So! after leaving the girls in Munich I ventured up on the train to Marburg to meet my good friend from home Kate who has moved to Germany to teach for a while. It’s nice to know i have a good friend so close in Europe. It was great to see her and her host family were very kind to put me up there for a few days. Marburg is a lovely little medieval town not far from Frankfurt with cobble stoned streets and beautiful old buildings. Kate and I had originally talked of going to Poland from here for a few weeks since neither of us had been there before and we both had a keen interest in seeing the country. However after looking into things a bit more Kate informed me it would be difficult to get to from Marburg and not easy to travel around, so we decided in the end on going to Ireland… which was fine by me since it was what i had originally wanted to do during this time anyway before I made plans to catch up with Kate. I had been to Ireland as a kid with the family but it was so long ago now (13 years maybe) that all my memories of the UK have rolled into a bit of a blur. So it was rather exciting to be going back and doing it myself.

so after much debate about costs we decided to hire a car from Dublin Airport and just wing it bascially. We arrived in Dublin to…yep you guessed it, rain! After managing to find our car, it was a relief to dump my 20kg bag which i can tell you I am fast getting sick of carrying, in the boot and take a hold of the steering wheel again. Happy to be designated driver of our little Corsa, we took off….. ah so good to be in a car again….

Until i hit the first exit at the airport and was met with a traffic signal controlled round-a-bout. WTF?! since when do round-a-bouts have traffic lights? doesn’t that defeat the purpose? So after circling it a few times and getting cut off by people and generally bluffing my way through with no idea, we eventually managed to get onto the correct motorway out of town and headed straight for the town of Kilkenny. A busy little Irish town with a lot of pubs (how unusual….) we found our first night’s accomodation no problems and enjoyed a hearty pub meal with a pint of Kilkenny, in Kilkenny. Whilst in town we visited the Castle which was quite cool… and very complete compared to everything else we would see on the trip! With a vast green lawn sprawling out around it and autumn coloured trees dotted aorund the grounds, the big grey castle was quite spectacular. Here we also visited the first of many ruins on our trip, Kell’s Priory, an old monastic site that has absolutely no information posted anywhere, and the only visitors there were us. This was also the first time in years I actually walked through green, green, wet grass! We wandered through the site which had the remains of an old church and the rest was left up to our imaginations. I was quite shocked that such a beautiful place could be left so much to ruin… the grave sites were overgrown and we were allowed to wander over these ruins as we pleased. I thought that such a place would have moe upkeep… but then Kate pointed out, in a country that is so so old and is littered with old sites like this, how do you maintain all of them? How do you decided which sites are the most important? Very true.

And so we ventured on, headed towards Cork. On the way we stopped at (another) monastic site The Rock of Cashel, and a cottage Kate wanted to see, and then we hit the mayhem of Cork, a drivers nightmare of one way roads and peak hour traffic. I was so frustrated by the end of it that by the time we found our hostel we decided to get out of there early in the morning and move on. So we didn’t see Cork at all. The next morning we headed (in the rain) toward Blarney to kiss the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle (and receive eternal eloqouence aparently). I remember doing it as a kid… and nothing was different the second time around!

Blarney Castle

So after creeping through the tiny stairwells of the castle in the rain we set on our way again and ended up in Trallee, a town near the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula. The town itself was fairly ordinary, and our attempts to find a cute Irish pub to drink at were met with dissapointment as we again entered another one to feel completley like we were intruding on the locals. This would be a recurring thing on this trip. Maybe we were just choosing the wrong places but we never felt entirely comfortable wherever we went.

Using Trallee as a base for a few nights after finding a very comfortable hostel we decided against driving the Ring of Kerry due to the famously narrow roads (which i hate to imagine after already driving through some ridiculously narrow roads already on the this trip) on which i may be met with oncoming buses (no thank-you). so instead we decided that the Ring of Dingle (western most point of the country) would be just as spectacular… and it certainly was well worth it. After driving over the Connor Pass, the highest pass in Ireland and a most spectacular drive through a barren brown landscape, we were met with the beautiful peninsula of rolling green hills dotted with sheep, that meet the beautiful blue ocean, all against the backdrop of blue skies.

Dingle Peninsula

This was the moment we realised the benefits having a car, because seeing this countryside would be very difficult without one. We visited the visitors centre for the Blasket Islands which lie off the coast of the peninisula and used to be home to a small community of gaelic people up until the 50′s when the last inhabitants were evacuated… no wonder since the islands were subject to such harsh weather conditions and life was increadibly hard. One has to wonder why anyone would have chosen to live there.

