"Autumn in New York, why does it seem so inviting"....

We in da Big Apple now babies!!  …And it rocks!

(Or at least we suspect  it does….all we seem to do every time we get anywhere after long treks on bumpy pavements and battling the subway with folded up strollers, is to then try and find a toilet for one and then another 3 year old bladder).

No, seriously, every time we go out and wander around we stumble across a whole new interesting part of the city, which seems to change dramatically from street to street.  We have seen all the most important sites in New York – spectacles shops, hats shops,  some more spectacles shops, more hats shops, oh yes and a jazz music store…….. Jase is having a ball.  (Any further such shops have now been forbidden!  And you thought he looked chuffed with himself in LA).   We managed to also find time to slip in a sight of the Lady of Liberty, courtesy of a ferry tour round the bottom of Manhattan.  It’s actually a pretty amazing statue up close and quite moving in all it symbolises.

Beautiful old brown stone houses with the typical New York external steel ladders, huge sky scrapers, magnificent art deco, lush central park, frenzied traffic, it’s all here and J is getting some great photos!

In LA we ate hamburgers and fries a lot (…when in Rome etc….), here we have been in indulging in New York pizza slices – YUM! They’re the Best. Can’t go past the mushroom and pepperoni. Although after almost 4 straight days of indulging I’m  nearly, almost, maybe, over it.  It’s been a gourmandising visit actually – we trekked to the Lower East Side for the world’s best doughnuts. (The book said they were as big as a human head which is what peaked Jase’s appetite – sadly that was not exactly true, but they were bigger than enough, and just as delicious as promised.) – we ate Ukrainian goulash and stuffed cabbage, and blintzes in the East Village (very tasty) – we queued for almost 20 minutes for cupcakes(!!) in  Greenwich Village (at Magnolia Bakery) – and, Nadia, I have to say yours beat them hands down honey! They were SO sweet and it was such a frenzied tourist stop I think all da love has gone out of the baking! (we then later discovered a new branch had opened just round the corner from us, with no queues, and tried the slice of coconut cake – very yum but also way too sweet, can’t eat too much.) – we have had more than our fair share of hot dogs and pretzels from the street vendors ( so much so that every time we pass anything resembling a trolley the girls start yelling and begging for pretzels or hotdogs – we’ve set a bad trend) – we had some Southern Soul Food in Harlem, courtesy of Ben, which was delish (now I understand the whole fried chicken thing!)  ….okay…sadly, I’m realising that talking food is the longest paragraph here.  Coming home several kilos heavier than we left I suspect (and not even got to Spain yet for churros, and turkish delight in Istanbul!!)

We took the girls out to a cool old jazz club one night, the Lennox Lounge – tres funky.  I was amazed they let us in with them, but they did and were very accommodating. However  arriving at a Harlem Jazz lounge with two toddlers  took the patrons by surprise – by the looks on their faces we may as well have ridden in on horses! They were very well behaved and eventually fell asleep on the plush leather lounge booths, which allowed us to stay as long as we liked, so we stayed til 2am closing and got a taxi home. (Oh aren’t we just such the sophisticates!) Sadly that was our last night doing anything together – Jase has been to jazz clubs 2 nights in a row now and I went to a Broadway show another night  all on my little lonesome – “Gypsy” which was really good, starring the AMAZING Patti Lu Pone. (New York is NOT the city to be in with kids and no babysitters – dammit!!)  3 more days in NYC…..man where did it all go so fast?!