USA - New York - Duran Duran live in Central Park!

FRIDAY EVE

Duran Duran






I managed to get a last minute ticket for Duran Duran so we all went! They were great...played all their old and new stuff. Was a small venue so could see them really well! Was outside so luckily did not rain. At the gig we meet some really lovely guys - Dan and Thomas who then suggested going to their local bar and then onto a diner...was a great night! We arrived back about 4am... New York the city that just does not sleep! (Or where we just did not sleep!)

Drinks in a NY bar


DANNY - Catch up when you I get back from Boston / Provincetown to go for a beer and check out the Circle Line.

Running across Central Park at dusk to get to the concert was really stunning.

Central Park at Dusk


SAV / NAT and INGER On the way for drinks we saw a Hummer! So they do drive them in New York! This was a real one but not pink!.

Hummer


SATURDAY MORNING
Lara had to get an early flight home Saturday morning, so then there were only 6 of us :-(

LARA - Have a great "Big 40" Birthday party and dance your socks off!

SATURDAY NIGHT
Thomas invited us for drinks at the Hotel (St.Regis on Firth Avenue)where he works and to go clubbing. As it happened we were all a bit worse for the wear from partying the night before and all week so just went for a quick drink. It is a very nice Hotel and Duran Duran were staying there! I bet Damon 1$ that we may see them in the bar, then changed it to 2$. (I like a bet but only for fun!) We were having a nice quiet drink, lots of older people in the bar. Then Simon Le Bon walks in (for those too young he is the lead singer of Duran Duran and 49 years old) with 2 girls and a guy. Was about a foot and a half away from me. No one batted an eyelid as they were all old. I did want to say "Hi, you were great last night!" but really was not the opportunity and then he sat down with one of the girls so was too late. Also Damon was getting a bit worried that I might actually go over and make a fool of myself. Hey, Damon you still owes me that 2$! :-)

DOMINIC - Is batted spelt right? :-)x

BODYCOUNT 1
This is not nice so for the faint hearted skip this bit. On Saturday we heard a loud bang right outside our appartment window. Now we are near Wall Street and opp the Stock Exchange so were a bit concerned. Sort of sounded like a gun. Saturday night we went out and saw an ambulance down the street, we asked the guard at the Stock Exchange but he did not know what had happened. So coming back we looked down the street and asked the policeman guarding the street. A guy had jumped from the building next to ours and that is what the sound was. We (Damon and I)saw the body (was covered) a bit of a way down the street. Not nice. Apparently the guy had just slit his girlfriend's neck and then killed himself. Urgh.

USA - Brooklyn & Murakami exhibition

THURSDAY AFTERNOON

Murakami exhibition




This afternoon I meet up with Harsha and Dave to go to the Henry Moore sulpture exhibition in Brooklyn´s Botanic Gardens (their equivalant of Kew Gardens which I had already seen and was excellent!). But for some reason it was not on so we went to a very Kitch diner for lunch and then went to see what was on in the Museum. We were then blown away by the Murakami exhibition in the Brooklyn Museum. See pics below. His work is brilliant and we all wanted to buy his paintings but were too expensive so we bought some postcards and badges instead.


Kitch diner


In the diner the walls were full of fake flowers, had to take a few photos as it was so kitch. The food was great. Was an old style family owned diner. You order a diet coke and they come and fill your glass up for the same price as one drink. And they gave us free pudding - strawbery shortcake and cream. Who said there is no such thing as a free pudding?

After saying goodbye to Harsha we headed downtown for dinner with James and Luvena at a great Mexican Resturant - Barrio Chino and later for drinks in the Lolitta bar.
Barrio Chino for dinner

USA - New York - Trip to Staten Island

THURSDAY MORNING

This morning was a bright and sunny day so we all went across on a free ferry to Staten Island to see the Statue of Liberty. Great views of the skyline of lower Manhatten. The buildings are really high!

Views of Manhatten and Statue of Liberty

USA - New York - Exploring

MONDAY

This is the first day of my new adventure - To Infinity and Beyond!

Today I flew to New York for a 2.5 week holiday with my friends Sam, Emmet, Damon, Lara and Sam and Emmet´s two boys Joe and Thomas. ´

New York really is so good they named it twice!

It is Damon´s birthday so we celebrated on the flight with Champagne. I slept very well on the flight as I was still packing the morning of my flight! (No change there!)

They let us all in which was good. But all had to have a retina scan and a fingerprint taken - am not sure where they have stored my data.

Through two security checkpoints we arrive at our fab appartment near Wall Street and opposite The New York Stock Exchange. The appartment is grand. Check out the chandelier in the entrance and the gold waiting room! Bit over the top! It had a gym and pool!

We arrive on Memorial Day so loads of locals on their Bank Holiday. We headed down to the pier where there was a party atmosphere. Great food and views of Brooklyn Bridge.

Brooklyn Bridge


3 Commanding Officers


Lara convinced some sailors to have their photos taken with me. (I do like a man in uniform, and try to get photos with as many different types and in different countries whilst on my travels - purely for the cultural differences :-) ) Turned out they were actually all Commanding Officers of the 3 American War Ships in harbour for Memorial Day. As soon as we told them that Emmet is Irish, Ken Long (The middle one) presented Sam a medalion as a present for Joe...Apparently it is good luck to present it to an Irish family as the Ship - USS The Sulivans has Irish history and personell.

Present from a Commanding Officer


TUESDAY

Central Park


The sun was shining and we headed for Central Park. Was lovely to just chill. Saw some wild Racoons which were really cute! (Thourght of you guys - The Orange team animating Racoons for the Orange client!) Also saw some terapins sunbathing aswell.

Racoons in Central Park


Loads of people in the park, having picnics, playing basketball, baseball, cycling, rollerblading and jogging. Saw the Strawberry Fields memorial dedicated to the memory of musician John Lennon.

We (Sam, Lara and I) all went for a pampering at BlissWorld where the Sex and the City girls go...had a pedicure and manicure...colour golden silvery taupe...more shopping then we walked back via Ground Zero. You can´t really take it all in, the size of Ground Zero is amence. So far the death tol is 2,998 (excluding the 19 hijackers) and over 6,291 people injured. Why?

By chance some close friends Harsha and Dave from the UK were partying in New York at the same time so we all meet up at the Crocodile Lounge with our old Creative Director - Lino and old friends James and Luvena who we also used to work with and who now live in New York!

WEDNESDAY


Traffic lights


Now the roads did get some getting used to. Looking the other way to normal for oncoming traffic. The traffic lights differ to ours in that they have a little white dotted outlined man for go and a filled in red dotted hand for stop. ( do I sound a bit square?) The road layout are good and being a grid you can just say meet you at the corner of 8th Av were it meets 5th Street.

CHARLOTTE - Thanks for the NY map you gave me is proving to be very useful and fits in my pocket!

Antique Garage





The food in New York is great! so many different types of resturants. But the portions are huge! Too big for the average Brit! We did start to order one meal between two as we did not want to get fat, and salads. Emmet found a great resturant called Antique Garage in Lower Soho. Funnily enough it was in a garage and had loads of antigue things on the walls. Also a very ornate chandelier. The New Yorkers seem to like chandeliers as seen a few now.