The next day was a similarly beautiful drive along the Burren, a coastline of grey rocky outcrops and cliffs almost moonlike in appearance. We were headed toward the village Doolin and the nearby Cliffs of Moher. Doolin was a small fishing village with a lively pub with traditional music, at which i ate the most beautiful piece of atlantic salmon i have ever tasted. And a few doors down was a home made fudge shop which Kate and I nearly died in. I’m not one for fudge usually but this was something else! The Cliffs of Moher were quite stunning although the time of day we visited wasn’t the greatest for lighting, and i do believe we didn’t see it at it’s most beautiful.

Cliffs of Moher

Actually Kate and I agreed that as nice as they were, nothing compares to the cliffs of the Great Ocean Road at home. And for me, i didn’t find these cliffs as special as the White Cliffs of Dover which i remember being mesmerised by as a kid. We did attempt to wait around the at the cliffs to see the sunset, but it seemed to be taking an awfully long time to set, and it was dreadfully cold by this point. After deciding the sunset didn’t look like it was going to be all that great, we left. we visited the fudge shop at this point, and then the moment we came out, we saw a brilliant splash of pink and orange across the sky which hadn’t been there before. Typical! so we raced down to the water to take some snaps and watch the wonderful sky turn to night.

From Doolin we didn’t have much of a plan, so we took off north again, deciding to give Galway city a miss. We ended up driving up into the Conemara region at the suggestion of the Lonely Planet… which turned out to be one of my most favourite drives of the trip. Like a few of the other areas we had visited, like the Dingle Peninsula, Conemara is Gaelic speaking, which we had great entertainment in witnessing at a local servo. It has to be one of the funniest languages i have ever heard. It’s easy to forget that they actually speak various forms of Gaelic in many parts of Britain, and when you actually hear it, it’s so intriguing! It literally sounds like nothing else, it’s like jibberish. It certainly adds something to the feel of the country, it’s hard to describe. The landscape in this region was so different to anything we had seen so far, and nothing like i had expected to see in Ireland. Brown barren mountainous landscape with glassy lakes dotted around, and the whole place covered in an eery mist. It was much more like the highlands in Scotland than what we had been seeing in Ireland with the green rolling hills. We stumbled upon Kylemore Abbey which was a stunning grey building set in the hills overlooking a beautiful lake… so very picturesque.

Kylemore Abbey

We ended up staying in a quiet little town with the dorm to ourselves (again) and set off the next day towards Dublin. I would have like to have spent more time seeing the national park but it was hideous weather and we had a long drive ahead of us.

I had hoped that we would be able to find somewhere nice and picturesque along the way to Dublin to stay at overnight… but I now realise there is a reason the centre of Ireland is not mentioned in the Lonely Planet… there is jack all there! We attempted along the way at various points to find tourist info centres but they were all closed. Trying to find accomodation was a nightmare, and 70Euro for a very ordinary b&b was not a favourable option. Well into the evening we ended up finding ourselves in Slane which was much further than we had intended to get, but the accomodation there was cheap and we got a private room so we stayed for 2 nights. From here we explored the Boyne Valley and the Bru na Boinne monument, a neolithic burial ground created 5000 years ago, predating Stonehenge by 1000 years.

Bru na Boinne (Newgrange)

It is quite an amazing structure, they say that not a drop of water has leaked through since its creation. The only time when the chamber inside the mound is lit up is at the winter solstice each year when the sun’s rays shine straight in through the passage. One has to wonder how all this was created so perfectly 5000 years agon, and how these thousands of stones used to create it were trasported from 30 and 60 miles in opposite directions of the site. It has certainly puzzled modern engineers, a team of which tried to replicate the monument… and failed. Quite an amazing place!

From Slane we also visited the seaside village of Blackrock, which I of course had to visit, my hometown in Melbourne being Black Rock. I could see a slight similarity between the two towns, although I’m not sure if this was psychological with me wanting to find similarities rather than there actually being any.

And so we headed on to Dublin to return the car which I had grown quite fond of, and spend a few days in the capital of the country. Kate has a friend in Dublin who we were luck enough to be able to stay with. While we were in the city we went to see the Book of Kells which is an illuminated manuscript containing the 4 Gospels of the New Testament, dated in the 8th century I think, and complete with some amazing artwork and calligraphy. And on a similar theme we visited the Chester Beatty Library which was an amazing collection of manuscripts and artwork collected by Chester Beatty himself, who then donated the collection to the people of Ireland. We saw illuminated copies of the Qu’ran, pieces of papyrus with gospels printed on them dated 150AD, and other amazing artefacts from the far east and asia. Even a quite increadible collection of snuff bottles. Quite increadible that this one man aquired all this himself personally during his lifetime. This is a museum I would definately recommend to anyone visiting Dublin. We also visited the Guiness factory which i am very glad for having a free pass to, as we both found it a total waste of time. You don’t actually see any brewing of the stout beer at all, it’s just a loud, over the top exhibition. Of course we had a pint at the end, which i attempted to finish but just couldn’t. At least i tried! The most exciting part of the factory was seeing Vince Vaughn… and not just a glance from afar. I remember seeing this guy on the escalators and saying to kate “haha, that guy really looks like Vince Vaughn…” then i realised that was because he was was Vince Vaughn! We then somehow got stuck behind their tour group and managed to follow him the whole way through.

