Reade (New York’s ubiquitous chemist/general store), I spotted a packet of caramel Tim Tams – Australia’s national biscuit of choice! What on earth…? That was the last thing I expected to find in a Times Square Duane Reade!

We arrived at the Port Authority with 5 minutes to the next bus; we bought our tickets and raced upstairs and just scraped in! We were back in Hoboken within 20 minutes and we came out onto the waterfront with a collective sigh; the view that had been spectacular during the day was doubly so at night. It was a very clear evening, so the city shone like sparkling jewels on the other side of the water, crisp and clear. The Yankee was lit up with fairy lights and we were once again so pleased that we had chosen this as our temporary home. It was about 11pm by this time, so we crept in hoping not to disturb anyone – but as it turns out everyone was up anyway. Victoria gave us the tour of the boat, showing us all the different rooms and cabins, from the cargo deck to the crew quarters (now almost a little apartment in its own right) to the cabin boy’s room (complete with a beautiful angled writing desk) and the main dining area, which came complete with a grand piano and a suspended dining table, which could be hoisted to the ceiling to make more room.

The passenger deck was lined with benches and later on in our visit, when nobody was looking, I took a little time to sit quietly on a bench and tried to put myself in the place of a newly-arrived immigrant making the journey from Ellis Island on this very ferry. How would they have felt? It must have been terrifying and exciting all at the same time, arriving in the New World and, in many cases, being given a new name and a new identity. I’ve moved countries many times now, but the advent of the internet has made the world seem a lot smaller and nothing seems very permanent. For these people, it would have meant an almost total separation from their old lives and families – forever. What a choice to make. To be able to sit on this ferry and just taste a little of that history: amazing.

Anyway, our tour continued of the boat, which was much larger than I had anticipated, and full of enticing nooks and crannies. We went up to the top deck where we once again encountered Jacques, who was brushing his teeth before bed, and we got to meet YM, another full-time Yankee inhabitant. The two of them share a small but friendly common area, and YM’s room was compact but very inviting – her elevated bunk had storage space underneath, and a nice big desk took centre stage. It’s the kind of place I dreamed about living in when I was a student (and, in fact, was lucky enough to find in my second year of university – but of course not on a boat!). Jacques slept in the wheelhouse, which I guess must have had one of the most kickass views in New Jersey.

After our tour was over, Charlie retired to the passenger deck and I took my place in my room, lulled to sleep by the almost imperceptible rocking of the Yankee; and there ended our first day in New York.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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Running In The Footsteps of Rocky and Al Capone, Philadelphia, April 2012

29 Apr

ROCKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Philadelphia, April 2012

Saturday 28th April 2012 – We woke to the smell of frying onions this morning – always a promising start to the day! Wandering downstairs, we were presented with the usual assortment of sweetbreads but, because it’s the weekend, they put on an even bigger spread than usual! Quiche Lorraine with baked ham and ‘breakfast potato’ (fried with onions), plus a delicious fruit salad with a honey and lime sauce… slurp!

Emulating Rocky on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Philadelphia, April 2012

We walked out to Market Street and braved the local bus system (which turned out to be pretty simple, cheap and effective) to get to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in the northwestern corner of the city. Were we there to admire the priceless artworks? No. We were there to emulate Philadelphia’s favourite fictional son, Rocky Balboa. Awwwwww yeeeeah! We were there to run in his footsteps – up all the stairs in one go, jump the last flight in a couple of steps, do a little U-turn, stick your arms over your head, jump about like a loon, pull up your trousers and jump about some more. Classic scene!!! We decided to film the whole debacle; there’s no point in making a total fool of yourself if there’s no evidence of it, is there? Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be able to post a video of our antics for you to see. We had an absolute ball running up and down the stairs, pumping our fists in the air and snapping pictures all over the place. Who would’ve thought you could have so much fun with a set of stairs? Hundreds of tourists were doing the same thing, and it was totally cheesy but it actually created a really nice atmosphere – everyone connected by this one silly little act. We also visited the Rocky statue, by the base of the stairs, and paid homage to his victorious stance. “ADRIAAAAAAAAN!” 🙂

Cell block at the Eastern State Penitentiary,
Philadelphia, April 2012

After wearing ourselves out with all the running and jumping, we walked to our next destination for the day – the Eastern State Penitentiary. Our tone was quite different at this place! Built in 1829, the jail was the world’s first true ‘penitentiary’, a place where inmates were treated in such a way as to encourage true penance for their crimes. Up to that point, prisons had been a kind of violent free-for-all where prisoners were often kept in large common rooms all together, spreading disease and causing a danger to the prison staff and the prisoners themselves. The ‘Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons’ (one of the founders: Ben Franklin) envisaged a new system for prisons, to be instituted largely by the Quakers: complete isolation. Each prisoner would have his or her own cell and have no contact with other prisoners or the outside world, save with their guards. A white mask was worn whenever the prisoner left their cell to avoid excess stimulation. The prisoner spent 23 hours a day inside their cell, and then had two half-hour breaks in their own little outdoor exercise space to stretch and get fresh air. Quite a different vision to today’s penal systems! As time passed, disciplinary methods changed and prisoners had to share cells; overcrowding soon became a problem.

The prison building was also quite revolutionary for its time; it was built in a wheel shape, with a central post for the guards to keep watch over everything easily, and with the ‘spokes’ being the cell blocks, the entirety of which was surrounded by high stone walls. This ‘Pennsylvania Design’ was adopted by prisons all over the world and is still in use in many places.

An evil-looking barber’s chair in an abandoned room at the Eastern State Penitentiary,
Philadelphia, April 2012

The Eastern State Penitentiary itself was completely empty by 1971; the age of the building made its upkeep difficult and its conditions unpleasant. In the 40 years since, nature has reclaimed much of it; it’s funny how quickly something can become completely dilapidated if left unmaintained and at the mercy of the elements. The paint (what’s left of it) is cracked and peeled; the mortar is crumbling off the walls, and trees have made their homes in some of the old cells, creeping through weaknesses in the brick. Abandoned buildings are always eerie, and this prison even more so. Tiny doors leading to tiny cells; echoing corridors; empty shower rooms; furniture left to rot in cells; a single barber’s chair in a run-down room; fenced-off areas that are structurally unsound; the whole place was morbidly fascinating. Such a state of decay is rarely seen in everyday life.

Admission included an audio tour, so we plugged in and were surprised to hear the voice of Steve Buscemi guiding us through the bends and turns of the prison, along with the voices of real ex-prisoners and historians. We saw the cell in Block 8 where Al Capone spent 8 months in 1929 (where he apparently lived in relative luxury, listening to his waltz records and walking on his fine rugs), and we visited Cell Block 15, also known as Death Row (although inmates were not put to death here; they were transported to another prison and taken to the electric chair). We both got creeped out in one particular cell block (Number 14? I’m not entirely sure) which had not been properly restored yet; a chicken-wire fence separated us from the main part of the corridor and I was actually quite glad of it. Something about it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end; brrrrrrr. We went underground briefly to see the pipes and catch a glimpse of ‘the Klondike’, which was basically the solitary confinement unit, used for punishment after they stopped keeping everyone in solitary all the time. We also had a bit of fun with some of the mirrors which had been installed at the end of Cell Block 8, positioned so that even if a guard was around a corner, he could still see down the next block. The way they were arranged was quite confusing to the eye; you never knew quite which direction you were looking in! We also giggled (perhaps cruelly) at the mug shot of ‘Pep: The Cat-Murdering Dog’. Apparently, Pep was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1924 after killing the State Governor’s wife’s cat…!

Mirrors pointing at all sorts of wierd angles lead to directional confusion! The Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, April 2012

There were a lot of other things there that we could have seen before leaving, but hunger called. We had already been at the Penitentiary for a couple of hours and it was freezing inside (I dread to think what it must have been like for the inmates during the harsh winters), so we knew it was time to go. As we left, we spared a thought for the older gentleman we had met on Thursday who had been here as an inmate years ago. By our calculations, he was probably in his 20s (or possibly his 30s, if he was among the last prisoners to live there) when doing his time, and conditions must have been awful. Sure, you do the crime, you do the time, but wow. What a dreadful place.

