Saturday, December 26, 2009

DONE!



Det tog længere end forventet, for sorte stikkesting på sort baggrund er stort set umuligt! Men onsdag blev jeg stædig og i dag blev jeg endelig færdig :) Nu skal jeg bare have det i ramme så det kan komme op og hænge ved siden af mine bøger :)

Perfekt timing, for jeg købte denne for nogle af de penge jeg fik i julegave :)

Monday, November 23, 2009

Jordans mosterdag

Nina satte Jordan af ved 10-tiden lørdag morgen, og han satte med det samme standarden for resten af opholdet - kastede sig straks i Lars' arme, og havde absolut intet imod at Nina gik... opdagede det nærmest ikke.


Henni havde efterladt en tavle og noget kridt som gave til ham, så han sad og tegnede lidt på den, og kiggede efterfølgende på familiebillder sammen med Lars, mens jeg fik gjort frokosten klar. Efter vi havde spist fik vi ham i flyverdragten og tog afsted for at trainspotte! (Ja, Lars prøver at hjernevaske sin ældste nevø).

Vi tog bussen til Rådhuspladsen og gik over til hovedbanegården for at se den modeljernbane der er der (Jordan havde sagt at han "gerne ville se de tog der kørte selv, men også de tog der kørte på penge"... så måtte vi jo gøre det ;-) ) Vi gik ind af hovedindgangen, så Lars kunne løfte ham op så han kunne kigge ned i banegraven på vejen... hvor han straks imponerede Lars ved at udpege "onkel Lars' tog" til forskel fra "toget til Jylland".

Fra Hovedbanegården tog vi toget til Dybbølsbro, for det er der, det er lettest at komme over til Godsbanegården, hvor der var en masse store lokomotiver at kigge på. Bare ud fra den korte tur fandt vi ud af at det er MEGET sjovere at køre med tog end at køre med bus. Jordan nærmest hoppede hver gang han så et andet tog ud af vinduet.

På Dybbelsbro fik vi sikkerhedsvestene på og efter en lille snack var vi klar til at gå videre.


(Jordan forklarede nøje at dette var hans Dipsy-hat ;-) )

Vi gik ud af den låge I kan se bagerst i billedet og ned på sporene. Jordan fik nøje pålagt at man må KUN gå her, når man er sammen med en som onkel Lars, og han var meget påpasselig med at holde en eller begge af os i hånden hele tiden.


Jeg har været på tur med Lars indtil flere gange efterhånden, og jeg synes stadig det er helt vildt fedt at komme hvor "almindelige dødelige" ikke må gå ;-)


Lars viser Jordan hvor "hans" tog sover om natten.

I forbindelse med sin undervisning tager Lars også ofte elever herud, for der er en masse ubrugte skinner hvor man kan studere sporskifter mv. Så selvfølgelig skulle Jordan (og jeg) også lige se det. Jordan syntes det var helt vildt skægt at lege med Brio i naturlig størrelse!


Lars grinede højlydt da han så dette billede og har store planer om at bruge det i sin undervisning. "Her er et sporskifte med rombe-betjeningslås. Det er så let at bruge, at selv en 4-årig kan finde ud af det." ;-)


Selve sporskiftet var dog ret tungt at flytte - selv jeg havde problemer med at klare det alene.


Jordan fik også lov til at lege med bremsen på en parkeret godsvogn, og var meget imponeret over at den var fuld af sten som kunne løbe ned ad en lem i bunden!

Vi var nået ca halvvejs da vi mødte en køremand som skulle rangere et lokomotiv hen i den anden ende af opstillingssporene. Han spurgte Lars hvad vi var ude og lave, og da han fik at vide, at vi var ude for at vise vores nevø rundt, spurgte han, om vi ikke ville køre lidt med. Would we EVER!!! Selv jeg syntes det var helt vildt fedt, og har faktisk længe haft lyst til at prøve, men ikke regnet med det ville blive til noget. Det var et af de store ME-lokomotiver, som bruges til at trække regionaltog. Jordan var meget begejstret over at sidde forrest og køre stærkt! (for stærkt mener Lars... vi tror køremanden lige skulle vise sig), og Lars kunne ikke have været mere tilfreds, hvis han selv havde arrangeret det ;-) Jordan sagde også pænt "Tak for turen" da vi blev sat af :-)


Desværre var førerummet for lille til at jeg kunne få et godt billede af Jordan der, men her er et af ham sammen med lokomotivet.

