Manhattan Solstice

Sadly too cloudy/hazy to get the full effect tonight but nevertheless, an interesting phenomenon.  Jordi scooted out of the restaurant at 8.43pm sunset to do a recce but returned to suggest the rest of us stayed put and enjoyed dessert.

All day we’d encountered groups of orange-clad tourists, supporting the Netherlands team in the World Cup final.  But walking back towards the bus stop for our journey home, we spotted the Empire State Building illuminated in red, yellow and red stripes and realised that those Dutch fans had been disappointed.

A fun and slightly quirky means of learning the result, though!

Visual feast

Quite how I’d ever get anything done if I lived here, I don’t know.  Around every corner, on every street and in every subway station, there’s a feast for the eye.  This morning, walking out in search of breakfast (because our favourite Red Flame diner is closed for rebuilding, sadly) we came across this terrific advertising display on the corner of a very tall building.  So cleverly designed to exploit the limited space available, that long, thin screen showed parachutes, people in a lift and other similarly long and thin images and caught the attention of us all.  The technology of enormous TV screens has really moved on apace and there are many distractions to cause a crick in the neck!

Go down to the subway and the crick in the neck is gone.  The art here is on the walls and rewards the most relaxed search.  42nd Street station (correct me, please, Jordi, if I’m wrong!) has wonderful mosaics, including marbles

and great vignettes of people having fun.  This is the party station, it seems.

We were heading for South Ferry station and the Staten Island Ferry.

The ride may be free but the views are priceless.  On a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, plenty of people were enjoying the fresh air on the water,

especially when a certain lady came into view.

I wonder how many cameras captured this image as we passed?  At least four in our party!

Fortunately we didn’t have to carry the paraphernalia Alice Austen did when she took her photographs.  We were headed to her house, on Staten Island, to the opening of a new exhibition of some modern photography.

Needless to say, we preferred the wonderful spirit of Alice’s own work.  The house itself was interesting too, but it was those wonderful photographs of Alice and her friends having fun which stayed with me.  Having never heard of her until our visit, I will now investigate further!

Back on the bus, the ferry and the subway, enjoying more station art.  South Ferry terminus has a tree theme running through.

Not only that, but that rare experience of having the carriage to ourselves for all of thirty seconds!

Meanwhile, on 42nd Street, the mosaic party goes on

observed by a party of ladies dressed more conspicuously than yours truly!

Another day…

…another time zone.

House sitters are back in action and having repacked our things almost straight from the last trip, the next adventure begins. 

Though the whole trip promises plenty of fun, these first days in one of our favourite places got off to a marvellous start.  Jordi is a reliable guide to the best of places to eat and her recommendation of Calle Ocho turned out to be spot on.

The atmosphere was noisy and colourful – just the thing for keeping awake!  The food was fantastic and arrived in huge portions, which meant that however delicious it was, however hungry we’d been, there was no chance that we’d ever finish it, sadly.  Above is my starter, tamal, which turned out to be the tastiest, most delicious prawn and tamale combination, with the pumpkin seed pesto drizzle adding a real twist.  Totally yummy and definitely somewhere we’ll return.

Another reason why we couldn’t finish could be that we’d polished off two whole baskets of their delicious yucca bread dipped in black bean paste – as we broke open another roll with those fateful words “just one more”, we knew we should have exercised restraint.

But we’re on holiday, aren’t we?

Clover love

Having been busy with my flower loom recently I was intrigued to find this on the Purl Bee blog.  Why had I not thought to weave the loops on the flower petals then?

Reading through the directions, I was tempted by the infinitely superior features of the Clover Flower Loom and mentally added it to my shopping list for my next Purl visit.  But then, a few days later, I wondered if I could get one here and save that little valuable luggage space for something else?

I found The Fabric Fairy, who not only appear to have a good range of bits and pieces on offer, they have a whole Clover section.

Which goes some way to explain why the postman just brought an interesting package for me just now.

How inventive of Clover to come up with such clever things I never knew I needed until I saw them!

Love it

I love working in creative environments, where important stuff like bubble wrap is filed in filing cabinets.

Much more interesting than dull old paperwork.