We gratefully walked out into the sunshine and walked down Fairmont onto Pennsylvania Avenue to get the bus back into the city centre, where we made a beeline for the famous Reading Terminal Market. Talk about a foodie haven! If we hadn’t been gorging ourselves everywhere else in town, we might have tried to make it there earlier! The whole joint was a-jumping with people out for a food fix, and boy was there a lot to choose from. Everything from Indian to ice cream to Greek to Chinese to fresh fruit, fresh meats, wicked cheeses, confectionery… we did the logical thing and did a round of all the aisles first, to see what we’d most like to try, but by the time we go to the other end we’d forgotten the multitude of things we wanted to try and had to go back again! We were tempted to join the gargantuan queue at DiNic’s to see what all the fuss was about (I think they were just selling sandwiches), but in the end, we settled on Cajun food. Charlie had a muffaletta sandwich (which the server carelessly shouted out to the kitchen staff as “One quarter muff to go!” …Sheesh!), which was basically meats, cheeses and pickles in a whopping stack, and I tried a bit of prawn and crab pasta salad with corn bread and mac & cheese balls. Oh my. I didn’t even get halfway through it but it was gooood. We sat at a nearby table and enjoyed the piano skills of a young man who had set up a keyboard in the area; his rendition of Love Rollercoaster, done with a jazzy beat, was particularly awesome!

I resisted the urge to buy an anatomically-correct chocolate heart (ventricles and aorta!) but could NOT resist ‘The Famous Fourth Street Cookie Company’. We were about to order a chocolate-chip cookie to share when we discovered that they were selling the same cookies, dipped in chocolate. SOLD! We were so thrilled but knew the danger of eating cookies like that (once you start, you can’t stop!)… the man checked that we were over 21 (so we could cope with the pressure!) and said that he wasn’t allowed to sell them within 500 metres of a school…! We sat at a table outside and before we knew it, the cookie had magically disappeared. It was amazing, but gone all too soon.

We walked from there, through Chinatown, to the National Constitution Centre, but I am ashamed to say that by the time we got there we weren’t all that keen, and the $15 entry charge sealed the deal. We turned right around. Maybe I’ll regret that later, but right now I feel fine about it. Instead, we walked past the building that holds the Liberty Bell and marvelled at the length of the queue outside. Not wishing to waste two hours of our afternoon in a queue, we kept walking and then spotted the bell itself through a side window! Job done – we saw the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. We then tried to get in to Independence Hall, only to find that all the tickets were sold for the day, but we were able to get through the security check and hang out in the courtyard behind it for a little bit. I had a little bit of regret over that, but there wasn’t much we could do if all the tickets were gone! Feeling a bit lazy, we then wandered home and spent a nice couple of hours just relaxing and hanging out in our room – probably something that was a bit overdue. One has to remind oneself to take a breather when travelling, sometimes. It’s all well and good to run around like a headless chicken and see everything you think you should see, but sometimes you need to find a bit of peace, too.

For the first time, we made it to the 5:30 wine and cheese that our hotel organises for the guests; we found that we were definitely a different ‘demographic’ to all the other guests present, by at least 30 years. “One of these things is not like the other!” Still, we had a nice chat and enjoyed the cheese (we were Philistines and ignored the wine) before going back to the room to back up photos before heading out for dinner.

We decided just to explore our immediate neighbourhood in search of food. A lot of the places nearby seem to be bars that also serve food, but we didn’t really feel like being in a bar and it’s Saturday night, so we felt a bit too scruffy to hang out with the Beautiful (and in some cases, not-so-beautiful!) People. In the end, we opted for Rocchino’s, a swanky pizza joint, where Charlie had a Florentine pizza (spinach, peppers and olives), and I had the Rustica: rosemary oil with chopped pancetta, potato, parmesan and mozzarella. Nom nom nom nom nom!

Our walk home took less than two minutes, and when we came through the front door we found our nightly fresh cookies waiting for us. I’m going to miss those, that’s for sure! We made ourselves a hot chocolate and sat down in the sitting room for a little bit of peace, only to be swarmed by about 6 other guests about 2 minutes later – bad timing. Next thing I knew, we were embroiled in the fringes of a heavily political conversation, and one of the guys had the balls to make an incendiary comment along the lines of “The Muslims are taking over America”. I realised soon afterwards that in this group of people, that was not considered an incendiary comment, and I was appalled. I found myself telling them how much (and why) I disagreed with that rubbish and to their credit they listened politely, but honestly I don’t think there’s much you can do to change people like that; all you can do is hope that they forget to vote! Sigh.

Anyway, Charlie and I escaped upstairs as soon as was humanly possible (the pitfalls of being in a shared guesthouse!) and now it’s bed for time again.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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The Bridges of Lancaster County: Shoofly Pie, Whoopie Pie & Pretzels, Pennsylvania, April 2012

28 Apr

Friday 27th April 2012 – It is rapidly becoming clear to Charlie and me that four nights (even on our limited schedule) is simply not enough time in which to do everything we want to do in Philadelphia. I don’t think we’d really given much thought to Philadelphia; it was on the way from Washington DC to New York, and we knew that we wanted to run the Rocky steps and see a bit of Pennsylvania, but apart from that I think we had a bit of a ‘meh’ attitude. Hmmmm. Note to self: never underestimate this city again. There’s still so much to do! Tomorrow is going to be another busy day….!

Today our day started once again with gourmet breakfast at the guesthouse (more brioche!), and then we made the short walk to the Avis at the Hyatt Regency to collect our hire car. The plan was to spend the day in Lancaster County, west of Philadelphia – also known as ‘Pennsylvania Dutch Country’ due to the concentration of Amish, Mennonites and Brethren (is that the correct term?) living there. The region is known for its slower pace of life (the Amish steer clear of technology and modern trappings, and still travel in horse buggies) and for its delightful food, so we knew it would suit us to a tee. A lovely lady called Miss Cynthia (this according to a young man present, who seemed to know her) sorted out our paperwork, and not long afterwards we were fiddling with the GPS in the car as we cursed its inefficiency on the streets of Philadelphia! In the end we stopped listening to the robotic woman and used a paper map we’d collected from the guesthouse, and once we left the bounds of the map we just followed our noses to Lancaster, the westernmost town on our itinerary for the day. The initial journey took about an hour and a half.

The sky goes on forever out here.
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 2012

If I were to give a summary of the day upfront, I would have to say that the thing that hit me most was the sheer beauty of the area. Less than two hours out of a major metropolis, you find yourself gazing across rolling hills of lush, verdant green, passing grain silos and barns that are straight out of a storybook, all white or red in stark contrast to the bright blue skies and fluffy clouds dotted in the sky. The colours look like your camera screen when it’s set to ‘vivid’, but they are in fact real. Glance across a field, and you see it being tilled by a team of horses or oxen, a man in a large hat riding the old-fashioned rattling metal contraption behind them. A bunch of schoolchildren run out of their one-room school and sweep by, pushing old-fashioned scooters along with one leg, and a small girl in a billowing dark dress and a white cap toddles behind her mother, who is identically dressed. As you near a creek, you spot a deep brown covered bridge, the middle dark and cool and tunnel-like, and you have to proceed slowly because the horse and buggy in front of you is making slow progress. If it weren’t for the 4WD vehicles roaring through it occasionally, one could imagine they were back in the 1800s. In between food stops, we just spent our time in awe of the beauty of it.

A farmer tends his field the traditional way,
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 2012

Anyway, our first destination was Lancaster city. It was actually a fairly big place, bigger than I had expected, filled with large brick buildings and traffic. Our main purpose for visiting was to find the visitor centre to get maps and more information; we knew which townships we wanted to visit but were still unsure of actual destinations. Parking was scarce, so in the end we did a couple of loops in the downtown area and I hopped out of the car outside the visitor’s centre, ran in and grabbed info while Charlie drove around the block. The man inside was really helpful and thrust a stack of maps, information sheets about food and covered bridges, and two packets of salted pretzels into my hands before waving me out the door. Charlie swooped round the corner and I leaped into the car; we then managed to actually find a parking spot in a back street and loosely planned a route based around bakeries and bridges before leaving Lancaster, southbound. On the way out, we passed ‘Champ’s Barber School’, where a bunch of young guys were hanging around outside one-upping each other… or so it seemed!