Jordan imponerede faktisk Lars en del. Lars fortalte ham hvordan signalerne virker - hvad der betyder "Stop" og hvad der betyder "Kør", og efter det udbrød han selv ved hvert signal "Her må man køre!" eller "Her må man ikke køre!" Lars havde også forklaret ham hvordan man kobler to vogne sammen, og vist ham den kæde der bruges til at holde dem sammen. Man kunne kun se ca. halvdelen af kæden, for den sad fast i den ene ende, men det lykkedes alligevel Jordan at genkende en, da vi så en løs kæde ligge på jorden lidt senere. Lars var pavestolt! :-)


Jeg er helt vild med det her billede. Det havde været endnu bedre hvis jeg ikke havde taske på, men jeg synes stadig det er godt.

Efter vi var blevet sat af skulle Lars lige tage nogle billeder (vi var kørt ca. 800m forbi en masse spændende tog ;) ), så Jordan og jeg sad og fik os en snack i mellemtiden. Da han var færdig gik vi til Enghave station og tog toget tilbage til Dyssegård station. Der er godt nok ca 2km hjem til os derfra, men vi regnede bare med at bære Jordan det meste af vejen. Nope. Han ville gå selv! Og klarede det rigtig flot, uden at brokke sig en eneste gang. Han ville også lige hen og kigge på modeljernbane butikken lidt ;-) Alt i alt gik han ca. 5km i løbet af dagen uden at kny. Jeg var meget imponeret!

Hjemme gik jeg i gang med at lave dejen til aftensmaden (Jordan havde bedt om pizza og ville hjælpe med "pynten") mens Jordan sad og legede med min Rubick terning (som jeg fortalte Lars - jeg er ikke sikker på, hvad jeg ville have sagt, hvis han havde løst den!). På et tidspunkt så han ud af vinduet, "Se! Der er månen, men den er ikke helt fuld. Og der er en planet." Både Lars og jeg undrede os lidt over det sidste, for det var ikke helt mørkt nok til stjerner, og den var for stationær til at kunne være et fly. Lars slog det op på Google og Jordan havde ret! Jupiter skulle være synlig fra ca 16:00-22:30. Lars vidste ikke helt, hvordan han skulle reagere på det, "Jeg har aldrig set Jupiter før, og havde heller ikke opdaget den denne gang, hvis ikke min firårige nevø havde sagt noget!!!" Hehe!


Vi sad lidt og læste mens pizzan var i ovnen.

Efter aftensmad fik Jordan lov til at se lidt Madagascar inden han skulle sove, men vi havde tydeligvis været for hårde ved ham, for da dyrene ankom til Madagascar pausede jeg og spurgte om han ville se videre eller have godnathistorie, svarede han godnathistorie ;-)

Jeg læste et par bøger for ham og puttede ham i vores seng - det tog hele 10 minutter fra jeg begyndte at synge godnatsang til han sov trygt. Det er jo ingen sag at passe børn når det går så nemt! :-D


Vi havde puttet ham i vores seng, og bar ham så ind i stuen da vi gik i seng. Jeg havde egentlig regnet med bare at blive i vores seng og lade ham sove alene i stuen (lejligheden er trods alt ikke så stor), men efter at have ligget og vendt og drejet mig en times tid uden at turde falde i søvn for "hvad nu hvis jeg ikke kunne høre ham!" endte jeg alligevel med at flytte ind til ham. ... for min egen skyld, snarere end for hans! Men det var nu også utrolig hyggeligt at ligge og sove sammen med ham. Næste morgen spurgte jeg, om han havde opdaget det. "Nej! Jeg troede bare, jeg var hjemme!"


Efter 20 minutter af "Biler" og morgenmad tog vi afsted med bus til "Mormors kirke" (som vi fandt ud af også var Morfars kirke, oldefars kirke, Mortens kirke, min kirke og selv hans kirke, fordi det var der vi skulle hen i dag) hvor vi mødtes med Nina, Rebekka og ungerne.