Taking a side road off Route 222, we found our first covered bridge of the day – Kurtz’s Mill Bridge. It was my first and favourite. It was in a quiet little neck of the woods and there was nary another soul to be seen. It was short, but a beautiful shade of brown with a peaked roof. We parked the car a little bit down the road and wandered back up to the bridge. Everything was so green. I could barely believe my eyes. In this hushed little bit of forest we admired the rushing river underneath, and enjoyed the creak of our feet on the wooden boards, and had to convince ourselves to leave afterwards! I felt like I had walked into a beautiful painting; it took a little while to get rid of the feeling that an ugly vehicle might swoop around the corner at any time. It was like our own little secret; I’m so glad we went.

Kurtz’s Mill Bridge – such a beautiful place,
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 2012

From there we drove down Eshelman Mill Road, admiring the scenery, until we hit the more populated Route 741, where we turned eastwards. We passed the Australian Outback Inn Bed and Breakfast (what on earth was it doing out there?), and then drove through the town of Lampeter. Lampeter!!! Anyone who knows me will know that I spent three years of my life (while at University) living in a hicksville town in Wales called Lampeter, and even now I have mixed feelings about the whole experience! Driving through the ‘new world’ Lampeter was actually quite a pleasant thing to do, and not dissimilar to the original Lampeter, although the houses weren’t as grand in Wales! After passing Lampeter we turned right onto Bridge Road and visited the Neff’s Mill Covered Bridge, which spanned Pequea Creek – it was just a drive-past as we had nowhere to pull over, and this time the bridge was surrounded by farm buildings. It is apparently the narrowest in the county, at only 11 feet wide.

Strasburg Country Store and Creamery, filled with all manner of edible delights,
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 2012

Leaving the bridge, we headed directly east to Strasburg. The road into town was filled with mind-boggling houses; everything from grand old dames to tiddly little weatherboard shacks, all with rocking chairs on their porches and American flags flapping in the breeze. So damn picturesque! Once in Strasburg, we parked the car and went straight for our destination – the Strasburg Country Store and Creamery, famous for its kickass ice cream! After the lovely woman behind the counter had explained their sundae menu, Charlie ordered a ‘Piggyback Sundae’: a milkshake topped with an ice-cream sundae…! Diabetes, anyone?!? I had a Belgian waffle with two scoops: Chocolate Oreo, and black raspberry, smothered in home-made butterscotch sauce. Holy moley. I asked for it without cream, but when she brought it out she put her ear to it as if it were saying something. “What’s that? Aw, your poor little sundae looks so sad without any whipped cream!” I acquiesced and she squirted a goodly-sized amount of cream on it, and she was very happy that my sundae was happy! What a nice lady.

After gorging once more, we made our way to the back of the store where they were pouring fresh fudge from a giant boiler onto a spreading tray… we tried a sample of the chocolate fudge and it was just delicious. The rest of the store was filled with various types of candy, pretzels (the dark chocolate ones were salty and divine!), spreads and jams. I tried some of their butterscotch peanut butter, which was much better than it sounds!

Herr’s Mill Bridge,
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 2012

Heading east out of Strasburg, we passed their train yard, full of antique train carriages and massive engines. A tourist train leaves here and does a loop of about 9 miles, but we decided to continue on our merry way. We turned left up Paradise Lane, heading down the backroads yet again for another covered bridge – Herr’s Mill Bridge, which is no longer in use; it has been replaced by a more modern, concrete bridge to its left. This bridge was a long one (“double length”), and right next door to it was a stone house with a waterwheel dipping in and out of the meandering little river. Wowee. They sure do know how to make the heart ache here with their architecture. The bridge was blocked off halfway along, but a jolly little sign read: ‘The Kissing Bridge – PLEASE – Walking or Horse-Drawn Lovers Only.’ Sigh. 🙂 Here we met a young man called Ariel, an 18-year-old Alaskan who has made it his mission to visit all of the United States in 52 weeks; he was on Day 61 and Pennsylvania was his 11th state. He was thoroughly enthusiastic about his couch-surfing experiences and wanted to visit all the state Capitol buildings; his aim is to get into politics and be able to know what he’s talking about when he talks about the different states. One can’t help but admire his enthusiasm; I hope he gets through all the States! If you want to see what he’s up to, have a look at http://www.arielacrossamerica.com/ I took a couple of pictures for him on the bridge, and then he was on his way again. Good luck Ariel!

Our next destination was the Bird-In-Hand Bake Shop, situated just north of the town of Bird-In-Hand. What a great name for a town! This largeish store was filled with all kinds of produce but we made a beeline for the freshly baked goods, and after much deliberation we decided on a sampler pack of all their most famous traditional items. For later consumption (the ice cream in Strasburg had just about beaten us), we bought a Red Velvet Whoopie Pie (mini cakes in the shape of cookies, sandwiched around sweet cream – usually made with leftover cake batter but now famous in their own right), Shoofly Pie (tarts filled with sugar and molasses, so named because the flies all wanted a bit before refrigerators came along), Chocolate Shoofly Pie, Apple Streusel and a Sticky Bun (covered with thick burnt caramel and pecans). We wrapped them up and kept them in the car for a late-night snack. Wheeeeee!

Our next stop, as if we hadn’t already had enough food, was the famous Bird-In-Hand Farmer’s Market. A bright indoor market filled with hustle, bustle and delicious smells, it contained all kinds of fresh produce, meats, cheeses, breads and other local goodies, some of which were sold by Mennonite farmers (at least, I think they were Mennonite; they had the long beards but were using cash registers and so on… hmmm. I’ll have to do some research into that). I sampled some meatloaf, caramel and cheese popcorn, raspberry key lime jam, home-made black bean salsa and a bunch of other stuff that escapes me now, but all of which was delicious. Sadly, I didn’t buy anything as I don’t have a kitchen at present, and won’t have one for at least another two or three months, so all the condiments had to be put aside!

I’ll never be too old for naughty toilet humour! Intercourse, tee hee hee!
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 2012

We then continued our eastward trajectory to the unusually-named town of Intercourse….! Oh, the tasteless jokes we made. “I’m right in the middle of Intercourse!” “I had a long day in Intercourse and now I’m spent!” “Intercourse, where you can get soft and hard… pretzels!” My favourite was the tourist-office-issued pamphlet entitled “Guide to Intercourse: Slow Down the Hurry”. Surely they must know how that sounds?!? Or am I the only one with a dirty mind?!? Geez. Anyway, our store of choice was the Intercourse Pretzel Factory (snicker, snicker, snicker), where we tried a couple of the local delicacies – traditional soft pretzels. One was a ‘brown butter’ variety (sprinkled with rock salt) and the other was a ‘Sugar & Spice’ number – dipped in butter, cinnamon and raw sugar. We only managed a couple of bites of each, but they were really good. Charlie’s hands were positively covered in sugar by the end of it!

Unbelieveably, at this point we decided it was time for dinner. We hadn’t really had anything substantial to eat since breakfast, except for ice cream, and I think our bodies were actually crying out for a bit of nutrition! We decided to backtrack to a place we’d seen earlier called ‘Plain and Fancy‘, about halfway between Bird-In-Hand and Intercourse. It turned out to be a large complex filled with opportunities for buggy rides and a replica Amish homestead; we went inside and both ordered salads… green food! I had a side order of sweetcorn fritters that came with maple syrup as a dip – it was surprisingly good. My Southwest Salad came with grilled marinated beef, greens, corn, salsa, black beans, grated cheese and a dollop of sour cream in a red tortilla bowl; Charlie had the same but with chicken. I could almost hear my body thanking me for the vitamins!

A horse-drawn buggy about to cross a covered bridge – about as scenic as it gets!
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 2012

We skipped dessert, hopped in the car, and started the drive home. However, it was still light and after consulting our maps, we couldn’t resist the draw of one last bridge… dorks! We found our way onto Belmont Road and made for Eshleman’s Mill Covered Bridge, also known as Leaman’s Place Covered Bridge and Paradise Bridge. The view behind this bridge led up a hill and over green farmland, and the bridge itself was russett-brown/red. In and of itself it wasn’t spectacular, but we happened to be following an Amish horse and buggy as we crossed it, and got a little thrill as we saw this episode of life carry on much as it already has for hundreds of years.

Beware! Buggy Crossing!
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 2012

Finally, we got onto the road home. We mostly stuck to Route 30 instead of the I-76, which we had used to get into Lancaster; this route, instead of being a freeway, was a smaller road and led us through other towns and suburbs, and back through the northern edges of the Brandywine Valley onto the I-76 again. We passed what may have been the last cherry tree in America with its blossoms still intact (whoopee!) before hitting traffic just outside Philadelphia; not unexpected, but yuck. We re-entered the city and went in search of petrol (passing a pet store called ‘Doggie Style’ on the way… blimey) before dropping the car back at the rental place at the Hyatt. Sigh. The end of another brilliant day.

It was getting dark by this time, so we stopped by the waterfront at Penn’s Landing, admiring the Schuylkill River (loosely pronounced ‘school-kill’, apparently), a nearby battleship (!) and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, all lit up, before walking home. Bypassing the complimentary 8pm cookies, we grabbed a hot chocolate and went up to our room to devour all the baked goods we bought in Bird-In-Hand. The verdict? Well, I took a bite of each, and I think that the apple streusel was probably my favourite – not a predictable result at all! After a quick Skype with some precious people in Brisbane, it was time to catch up with my writing, and now here I am ready for bed. Tomorrow: more adventures in Philadelphia!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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Cheesesteak Judging and Banana Split Shock, Philadelphia, April 2012

27 Apr

Thursday 26th April 2012 – Well, after all that ballyhoo yesterday about our luxury lodgings, Charlie and I got a bit of a nasty shock when the scurrying of a nocturnal visitor disturbed our reverie last night! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, our room was invaded by a mouse. There we were, lying in the dark, and in the silence there was a ‘rustle, rustle, squeak’… the lights were flipped on, shoes were whipped out, and we lay in wait for the little blighter to make an appearance. Luckily for him, he was smart enough to stay hidden. I have to say, though, that it wasn’t a surprise; we’re in the old part of town, and this house was built in 1796; it’s only to be expected. In the end we just decided to pretend that it hadn’t happened, and managed to get a good night’s sleep. I just pray that tonight I don’t wake up with a rodent on my face!!!

Mouse invasion aside, we went downstairs to the breakfast room this morning and it was back to the lap of luxury: were treated to fresh brioche with boiled eggs, cereal, yoghurt, fruit salad and a selection of cakes, muffins and croissants. I tried a slice of a berry muffin with vanilla icing, which was just delicious; I really had to exercise all my will-power not to keep eating everything in sight!

Thanks to the rubbish weather today, we changed our plans slightly to involve more indoor activities; we decided to explore South Philadelphia, which turned out to be a lively combination of Italian ethnic neighbourhoods and young hipster enclaves. We walked southeast from the guesthouse in a zig-zagging pattern, just picking any roads that took our fancy. This first took us through more of the historical district, revealing cobblestoned lanes full of grand old brick houses. We came across one called Powel House, apparently the former home of Samuel Powel (Philadelphia’s first mayor after the revolutionary war), which had a beautiful little kitchen garden at the side leading to a larger green with statues in it. George Washington was a frequent visitor to the house, and we took a few moments to picture the scene as it might have been at the time (“Oh look dear, Washington’s turned up again, better put the kettle on!”) before walking on.

We passed by The Ugliest House In Existence (possibly) somewhere in our wanderings, too; a custom-made iron fence had been made, probably at great expense, and showed dogs chasing cats chasing birds chasing mice. It was supported in its ugliness by statues of bronze dogs and lions growling in the background. Just goes to show that money doesn’t buy you taste!!!

Front entrance of the Philadelphia Magic Gardens,
Philadelphia, April 2012

We finally hit South Street, the ‘Promised Land’ of funky boutiques and cafes, only to find that everything was shut until midday – apparently they’re too trendy for mornings! 🙂 It being 10:30am, we decided just to keep walking until we found the ‘Philadelphia Magic Gardens‘, the magnum opus of a local artist called Isaiah Zagar, and a big feature on our ‘to do’ list. His murals and sculptures dot the entire South Street corridor, but when we finally got to the Gardens there was no mistaking that we had arrived at our destination. It was a vision of colour and chaos; broken plates, bottles, tiles and bicycle wheels mounted together with thousands of pieces of broken mirror to create a mind-boggling display of light. One can only imagine how long it took him to put it together, and whether he planned it or whether it just came together organically. Here there was an old doll; there you could spot a smashed teapot, broken bricks and parts of what was once a fan. In some ways, it reminded me of The Crazy House in Da Lat, Vietnam: it was almost impossible to make sense of it but there was something very attractive about it. I suppose one can only admire the passion it took to get something like that finished. We wandered up and down the decorated concrete staircases, marveling at the insane angles on everything, and ignoring the rain that fell on us as we did so.

Sculptures at the Philadelphia Magic Gardens,
Philadelphia, April 2012

Outside, an elderly gentlemen saw us admiring the view and snapping photographs, and stopped to talk. It surprises me how eager Philadelphians are to be polite, and to stop and chat. Drivers acknowledge pedestrians; people stop on the pavements to let other people pass, and every time I hear an ‘excuse me’ and a ‘thank you’. Not what I normally expect from a big city! A man stopped to let me pass on a busy street and when I said thanks, he replied with an enthusiastic, “You’re welcome, sweetheart.” My little heart melted! Anyway, as I mentioned, a spritely-looking elderly gentleman stopped us for a chat; he was wearing a black leather jacket, black leather shoes, khakis, a jaunty little cap and a gold earring in his left ear. It turns out that he was over 80 but he was still a bit of a dandy, and had a killer smile! He was amazed to find that we were from so far away, and was simply delighted that we had come to his city, where he had spent his entire life. He told us about the best places to eat cheesesteaks and gave us a few other tips, including the fact that we should see the Eastern State Penitentiary (now closed and a tourist attraction) at some point. Then he casually dropped into conversation that he had ‘spent time’ there way back when, and Charlie and I both struggled to keep our jaws from dropping. Eastern State Penitentiary was no walk in the park – they put the hard-core guys in there and the Quakers gave them a terrible time! The jail was essentially closed in the late 60s, so he must have been a young man when he was there. Killer smile, indeed. Yikes!

The happiest dog in the world – 2 people petting him at once! Outside Liberty Bellows, ‘Your One Stop Accordion Shop’,
Philadelphia, April 2012

From the Magic Gardens, we started walking south to the Italian Market. We passed a garage door painted bright yellow with the Batman symbol on it (sweeeeeet), and I spotted a great bumper sticker: “Republicans For Voldemort!” Snicker, snicker, snicker. We stopped outside an accordion repair shop (who would’ve thought that such a place would still exist?) to spend some time with the owner’s disgustingly cute French bulldog, who was ridiculously affectionate. He absolutely lapped up the attention and both Charlie and I had to drag ourselves away from the plump little fella!

We knew we had entered the Italian Market proper when we could smell bread baking and garlic wafting from different windows and doorways. Sarcone’s Bakery rubbed shoulders with Ralph’s Italian restaurant; old shopfronts sold dried fruit from jars; fishmongers shouted out their stock; fresh pasta was everywhere; vendors sold fruit and vegetables right from carts and tables on the street. I studiously avoided entry to all the chocolatiers for fear of temptation! We stopped outside a provisions store called Di Bruno Brothers and I nearly had a heart attack just looking at the selection of cheeses in the window. Yummmm. The Italians know how to eat, that’s for sure!

Our main mission in this neighbourhood was to settle (for ourselves, anyway) a huge dispute that has wracked Philadelphia for years: who really makes the best Philly Cheesesteak sandwich?!? The two main contenders, Geno’s and Pat’s King of Steaks, have been facing each other down from opposite sides of a crossroads for 70-odd years. There is no middle-of-the-road for locals – you go to one, or you go to the other, but never to both. A Philly cheesesteak is basically what it sounds like – a sub roll filled with fried steak slivers, cheese and onion. We planned to order one from each place and decide for ourselves which was the best.