Det var en sand fryd at have Jordan på besøg. Han var glad konstant, gjorde præcis hvad vi bad ham om, tog ingen "ture", selv når vi sagde nej, og var bare SÅ hyggelig! Ikke at Lars er blevet mere klar til at få børn af den grund, men hvad - man kan jo ikke få alt ;-)

Tusind tak fordi vi måtte "låne" ham, Nina. Det må vi gøre igen en anden gang :-)

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Bøger læst i september og oktober

Anderson, Laurie Halse: Speak, 3.5/5

Bray, Libby: Rebel Angels, 3/5

*Chima, Cinda Williams: The Demon King, 5/5
Colfer, Eoin: And Another Thing, 3.5/5

Delinsky, Barbara: While My Sister Sleeps, 4.5/5

Herbert, Frank: Dune, 4/5
*Hills, Marion Moore: Deadly Design, 3/5

*Golding, Julie: Secret of the Sirens, 5/5
*Golding, Julie: The Ship Between the Worlds, 3/5
Goodkind, Terry: Naked Empire, 4.5/5
*Guin, Ursula Le: Gifts, 2.5/5

Jackson, Neta: Who Do I Talk To?, 4.5/5

*Lo, Melinda: Ash, 3.5/5
Lowry, Lois: Gathering Blue, 4/5

Maurier, Daphne du: Frenchman's Creek, 3/5
*McIntosh, Fiona: Emissary, 3/5
*McIntosh, Fiona: Royal Exile, 4/5
Meyer, Stephenie: The Host, 5/5
Moers, Walter: The City of Dreaming Books, 4.5/5

Noël, Alyson: Evermore, 3/5

Powell, Julie: Julie & Julia, 4.5/5

Wolke, Robert L.: What Einstein Told His Cook 3.5/5

Yancey, Philip: Prayer, 3/5

Zafón, Carlos Ruiz: The Angel's Game, 3.5/5
Zink, Michelle: Prophecy of the Sisters, 4/5

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

All good things must come to an end...

... også mit anmelderjob for Armchair Interviews. Jeg har lige fået en e-mail om at de lukker ned. Det blev for meget arbejde for dem der organiserede det, og nu mente de at det var tid for dem at stoppe.

Æv! Jeg har nydt at arbejde for dem, og er blevet introduceret for så mange nye gode forfattere og bøger gennem dem. Det vil jeg savne!

Ah well. I det mindste har jeg stadig Tellerup, så det er ikke fordi jeg vil løbe tør for læsestof liiiige med det samme ;)

Thursday, September 3, 2009

NYC - Part 10 of 10

Thankfully Lars managed to sleep off the headache, and was feeling a lot better this morning. He'd done the last bit of his train-riding yesterday and was happy to spend the time with me. I still had a few last things I wanted to cross off my list, so off we went.

Our first stop was the NYPD museum down south of Wall Street. I'd found that in my guide book, and thought it sounded interesting. On the way there we discovered a Borders that had completely hidden itself the last time I'd walked past there, so naturally we had to go browse there for awhile too ;) Didn't buy anything though - they didn't have the book I was looking for, and Lars wasn't terribly impressed by the selection of trainbooks either ;) Now that I'm back home I regret not buying more books while I had the chance, but I was trying to be sensible... Ah well, next time ;)

Half of the NYPD museum was really interesting and half was really boring - but I guess that's always the case. Reading about the measures being taken in the fight against terrorism was absolutely fascinating, and I did find the history of the NYPD very interesting as well - for instance that it underwent a complete rehaul in 18-something after the public discovered that the police refused to investigate a murder until a reward had been offered!!! I also enjoyed reading about the well-known criminals of NYC. The museum was stationed in an old police station which leant nicely to the atmosphere. And now Lars can say that he's had his mug shot taken at a police station in NYC! ;)


We decided to head back to Grand Central to find some lunch there (I really liked their food court... Denmark could learn something from that!) and afterwards I bought a smoothie and snuggled up with a book, so I could send Lars off to peruse the different tracks of the station. Don't ask me why - I don't know either. He managed to spend about an hour and a half though, giving me lots of time to read, so we were both happy :)

We felt pretty much sated and 'done' with the city at this point, so headed back to the hotel to pack and relax awhile before dinner. I was adamant that I did NOT want to have the last dinner somewhere I might as well find in Denmark, so I'd checked out the location of John's Pizzeria (which was recommended to me by one of you guys... sorry, I can't remember who) to try what was allegedly the best pizza in NYC.