The battle rages on… a bona fide Geno’s Philly Cheesesteak sandwich.
Philadelphia, April 2012

We started at Geno’s, a brightly-lit, flashy-looking place at the northern end of the 9th St/Passyunk junction. The tables are outside, and the walls are plastered with photographs of fallen police officers and police patches from all over the country. A poster next to the counter where you order reads: “This is America. Order in English.” Yikes. Anyway, I did as they requested and ordered in English (!); the woman gave me a selection of three cheeses and I just asked her what she liked best. She said that Cheez Whiz (ugh) was the most popular, so I went with that. A few seconds later I had the sandwich in my grubby little mitts; Charlie and I split it down the middle. I have to say, it was pretty damn good. Thin slivers of meat, a nice crispy roll; it was flat but tasty! We licked our fingers greedily and then snuck across the road to Pat’s, hoping nobody from Geno’s would notice us and start a turf war! Pat’s is a fairly simple affair, nothing flashy – just a white counter with more outside tables. Charlie ordered this time, and in the name of fairness we ordered exactly the same thing – Cheez Whiz and onions. Again, we split it down the middle and the difference was almost immediately obvious – there was more meat in Pat’s, and it was a bit more fatty which gave it a bit more oomph. They had also been more generous with the “cheese”. And so, after polishing off our second Philly cheesesteak sandwich, Charlie and I both voted Pat’s King of Steaks as the winner. Please don’t hate me, Geno’s-loving Philadelphia!!! 🙂

The opposition: a Pat’s King of Steaks Philly Cheesesteak sandwich.
Philadelphia, April 2012

Full and contented, we waddled back up the road, through the market again, for the long walk back to South Street. By this time, all the shops had opened and we whiled away a couple of hours just pottering in all the too-cool-for-school little boutiques. We went to another comic book store, where I managed to convince myself NOT to buy the Ralph Wiggum comic book (Squeeeeeeeee!), and explored a lot of novelty t-shirt shops. In one shoe shop, the guy working there was incredibly friendly (and once again, pleased that we had chosen his city to explore); he seconded our choice of Pat’s having the best steaks, and told us to find a little place called Rita’s further down the street, where we should try the local ‘water ice’ frozen treat. He didn’t have to tell us twice! Off we toddled, and found Rita’s, where we tried a cotton candy flavoured water ice. It’s basically just a watered-down version of gelato, but apparently a Philadelphia staple, and I have to say it was pretty good! It was a bit too sweet for me, though, so I left it to Charlie to polish it off!

We stopped and had a nice moment in a t-shirt shop called ‘Cheesesteaks’, which sold pro-Philadelphia t-shirts and hats. We were just pottering through the store and the opening notes of Sam Cooke’s ‘Wonderful World’ came on the radio; I was totally thrilled when milliseconds later the volume was pumped to maximum, and I turned to the counter to see the guy simply beaming. He and I and another guy working there all broke into song, singing along with gusto to this most awesome of classics. Sigh. God, I love Sam Cooke, and I’m glad to see that there are other people out there my age who do too!

Banana Split: the aftermath.
The Franklin Fountain, Philadelphia, April 2012

After fully exploring South Street, we started our meandering walk back towards our guesthouse, where we had a breather for about 15 minutes, plotting our next move before heading onwards. As we left, we could smell the scent of fresh cookies being baked… wheeeeee! We made a beeline for a little place we had spotted yesterday – The Franklin Fountain, an old-school ice cream joint, complete with wooden bar and ancient till. All the employees (all men at this point, I noticed) wore neat shirts, little ties, white paper hats, and two of them even had little old-fashioned moustaches!  Charlie ordered a Cherry Bomb (cherry soda with a scoop of chocolate ice cream in it), and I ordered a Classic 1904 Banana Split. The damn thing arrived and it was the size of a HOUSE! I couldn’t believe it! The description had said that it had fresh banana and chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream with whipped cream, strawberries, chocolate fudge and toasted almonds topped with a maraschino cherry. I had imagined a dinky little bowl. It did NOT mention that there were three scoops of each flavour, about a pint of chocolate fudge and three towers of whipped cream, each about as big as my fist! I nearly died and Charlie laughed his ass off. The people at the table next door to us pretty much screamed when they saw it coming out. I gave it a champion effort but I was totally defeated. Four people could easily have shared it! Sigh. Weak, Tara. Just weak. But at least I enjoyed it!

Old-school chocolate heaven,
Shane Confectionery, Philadelphia, April 2012

My ice cream overdose did not stop us from visiting the Oldey-Worldy chocolate shop next door, owned by the same people. Giant jars of gobstoppers and other old-time sweets filled the beautiful, ornate glass shelves, but Charlie and I were only interested in one thing: chocolate-covered bacon. It was so gruesome that we had to get some, but I’ll be honest and tell you that we haven’t been brave enough to actually eat it yet!

Feeling slightly sickly, we went to the nearest subway station and, with only minor cafuffle over ticketing, got the subway to 15th Street/City Hall. Upon exiting the subway we passed a municipal building (the front of which was scattered with giant replicas of playing pieces from famous games like Monopoly and Ludo),and I overheard a bizarre but entertaining conversation. There was a bible nut on the corner shouting at people as they exited the building; he addressed one man in particular and the conversation went as follows:

Nut: “Hey man, are you going to heaven or are you going to hell?”

Other man: “Well… where are you going, man?”

Nut: “God says you only go to one or the other! I’m going to heaven, brother! What’s your choice?”

Other man: “Man, I’m going wherever you ain’t!”

I nearly laughed out loud when I heard this. I was then quite shocked when it turned out that the Other Man was in fact some sort of local politician; he had a bodyguard and a small entourage, and people were stopping to shake his hand and introduce themselves. Well well well; I wonder who he actually was?

From this little interlude we crossed the road to the John F Kennedy Plaza to visit the infamous ‘LOVE‘ statue, and then started walking towards the Rittenhouse Square District, which basically seems to be the main shopping strip and home of the yuppies. After my banana split overload I avoided an ice cream place cleverly called ‘Scoop De Ville’, and we took a little wander in Rittenhouse Square itself, which was leafy and green; a live jazz soundtrack was provided by a young trumpet player practising his art in the park. We strolled along the main shopping area (Walnut Street), peering into expensive bistros, and I somehow ended up with a new shirt and a book. Can’t imagine how that happened.

Finally we decided that we needed some real food, so we stopped at Pietro’s Pizza for dinner. We had fried mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto and served on a bed of spinach (Wow! Green food!), risotto balls filled with mozzarella and beef (served with a delicious napolitana sauce), and we shared a ‘Roma’ pizza – four cheeses with chicken, bacon and artichoke. GLUTTONY! Once again waddling from overeating (I guess we knew it was going to be like that… the two of us are such food fans!), we headed back to the subway station. Most of the entrances that we knew of were closed, but we finally managed to find an open one and caught the subway back to 2nd Street, where we wearily made our way home. All of the electric candles in the windows at the guesthouse were lit, a nice welcoming touch. Conveniently, we arrived just in time for cookies and hot chocolate…! Bleurgh! Food overload!!! We spent a little while planning for tomorrow’s adventures, and now it’s time for bed again. Wish me luck with the rodent situation – I spotted one of the little critters in the living room downstairs and I’m having nightmare visions again! Keep calm, Tara, keep calm. It’s tiny, and you’re a giant to it. It’s all going to be okay. 😉

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

Addendum, 12 Aug 2012: You will not believe this. I decided to try to find out the identity of the official-looking guy who was bantering with the bible nut. Turns out that it was the Mayor of Philadelphia himself… Michael Nutter! Well, I’d certainly give him my vote! Awesome.

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Shape-Shifters and Po’ Boys, Washington DC and Philadelphia, April 2012

26 Apr

Wednesday 25th April – Somebody’s messing with my head. I went into my dorm room at the Washington hostel yesterday afternoon to find a new roommate – a thin woman with short-cropped grey hair – sleeping in bed. Later, I bumped into one of my other room-mates who said they had seen our new room-mate too; a man, who had been asleep in bed. Both of us had been under the impression that we were in a female-only dorm so the appearance of a man was odd, and didn’t explain the ‘old woman’ I saw. Later that night, I went into the room again to find our new roomie STILL in bed, only this time it looked like a heavy-set man with pink cheeks. When I woke up in the morning, the creature was still in bed, only now it briefly pulled off its sleeping mask and looked like a pallid, emaciated, frail old man! Slightly freaked out, I left it to go back to sleep while I went to the bathroom. When I came back later, it was still in bed, only it was a normal-looking man with a hat on…! I say ‘it’ because quite frankly I don’t think it was human! Shape-shifter?!? Who sleeps that long and takes on so many guises in one day? This could be a case for Mulder and Scully! 🙂

Supernatural oddities aside (!), the day started pretty normally. I battled the teenage girls for the sinks in the washrooms before heading down to breakfast with Charlie at 9, where I issued a mandatory ‘second-language’ greeting to the man in charge of the breakfast bar. He remembered me from the day before and insisted on telling Charlie that we were old friends from way back. I suppose there was some truth in the friendship thing; yesterday he bullied some poor German boy into doing my breakfast dishes for me! The poor little tyke was horrified and agreed to do it, but I insisted on at least helping out. The man had guffawed loudly at the whole situation; I liked his sense of humour.

Anyway, we packed our bags and said our goodbyes to HI Washington DC before grabbing a taxi to the Greyhound station. It was a fair distance and cost only $10 including luggage surcharge – I keep being amazed at how cheap things can be here compared to Australia! We checked in at the counter with a woman whose accent was totally unintelligible – and this opinion coming from me, an English teacher whose job it often is to decipher indecipherable accents! While waiting for our bus, we eavesdropped on an interesting conversation coming from a group of strangers behind us; they were talking about Obama and Romney, of course, and possible election outcomes. What they were saying made total sense – the financial mess was Bush’s fault, Romney is not the Republican candidate of choice and thus has less of a chance of election, and America needs to give Obama another term if they seriously want to make it out of the financial quagmire. It was nice to hear sense coming out of the man on the street; too often in Australia all we see of the US are the rednecks on their soapboxes, full of hate and bigotry, preaching insanity. It was really quite reassuring to hear something different.

I got a little snacky (we had had to check in very early to collect our tickets), so I tootled over to a vending machine, which turned out to be filled with the most abominable garbage that could not even be loosely termed as ‘food’. In the end, I decided just to give in to the garbage, and bought a vile packet of flourescent orange cheese crackers filled with peanut butter. Yes, you read that correctly. Peanut butter. I tried one and nearly gagged, and had to make myself throw it away or I knew I’d keep eating it anyway!  Who eats that crap?!? (Apart from me, of course!) I then tried to buy water to rinse the taste out of my mouth, but an investigation of all five drink machines revealed that there was only one vending machine that sold water, and it was broken. D’oh! Not wanting to top off my evil snack with a soft drink which couldn’t quench my thirst anyway, I had just enough time to run to the bathroom and drink from the taps before we had to board the bus.

I’m not sure if Greyhound can be making much of a profit out of Washington. Every bus that we saw departing from the station was basically empty; either nobody’s going anywhere, or they’re all flying or driving themselves. Our bus had the two of us and maybe three others on it; other buses were leaving with 1 or 2 passengers, or in fact none. Perhaps they receive a government subsidy? I’m not sure, but I reckon all of those buses were running at a loss this morning.

Our journey was pleasantly uneventful; we both listened to our music and dozed on and off for the three-hour trip. We passed through thick green woodlands outside Washington, and then the bus made its only stop in Baltimore, which I found quite fascinating simply due to the fact that I had been an addict of The Wire, and passing by the docks made me think of Season Two…! Dork! After leaving Baltimore, we entered a stretch of freeway that passed through what looked like farmland; little wooden farmhouses with picturesque barns were dotted on both sides of the road, some hidden by trees. After this fairly delightful view, we were witness to an expanse of suburbs that reminded me quite strongly of Eastleigh, back in England – the stretch of brick houses along the railway line, if anybody reading this is familiar with that area…! Terraced brick houses with little white lean-tos, not in very good condition but quite liveable! There was an elderly lady sitting on her porch in a purple tracksuit, enjoying a vivid pink drink which matched a scrunchie in her hair; I wonder what her story was. I’m so often tempted just to go and talk to people and get inside their world for a bit, but sadly it’s not always possible – or indeed appropriate!

We could see the Philadelphia skyline from some distance; it’s a much bigger city than I had imagined, and quite spread-out. We started singing the theme from ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ (“In West Philadelphia, born and raised, in the playground is where I spent most of my days, chilling out max and relaxing all cool and shooting some b-ball outside of the school…!”) as a sort of welcome to the city, but frowned at the thought of singing Springsteen’s downbeat ‘Streets of Philadelphia’… but then what should we see, first thing, as we came off the freeway? A giant poster of Springsteen himself, who is apparently the subject of an exhibition at the National Constitution Centre…!

Living large at our B&B… who let the scruffy backpackers in?!?
Philadelphia, April 2012

We exited the bus and hopped a cab to our bed & breakfast, which turned out to be MUCH more swanky than we had thought. It’s right in the heart of the historic waterfront district, in a heritage-listed (built in 1796) home. The sitting room and dining room are downstairs, and the guest rooms are on the numerous upper levels. It’s all Chippendale furniture and antique furnishings; classical music greeted us as we came through the front door and our room is small but impeccably decorated, with exposed wooden beams. The bed is so high that I need a stepping-stool to get on it…! No, really. The trials and tribulations of being a shortass, once again. 🙂 Upon check-in, we were informed that wine and cheese would be served from 5:30 to 6:30, and freshly-baked cookies would be served at 8pm, and breakfast was from 8am. Blimey. Wine and cheese and cookies! Quite the change from the YHA’s “You eat off it, you clean it” policy!!! We took our bags up to the room and then set up camp in the sitting room downstairs, playing at being aristocrats on the chaise longue while planning our ‘things to do in Philadelphia’ list. Having figured out a basic plan for the next few days, we set off for a little walk around the neighbourhood without much of an idea of where we were headed. We passed by a Cuban restaurant (I resisted the urge to go in) and a bunch of ridiculously cool-looking bars and restaurants before hitting Market Street. We popped into a little shop called Smak Parlour, which sold cutesy little knick-knacks with cutting slogans on them like, “Inner beauty is for amateurs” and “Yes, I am that kind of girl!” but resisted the urge to buy more junk that we didn’t need!

Continuing along the street, we came across a little park filled with dorks (read: future internet millionaires) playing frisbee, which was part of the larger Independence National Historical Park, an L-shaped green lined with a number of Phialdephia’s most important historical monuments. We snuck around the windows of the Liberty Bell Centre (closed at this time of day) but couldn’t get a glimpse of the legendary bell itself, and then stared admiringly at Independence Hall, which was also closed – it’ll have to wait for another day!

We then walked north along 6th Street, past the National Constitution Centre, and right onto Race Street, admiring all the beautiful little brick-lined laneways and historic buildings we were passing. Philadelphia really has a very different vibe to Washington DC; it buzzes with life and feels much more alternative; there’s something going on down every little alley and all of it seems interesting! It’s also painfully cool… but I think I can forgive it for that! We spotted a wicked-looking bar with a delicious-looking menu, and made a mental note of it for dinner. Continuing down Race Street, we passed a number of specialist industry shops; places to buy glassware for bars and kitchenware for restaurants, along with period restoration companies (complete with cats sunning themselves in the window), trendy boutiques, antique stores and galleries… quite the mix. One shopfront (an architect, I think) had a ‘Little Free Library’ outside – it was a hollowed-out dollhouse with a glass flip-out front. It was filled with about a dozen books, and the instructions read: “This Little Free Library is from friends who wanted to Pay It Forward. They hope you will do the same! Take a book, return a book.” What a great idea!

Elfreth’s Alley,
Philadelphia, April 2012

We wandered over to Elfreth’s Alley, which is apparently America’s oldest residential street. The street is very narrow (just about wide enough to fit a horse or two!), cobblestoned, and filled with houses that date back to the mid-1700s. All of them have wooden panel doors on the ground outside for entry to the basement, and the wooden shutters were just beautiful. We were lucky enough to get there at a time when other tourists were mostly elsewhere; the hordes had left us with the street mostly to ourselves, so we took a leisurely potter from one end to the other. It was quite stunning, but I have to say that I’d probably hate to live there; it’d be like living in a goldfish bowl with all those people passing through! I was, however, charmed by a little side alley called Bladen’s Court, which looked like a miniature grove and led off to ends unknown. Lovely! Just like The Secret Garden! 🙂

From Elfreth’s Alley, starving after missing lunch, we pretty much ran back to the Race Street Cafe, which we had spotted earlier. Charlie ordered a ‘Dogfish Head Noble Rot’ beer (!) and a Spanish chorizo and beef burger with cheese fries, and I had a Race Street Po’ Boy, which was freaking awesome. A long, sub-like roll sprinkled with polenta on the outside and parmesan on the inside and toasted, then filled with a little crab salad (not made with mayo, hallelujah), some lettuce and avocado, and topped with corn-meal coated fried prawns and a yummy savoury (BBQ of some kind?) sauce, served with the crunchiest fries in existence, tomato sauce, and home-made mustard. Oh. My god. I demolished the whole thing in what seemed like one breath. After ending the feeding frenzy, we glanced about to realise that we were almost entirely surrounded by medical staff from, we assume, a nearby hospital. I was mildly peeved by a woman at the next table who was so vapid she almost wasn’t there. The man she was with decided to order something to snack on, and suggested nachos with pulled pork. He asked her what she thought. “I don’t mind.” Well, are you hungry? “Um, I’m okay with whatever.” No really, what do you feel like? “Oh, I’ll just have whatever you’re having.” Do you like nachos with pork? “I really don’t mind.” You could see that he was almost as peeved as I was; if this was a date, she probably wasn’t going to see him again. Get a personality, woman!