...Well, I don't know about the pizza being the best (either that, or NYC pizza is just not nearly as good as Danish pizza... which of course may very well be the case ;) ). Certainly it was good, but it was the atmosphere that blew me away. Both Lars and I gaped as we entered the restaurant, because it was certainly NOT what we had expected. Beautiful, large rooms with high-domed ceilings and beautiful wall paintings. Turned out that the pizzeria was situated in an old church, which suddenly made the architecture make a LOT more sense. It was amazing and more than made up for the boring dinner yesterday. Even Lars exclaimed that he was really happy we'd gone here :)


Part 11
I'm just going to tag this on to part 10 as it'll be very short. Basically day 11 consisted of packing, waiting for the shuttle to take us to Newark, driving to Newark, being completely shocked at how boring Newark airport is (I'd expected at least 1 bookstore and was very, very disappointed ;) ), waiting to check in, waiting to board, waiting to take off (because of the weather we waited in line for 45 minutes... although I am grateful that we weren't grounded altogether) and finally flying the 8 hours back to Copenhagen, Denmark.

It was good to be home, but I must say that I do not feel 'done' with NYC at all. It's a lovely place, and I wish we hadn't been there in the middle of a heatwave. I like just walking around a city to 'soak up' the atmosphere, but it was too hot for me to do that this time. I definitely want to go back!

The best part of my vacation? Meeting new old friends. That was brilliant!!! :)

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Bøger læst i juli og august

Jeg glemte det sidste måned, så her kommer en bunke bøger jeg har læst de sidste to måneder.

Ansay, A. Manette: Good Things I Wish You, 3/5

Briggs, Patricia: Dragon Bones, 4/5
Brontë, Charlotte: Jane Eyre, 4.5/5
Brown, Sandra: Hello, Darkness, 4.5/5

Cashore, Kristin: Gracelin, 4/5
Cooney, Caroline B.: The Face on the Milk Carton, 3/5
Crow, Lili St.: Strange Angels, 4/5

Dahl, Valborg: De to komtesser, 3.5/5

Elton, Ben: Dead Famous, 4/5

Fantaskey, Beth: Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, 4/5
Farrell, Fiona: Mr. Allbones' Ferrets, 3/5

Haasnic, Cialan: Homegrown, 3/5
Hobb, Robin: Assassin's Apprentice, 5/5
Hobb, Robin: Asassin's Quest, 5/5
Hobb, Robin: Royal Assassin, 4.5/5

Jacobs, Kate: The Friday Night Knitting Club, 4.5/5
Jackson, Neta: The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Decked Out, 5/5
Jackson, Neta: The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Rolling, 5/5

Kidd, Sue Monk: The Secret Life of Bees, 3.5/5

Meyer, Stephenie: Midnight Sun, 3.5/5

Quinn, Julia: The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, 3.5/5

Robb, Candace: The Cross-Legged Knight, 3/5

Sleator, William: Singularity, 4.5/5
Smith, L.J.: The Vampire Diaries Volume I: The Awakening and The Struggle, 3/5

Wharton, Edith: The House of Mirth, 3/5

NYC - Part 9

Katie had recommended the NYFD museum as well worth a visit so after a quick breakfast, Lars and I decided to head down there to check that out.

And I have to agree with . Definitely worth a visit. I'm not terribly interested in fire fighters myself, but Lars is, and he enjoyed reading about the history and seeing the different fire trucks (I didn't care much about those, so I have no pictures of them).


For me, personally, the highlight was seeing the 9/11 memorial... although I don't know if "highlight" is the right word. It sounds too positive for something as utterly devastating. Lars and I spent a very long time in there, and we were both in tears by the time we were through. Not that it was a big memorial, but it's so incredibly poignant that it just drew us in. We were rendered speechless.


After the museum Lars and I jumped on the A train to take it all the way through Brooklyn and out to Queens on the other side. This took us past JFK and through Jamaica Wildlife Refuge. I'd wanted to go partly to be able to say I'd been in all 5 boroughs and partly to see this, but in fact there was a lot less TO see than I'd expected - just marshland really. I did regret not bringing our togs though, because it was HOT and Rockaway Beach would have been a great place to visit!

On the way back, Lars decided he wanted to take a trip to New Jersey, and I wanted to walk across Brooklyn Bridge (we'd seen it from Manhattan one of the previous days, but as Lars didn't really know how it would be for his vertigo, he didn't want to join me there), so he dropped me off at High Street and we went our separate ways again. On High Street station I saw the narrowest escalator EVER! Unfortunately there weren't any people standing ahead of me, so it's hard to gauge the scale, but there would NOT be room for two people standing next to each other! Still haven't seen any escalators as long as the one at Namesty Mero station in Prague though ;)


The walk across Brooklyn Bridge was a LOT longer than I had expected. The guidebook I had said that the river was 500m wide, but either it was completely off, or the bridge itself was a LOT longer than that (or both) - I think Lars read 2km somewhere, and that I'll believe :) Originally I'd thought to take the train to Brooklyn Bridge station and then walk back and forth, but I'm glad Lars talked me out of that, because I was absolutely exhausted and far too warm for comfort after just going one way. I'm glad I went though. The view was absolutely magnificent.



My legs were hurting quite bad at this time (I know I've been writing this at the end of practically every day, and it definitely was the case, but I just want to state - for the record ;) - that it was nowhere near as bad as it would have been without the crutch, and the pain disappeared overnight, so I was "good as gold" the next morning. That has NEVER been the case before. I cannot stress this enough. THE CRUTCH WORKED MIRACLES!!!! I am SO thankful! :) ) so after a quick detour through Times Square (I think that's possibly my favourite part of NYC :) ) I went back to the hotel for a shower and a nap before Lars came home.

Unfortunately Lars came home with a raging headache not too long after - complete with full-blown migraine symptoms (he's never had a migraine before, so I don't think that's what it was, but his symptoms definitely resembled mine). I didn't feel right about leaving him, and he definitely wasn't in any condition to go anywhere, so I ended up going up to Times Square and getting take away McDs for both of us. Not my first choice of food, and I did consider getting something less boring for me (or just something that I wouldn't have been able to get in Denmark), but didn't want to leave Lars for longer than necessary, so McDs it was. The things you do for your loved ones ;) Lars went to bed not long after, in the hopes that he could 'sleep off' the headache.

Friday, August 28, 2009

NYC - Part 8

I took SO many random photos this day that you may want to check them out at Picasa. I'll try to limit myself and just post a few select ones here.

Due to a very fortunate coincidence my penpal Jennet and her husband were visiting NYC the same time as we were, so of course we had to meet! :) Jennet and I had arranged to meet up at the hotel lobby at noon (we were even staying at the same hotel!) so I decided to go for a quick visit to the M&M shop at Times Square and browse without Lars laughing at me ;) I fully see how utterly tacky all the merchandise is, but I still loved looking around to see all they had. The shop smelled much too sweet for me to feel like buying any of the chocolate though, so I didn't make use of any of the big dispensers... probably rather counter-productive for them. But if I had $250 I didn't know what to do with, I would have gotten this chess set!


Jennet and I recognised each other straight off, and after 6 years as email friends it was great to actually meet her in person! I love how with some people it doesn't matter that you've never met - you've known each other for years, and it feels that way when meeting up :) We fell into talking straight away and had a great time together. Well.. I did, anyway ;)


We walked over to 5th Ave to find the Rockefeller Center. I hadn't realised it was practically a mall - and a lot of it underground. Guess the name, "The Rockefeller Plaza" should have given it away, but I didn't think that far. Once there we had no problems finding the Swarovski store, and I was very grateful to discover that Jennet had no problems spending as much time there as I did :) They have gorgeous jewellery, but I absolutely adore their figurines, and ended up getting these penguins... figuring that even Lars could get behind choosing penguins as a suitable souvenir from NYC ;) Jennet found an absolutely GORGEOUS jewellery set, so at least I wasn't the only one to use money there ;)

Irina had told me about a Scholastic store in lower Manhattan, and as Jennet wanted to go there too, we decided to jump on a train and head down there. Oh wow! Now THAT is a dangerous store for me to go into!! They had a HUGE YA section (obviously) with so many books I'd love. I limited myself and only bought one book though, but it probably helped that the only BabySitter's Club books they had were the new graphic novels. Had they had all the originals I think I would have been very hard pressed not to supplement my collection ;)

It was about lunch time by now, so Jennet asked the cashier for recommendations of lunch places nearby and we were sent just around the corner to a very nice Italian café. It seemed like one of those places that is mostly frequented by natives, so we enjoyed being somewhere that hasn't quite been discovered by tourists yet. The food was really excellent too :)

After lunch we went back uptown (yeah, back and forth we go, but we made up the plans as we went along and didn't have any reason to rush anyway ;) ) to visit F.A.O. Swartz. I'd been told that it's NYC's version of "Hamleys", and that sounds about right. This (and the M&M store earlier that day) is where I went crazy taking photos. They had giant figures made out of Lego (Chewbacca, Batman, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Hagrid), giant soldiers made out of jelly beans, a muppet factory, and gorgeous miniature instruments. I was especially enamoured by the two latter, so have to post photos of those here :) The rest can all be found at the Picasa link above.