Delicious Po’ Boy at the Race Street Cafe,
Philadelphia, April 2012

From Race Street we walked south along 2nd Street, stopping to investigate anything that took our fancy, most specifically a comic book shop called Brave New World. TOYS!!! I came thisclose to buying a ‘Supernatural’ comic book but tamed myself at the last minute. I then had a near heart attack when I saw this t-shirt representing the movie ‘Stand By Me’ (the Pez! The comb! The leech!) but sadly they only had it in small! Aaaagh! When we reached Market Street, we hung a left towards the waterfront where we passed an Italian restaurant and some rather intimidating guys in suits outside… sleep with the fishes!!! After doing a little tour of the neighbourhood (more awesome-looking bars and restaurants; it would take a lifetime to try them all!), we found ourselves back at the hotel just in time for hot chocolate and fresh-baked cookies! Our fellow guest-housers included a Parisian woman, a German guy and a couple from Texas… quite the mix!

And now here we are, pleasantly exhausted and ready for bed after another successful day of eating and doing stuff. 🙂

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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Eating Italian Food in Chinatown, Washington DC, April 2012

25 Apr

Tuesday 24th April – Hallelujah, we woke up to blue skies!!! I had really not been looking forward to another day of walking around in gale-force winds and icy drizzle, so getting up and seeing the chunks of blue between the buildings was like a godsend. I sprung out of bed (not a common occurrence for me, being more likely to crawl out of the sheets with all the enthusiasm of a sloth) and beat the teenage girls to the showers again. As my friend Cameron (and his idol Charlie Sheen) would say: “WINNING!”

Charlie (not Sheen, thank god) and I met for breakfast at 8:30, where I discovered that there were no chocolate muffins left – boo! However, I managed to get hold of a banana muffin and this was enough to keep me happy. 🙂 A man looking after the breakfast station demanded a greeting in a language other than English, and I was happy to oblige with a grandiose, “Salaam! Hola! Bonjour!” This seemed to make him happy and I was allowed to proceed with my cereal.

Signs that most high-school field-trippers were sadly ignoring,
Washington DC, April 2012

Not long afterwards, Charlie and I found ourselves on a metro headed for Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place of many American servicemen and women. I am not particularly entranced by military institutions or by graveyards, but Arlington has always held a certain fascination for me. So many Hollywood movies have successfully evoked a distinct feeling of loss and sadness by using footage of Arlington. When I read ‘The Root Cellar’ (by Janet Lunn) at a young and impressionable age, I remember my heart breaking at the image of Will, one of the young protagonists who survives the horrors of the American Civil War, being found in Washington; in my head, he was found at Arlington, standing guard over his friend’s grave. So how could I not visit and pay my respects to all the many generations of soldiers who had been lost?

We wandered up the memorial drive, a long, wide, straight road which leads in a straight line back to the heart of the city, and entered the cemetery near the visitor’s centre. We were informed that funerals would be taking place during the day, and as such some of the paths would be closed. Would you believe that there were actually some people scowling at this news? It’s a bloody cemetery people – show some respect!

A day so sunny it was almost surreal, at the Arlington National Cemetary,
Washington DC, April 2012

Our first stop was the Women’s Memorial, austere in granite, and then we cut across one of the vast green lawns, stopping to read headstones as we went. The contrast of rows and rows of small white stones against the bright green grass in front of vivid blue skies was remarkable; so many lives lost too early, now forever bright in neat little columns. I was constantly struck by the sheer sadness of it; each stone represented someone who probably died in horrific circumstances, separated from their home and family at such a high cost. There were soldiers from Korea, Vietnam, World War One and World War Two; September 11th victims from the Pentagon; Civil War soldiers; astronauts from the Columbia and Challenger disasters, and the occasional President.

Our next stop was to pay our respects to President John F Kennedy; he lay in a simple memorial at the bottom of a hill next to his wife, Jackie Onassis, with an eternal flame burning nearby. The area was surrounded with awe and respectful silence; some people looked genuinely upset. I suppose he was much loved by the American people, and the shock with which his assassination was received is still palpable. The thing that touched me the most, though, was the fact that two of their children were buried with them. One small stone next to Jackie was simply labelled ‘Daughter’ (perhaps a miscarriage or stillbirth?) with only the year listed, and next to John was another small stone that showed that they had a son who survived for 2 days. So, so sad and so, so small. John Kennedy Jr was not at the same site; I wonder where he is buried.

Hundreds of the fallen rest at the Arlington National Cemetary,
Washington DC, April 2012

From there, we climbed the largest hill on the site to Arlington House, the original homestead on the property (which used to be a plantation until it was ‘acquired’ by the Union army during the Civil War, and subsequently became the cemetery we see today). Apparently Robert E. Lee lived there once, when he married the daughter of the original owner; blimey. It was a grand home, fronted with giant columns of orange sandstone, and an unbelieveable view over the whole of what is now Washington city. I could easily imagine myself sitting on a rocking chair of an evening, enjoying the view. From this vantage point, one can even see the Pentagon, which is right next door to Arlington. The interior of the house was mostly under renovation, but I was surprised to see that it was actually quite small despite its grand exterior. The original fireplaces were still intact, and there was some sort of amateur theatre performance happening inside for the benefit of school trips, but Charlie and I continued out the back to the kitchen garden, which was sadly also closed for renovation, meaning that we couldn’t visit the Unknown Civil War Dead Memorial/Tomb. Instead, we continued on to the Old Amphitheatre, a small but sweet structure covered in green vines. I don’t know the origins of the place but I imagined it as a place built at the same time as the house, used for entertaining. I could imagine rows of Southern belles in flouncy dresses being courted by men with decadent moustaches to the sound of a band on the stage; I wonder what they might think of how the house is being used now?

Leaving the amphitheatre, we walked along ‘Crook Walk’, up and down more green hills filled with little white stones, trying not to grimace at the annoying teenagers in stupid carnival hats shouting and yelling at each other and chasing each other along the steps. Where was their chaperone? Did nobody mention that perhaps that was unsuitable attire (and behaviour) for a cemetery?!? Sigh.

We finally came across the Memorial Amphitheatre, yet another grand ellipse with stone benches inside, and stopped for a short break before visiting the astronauts I mentioned before. At this point, we heard the beating of drums and realised that the funeral we’d been told about was under way. The rhythm was quite fast; soon, a large number of soldiers in full regalia came into view. The first group bore musical instruments; the second bore rifles over their shoulders. They were followed by a team of beautiful, strong-looking white horses, and then behind them came the casket on a polished black cart with golden wheels, draped in an American flag. Following the casket were a few civilians, by the looks of things, and then a number of cars. A bunch of tourists started racing to where the cortege was passing, whipping out their cameras excitedly. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

A soldier takes part in the changing of the guard for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, Arlington National Cemetary,
Washington DC, April 2012

We went around the back of the Memorial Amphitheatre to the Tomb of the Unknowns, where we just happened to catch the Changing of the Guard. Such pomp, ceremony and attention to detail. Even the way they walked (slowly rolling the foot from heel to toe with a straight leg) was carefully calculated, a clearly rehearsed set of instructions and confirmations issued and received. The tomb was established in 1921, its first ‘resident’ being a victim of World War One, and as such the man who patrols (a different one every half an hour) takes 21 steps alongside the tomb, waits for 21 seconds, and then walks 21 paces back. Amazing.