Jennet took even more photos than I did though ;) Can't wait to see hers!

NYC saw fit to have its first heat wave while we were there (go figure!), so both Jennet and I wanted to head back to the hotel to freshen up before meeting our husbands. I had no idea what Justin would be like, but it turned out that he was a really cool guy with a great sense of humour, so having dinner together was a blast. We ended up at the same Mexican place as the first night, and while Lars and I still found the food delicious, Justin told us that it couldn't live up to Mexican food in Texas... we'll have to test that sometime! ;)

NYC - Part 7


One of the things Lars and I had both declared a MUST was a visit to Central Park Zoo. We were well aware that as zoos go it was pretty small, but that didn't matter - our love for the movie "Madagascar" meant we had to go there :)

As expected the zoo was nothing special, but we did have fun finding the lemurs, penguins and polar bears, and it was nice doing stuff together :)


Once we were done with the zoo (which didn't take all that long) we grabbed lunch and then headed off for more train-spotting/shopping. Mine ended up mostly being browsing though. I found a Swarovski boutique, but their selection wasn't all that big and Jennet and I had planned on going to the one on Rockefeller Plaza the next day anyway, so I ended up not buying anything. I wandered around town for awhile and found both the Argosy (2nd hand bookstore but neither as big nor as well stocked as the Strand, didn't tempt me for long), Pomes Frites (a restaurant with yummy french fries and probably around 20 different sauces for them - I really wanted to bring Lars there, but unfortunately that didn't happen. A shame, he'd have loved it), "Books of Wonder" (a childrens/YA bookstore - very cool! Didn't buy anything though :-/ ) and another B&N (I was looking for a specific book which - unfortunately - they didn't have, so I'll have to order it off amazon instead). I do have addresses for all of these places, but I figured that might just be superfluous information. Let me know if you'd like any of them.

I've discovered that I really miss GoodReads.com whenever I'm abroad. I see all these cool books that sound fascinating, but know I can't buy all of them, so I need somebody/something to help me decide. GoodReads does have a mobile app, but unfortunately it's too expensive to access when abroad.

This walk basically took me all over town, so my legs were screaming at me rather loudly that I should go back to the hotel and relax for awhile before dinner, which I'd decided was to be at the Brazil Grill right by the hotel.

That was probably one of the best dinners we had while in NYC :) We'd been told they had a Brazilian buffet, and asked for that, but were very confused when we discovered the buffet only sported rice, black beans (which smelled FOUL - I didn't dare taste it) and a salad bar. The restaurant had advertised 10 different kinds of meat, so we didn't know what to make of it.

While discussing it, I was playing with this weird stop-light thingie (see photo) that was standing on my table.

After a few minutes (long enough that we'd wondered if we were supposed to just go up to the buffet and start) the waiter came over, introduced himself, and asked if we'd ever tried a Brazilian buffet before? No? Well, we should just help ourselves at the salad bar, and then they would come down to the table with the meat. The stop-light thingie was to indicate whether or not we wanted more meat - as long as we left it at green, they'd keep coming, once we turned it to red, they'd know we were done.

A smart way of doing it, and the food was delicious. Well, the salad-bar was fairly standard, but the meat was well-cooked and with lots of variety. We had turkey, 2 different kinds of chicken, 3 different kinds of pork and 4 different kinds of beef. Very, very yummy and definitely a place I'd recommend to other people visiting NYC.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

NYC - Part 6

It's the day after visiting museums I most notice how much good the crutch did me. Usually I'd hardly be able to limp around the hotel room after using 4'ish hours in a museum, but today I woke up just fine! Why didn't I discover this years ago? I'll definitely have to look into how much it would cost to buy one for myself.