Prisms in the window make for a colourful appearance at the Museum of the American Indian,
Washington DC, April 2012

By this point, we were royally exhausted. Hours of pottering in the (delightful) sunshine, walking up and down hills, had left us more than a little hungry, so we exited the cemetery and got the metro to Federal Centre SouthWest. We marched in a straight, unwavering line (even ignoring Capitol Hill to our right) to the Museum of the American Indian. Were we going there to learn about the culture? To soak up the atmosphere? No, I’m ashamed to admit, we were not. We were going there in search of food. Of course! We had heard that the Mitsitam Cafe, inside the Museum, served a range of foods based on the cuisine of different native American regions, and were keen to give it a go. We were so hungry that we ignored all the lovely, rocky, wiggly architecture and mock wetlands; we paused for a millisecond to appreciate a totem pole and a VW Beetle covered in beadwork and then for another millisecond to appreciate the coloured light refracted through prisms in the windows, and that was that – straight to the food. The cafe was on a ‘grab-a-tray’ basis; there were a number of counters representing the different regions: the Northwest Coast, MesoAmerica, the Great Plains, South America and Northern Woodlands. We gorged madly: blue corn bread, a buffalo cheeseburger, red skin potato and corn puree, and the piece de resistance – blue, red and yellow corn chips topped with pulled chicken, cheese and salsa. Nom nom nom nom nom. All of it was simple but delicious. Charlie tried a Stewart’s Orange’n’Cream drink, which tasted disturbingly like an orange split ice cream, and I stuck to my Smithsonian (!) water. We rounded it off with a pair of amazingly creamy chocolate tarts; I’m not sure how ‘authentic’ they were, but damn they tasted good! I considered a rosemary and pine nut tart but knew I would have been jealous watching Charlie eat the chocolate, so what else could I do? 🙂

Our yummy lunch at the Museum of the American Indian,
Washington DC, April 2012

Replenished and refilled, we wandered out of the museum and walked over to the Capitol building, where we took a series of photographs that are making me laugh out loud just thinking about them. Perhaps making fun of the American Capitol building while right outside it is not the best idea; I could imagine a pair of snipers with their sights trained right on us, asking for permission to blow us away for disrespecting their dome!

Tired after all the eating and walking, we got the metro back to the hostel to rest for a little bit before heading out again to meet Charlie’s brother Gavin in Chinatown, which is not far from the hostel. Gavin has a 7-month old baby at home so he’s understandably a bit short on time; we met at the Starbuck’s opposite the elaborate Chinatown archway and stopped for a chat. I tried the most amazing drink – a Caramel Apple Spice. The guy behind the counter thought I was hilarious just because I had to ask what it was – turns out it was an apple drink heated up and swirled with cinnamon and caramel. Bleeding ‘eck, it was good! Normally I’m just a water girl but I can see myself making an exception for this drink again in the future. We took a couple of stools in the front window, next to a man with a dazzling smile – as we sat down he turned it on me and couldn’t help but smile back. Funny how there are some people that you just notice.

Anyway, we enjoyed our drinks and whiled away a bit of time, pausing to watch a very fit-looking man in shorts and a fitness vest prancing about like a loon in the middle of the intersection. Turns out he does it every day; the lights are set so that pedestrian traffic can cross diagonally as well as right across, so there are no vehicles in the intersection for a short time, and he just loves to be in the middle of it for as long as he can!

Gavin eventually left us and we pottered down the main strip past the Chinatown gate, stopping at an Urban Outfitters to browse through their bizarre selection of knick-knacks and funny books. Both of us ended up buying a copy of ‘Creative Cursing: A Mix’n’Match Profanity Generator’, snickering in a throughly immature way  at our two-part random creations, which included ‘snot glob’, ‘pecker wanker’, ‘jerk farm’, ‘mother donkey’ and other delights. No accounting for taste, eh? Ha ha ha ha ha!

Me and Charlie pull a Blue Steel at the Capitol Building,
Washington DC, April 2012

We decided on some Chinese food for dinner, seeing as we were in Chinatown, but after browsing a few less-than-inspirational menus we stumbled across Vapiano, a chain that’s one of my favourite places to eat with my friends in Australia, and one that Charlie has never tried. And so that’s how we ended up eating Italian food in Chinatown. You order your food at the counter and it’s made fresh in front of you while you wait; I had my usual carbonara with prawns, and Charlie tried the Truffle Ham pasta, which was a disgustingly good mix of fried ham, blue cheese, garlic, mustard, spinach and white truffle oil. Holy awesome pasta, Batman! We sat and chatted for a while as the place filled up around us, and then toddled back to the hostel. Walking down the street, we passed a man who was dialing someone on his mobile; she must have picked up because all we heard was a very enthusiastic, “What’s up, baby doll?” from him. Charlie and I exchanged a look; I’ve never been called Baby Doll in my life and I’m not sure I would react positively if someone tried it!

We arrived back at the hostel to see yet another school group checking in; now there was a group of mixed-age Mexicans, a group of teenage girls from Alaska and the new arrivals, a mixed group of 12 and 13-year-olds from South Carolina. God help us all! We had a chat to one of the chaperones from the South Carolina group, who seemed  like a nice guy; much better, at least, than the leader of the Mexican group who is a gross old shrieking battleaxe! Last night she was barking at the entire group like a disgruntled drill sergeant, and more than a few of us older folk in the common room were, quite honestly, terrified. “SHUT UP AND LISTEN AND DO NOT ANSWER UNTIL I ASK FOR IT!” she screeched in rapid-fire English… all of us made frightened eye contact and thanked the lord that we were not under her tutelage!

And so here we are again, in the common room, considering an earlyish night. Tomorrow we leave Washington after a thoroughly successful visit, on to pastures new.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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Sophie The Wonderdog, Las Vegas & Toronto, March 2012

22 Apr

Hey guys! Sorry I’ve been away for a while; I was in Cuba and unable to get access to the internet! I’m in the USA right now, about to start the big USA road trip, but it occurs to me that I still haven’t told you about the end of Vegas, or anything about Toronto, for that matter! As for Cuba, I’m dedicating a special page to it which I’ll update as I have the time… it might take a while to get through it all day by day, so feel free to check in every once in a while to see the updates. The page I created for Cuba can be found here, but be warned – there’s nothing much on it just yet! 🙂

So where were we? Ah yes, Vegas to Toronto. My apologies if it’s a bit perfunctory… I want to get working on Cuba ASAP! 😉

Friday 23 March – I woke up, packed and got ready before Karl and I drove to pick up Aunty C on the way to the airport. My checkin was superfast – quite the change to all the previous times I’ve been to Vegas airport, where I’ve spent hours rotting in a glacial queue praying for freedom! We went to a little place at the terminal called Alejandro’s, where we had a pretty good brekkie which was surprisingly cheap compared to Aussie airport standards. Once again: Aussies are being ripped off for every penny. I said a sad goodbye to Karl and Aunty C… geez, I love my family in Vegas! The security process was, again, quite painless (will wonders never cease), and the flight was nothing special – I basically watched crappy Entertainment Tonight-style shows and wished for it to be over!

On arrival in Toronto, I had to go to a special immigration area to get my working holiday visa cleared; there were a bunch of people all haggling with the immigration officers in broken English, which was a little sad – I’m glad I wasn’t in their position! The woman who processed my visa was actually very friendly, and before I knew it I was on my way out to baggage claim. A guy at the customs desk saw my entry ticket and yelped, “730 days? You’re going to be here for 730 days?!?” so I had to explain my situation; he looked pretty peeved and frowned maniacally but couldn’t really argue, I guess.

Frenda (my godmother) and her husband Adrian met me as I came through the doors. It’s always good to see them; I know they’re not blood relations but they do feel like family. The weather in Toronto was not as chilly as I had expected, and was actually warmer than Vegas – a balmy 14 degrees! We went straight back to Burlington as it was already getting late and it was a long drive; Frenda had made a delicious chicken with some roasted eggplant; she’s such a great cook. I was also happy to see Sophie, the house dog. Half Alsation and half sausage dog, she has tiny little legs on a big Alsation body. She is one of the most awesome, friendly dogs EVER, although she did seem less active than she was in 2007 when I last saw her; I guess age gets to everyone in the end!

After dinner I snuggled into bed and was out like a light before I knew it. And there began my time in Toronto.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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