Today Lars and I went our separate ways again. He to go off train-spotting, me to meet up with my very first e-mail penpal! Jen and I have been corresponding on and off since 1993 or 1994, but had never met. She lives in CT, so when she heard I was coming to NYC, she offered to come down, if I had time to meet up. That's the beauty of Lars wanting to go off on his own on vacations - I generally do have time, so finally, after more than 15 years, we got to meet :)

Jen and I met at the hotel lobby and headed out to have lunch at a rather nice deli. I had a roastbeef sandwich which turned out to have more roastbeef than bread! I like roastbeef just fine, but everything in moderation please! It was really delicious after I'd taken out 75% of the meat though ;)

We had no plans other than general sightseeing, so we decided to cross over to 5th Avenue and then walk as far down that as we felt like... which ended up being around 40 blocks in total! We walked past the Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building (the lobby is beautiful, but a trip to the top cost $35 so we decided to skip that, Flatiron Building and - most importantly ;) - a bookstore! :-D Jen is almost as big a bookworm as I am, so we had a great time suggesting books for each other. I ended up only buying one of them, but wrote the others down to look up on GoodReads, and managed to convince her that she should sign up there as well! I love talking books with friends, and GoodReads is a great place for it :)


By the time we reached 14th Street and Union Square my feet were killing me, so we found a Starbucks and brought our drinks over to Union Square Park to sit in the shade and talk for awhile. It was really brilliant to have this time to catch up on each other's lives, and get all the details that you don't think of to write about in e-mails. I had such a good time together with her! The picture blow was taken by a police man who sat next to us in the park. Jen wasn't sure about asking him, but I figured I could play the "clueless tourist" card and not get in trouble ;) Guess the crutch worked as a sympathy card as well ;) (an aside - people were SO kind to me, standing up for me in the subway, picking up stuff I'd dropped and apologising for bumping into me even if I had been the one to bump into them. I almost felt like a fraud for walking around with a crutch when I didn't really need it... on the other hand, the general good state of my leg proved that I DID need it - to remain functional I mean).


At 5:30pm we went back to Central Station, so Jen could get her train home, and I could find my way back to the hotel to shower and rest for awhile before Lars came back. Dinner tonight was at Subway which we do have in Denmark (something very close to it anyway), but Lars had had a craving for it all day, and promised that I would get first picks of where to go for dinner tomorrow so I'll live ;)

NYC - Part 5

This is going to be another picture-heavy post. Both Lars and I adore the "Night at the Museum" movies, so of course we had to go to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH).

We took the subway to AMNH and decided to work our way from the top down. The museum was a lot bigger than I had expected, but a lot more interesting too. I especially liked the exhibits of American and African Mammals. I had NO idea Alaska brown bears were so huge!! Unfortunately I forgot to get Lars to take a photo of them. Ah well, next time ;)


My favourite part would have to be the Polynesian exhibit though. Immediately as we entered the room, I noticed something at the other end of the room. "Look, Dum-Dum!" - cue Lars cracking up! :) They also had a small section on Maori art, which of course I appreciated :)




Oh, and we found Nemo! ;)


We'd contemplated going through Central Park once we were done with the museum, but ended up spending far too much time there, so we would only have had 15 minutes before the zoo closed and deemed it not worth it. Instead we took the train downtown to City Hall as Lars wanted to see that. Unfortunately that too (like the public library) was covered in scaffolding and closed off to the public, so there wasn't much to see. Instead we walked over to Ground Zero as Lars had told me it was just around the corner.

That was a very thrilling experience. There was nothing to see, but like I told Lars, it's the first time "nothing" has given me goosebumps. Seeing a construction site and knowing that 8 years ago it had been the site of 2 sky scrapers. Chilling! Definitely the most poignant experience of our trip. I'm glad we went past.



Both my legs, my wrist (from leaning on the crutch all day) and my head were killing me at this time, so after having walked all the way around Ground Zero (and seen the memorial by the fire station), we decided to head off home. I would have liked to visit St. Paul's Chapel, but again, that'll have to be some other time.

For dinner we ended up at Sbarro on Broadway. I'd wanted to try Olive Garden (we don't have that chain in Denmark), but their wait time was 45 minutes and we were too hungry for that. It was actually okay - better than what I'd expected from a fast food place, and because of the heat I wasn't all that hungry anyway.

And tomorrow I get to meet Jen Smiga!