Vince Vaughn

I would have loved to got a photo but couldn’t bring myself to hassle him. Ah well…. i got a sneaky pic of him at the bar for proof anyway!

Callum was kind enough to take us on a drive through the Wicklow mountains just out of Dublin one afternoon, where we drove past a farm they used to film at for one of my favourtie movies P.S. I Love You, and visited the famous Johnny Fox pub… where many a many a famous person has visited. Actors, musicians, and politicians including Johnny Howard. Quite a cute lively pub with some great live music and some food that i was salivating at each time the waiters walked past. I would have loved to have eaten there but by the time we got a table and got our food it would have been several hours later. To our amusement we were having a sticky beack at the rooms at the back of the pub (all the rooms walls are covered in weird and wonderful paraphernalia) and there was a single table of people eating dinner in there, which i didn’t take any notice of until Kate started giggling… and we realised it was Vince Vaughn, again. Twice in 2 days, seriously I was starting to think he was stalking me…
hehe.

I wouldn’t say Dublin is the prettiest city or that there is particularly much to do there… but the few things we did see were quite cool. Except the abundance of Australian Ugg brand ugg boots nicely priced at an average of 200Euro =$400. I’m not sure if Europeans just really love our ugg boots and are stupid enough to pay these ridiculous prices for them, or if the recession (particularly bad in Ireland I might add, everything was sooooo expensive) has just hit the old sheepskin slipper in a big way. Either way… Ugg boots are an obsession over here and I for one just do not get it!

So that bought us to the end of our trip through the lovely Ireland and the end of our Kate reunion. It was a great opportunity for me to see a part of the world I vaguely remember seeing as a child… it was quite a strange feeling going to a place having a strange recollection of having been there before. It was really nice to go back and do it myself and being able to properly appreciate it as an adult. Especially the difficulties my parents must have endured of driving the tiny country roads… where the speed signs will say 80 on one side of the road but 100 on the other (what the??), and where there will be a painted “very slow” on the road with a speed sign post of 100 planted right next to it. Not to mentioned the fact that these speed limits of 100 are on tiny, winding, bumpy little laneways with blind corners that terrified me at times. But it’s all a part of the experience hey?! A great few weeks with a good friend was just what I needed before settling in to the coming months of cold wet and dark England. But more on that next time

So sadly I left New York but with every intention to return. Next stage of my adventures….Europe. First stop, London. For a short few days I stayed with a friend of a family friend in Paddington, London. Mark was very kind to loan me his spare room for a few days, in which time I rarely left the house! It was good to have visited London before so not to feel guilty about not doing anything at all. I had in New York come down with a nasty virus of some sort which saw me coughing all day and all night, getting very little sleep and no doubt keeping the girls in my dorm awake all night. It was nice to have somewhere to recuperate for a few days and start the tedious job of uploading some photos onto the net. I ventured down Oxford street once for some fresh air, and apart from that my only outing was to St Mary’s Hospital A&E to see a Dr to reassure Mum it wasn’t Swine Flu. A 2.5hr wait to see the doc for 5 minutes to tell me that infact, I wasn’t going to die and that I just needed to rest up. Hmmm. Munich in a few days for Oktoberfest might not help…

So off I flew in a few short days still feeling a little worse for wear, to Munich. Super excited about meeting my girlfriends from uni there, Cass and Amelia, who had both been doing the Europe circuit over summer. We met at out ‘hostel’, rather aptly called the Tent… as this is basically all it was, a large semi-permanent tent with a thousand and one dodgy squeeky sagging bunk-beds filled with drunk Aussies sleeping off their sins. After a lot of squealing and lots of hugs the three of us were reunited after what seems like a lot longer than 3 months. We promptly went about finding a place to eat, and once we did, spent the next few hours chatting non-stop about all our travels.

Thankfully Cass and Mealz actually looked into what sightseeing there is to do in Munich, as opposed to me who thought we were there just to drink beer… it’s a good thing we only spent one night doing this I think. So we had two things on the list, Dachau concentration camp, and Nuchweinstein Castle. Dachau concentration camp we set off to on a guided tour which was excellent. The camp was the longest running camp of all if my memory serves correct. It was the first Nazi concentration camp in Germany, housing over 200,000 prisoners from 30 countries during its operation. The only word I could think of to use to describe what I felt in the first few moments walking through there was that it was disturbing. It’s very difficult to describe the emotion that comes over you. It was very sobering. We spent a few hours walking around the grounds, through the prison cells and guard’s quarters. We heard of some sickening accounts of abuse and torture, and stories of attempted escape. We read excerpts from diaries of the prisoners and accounts of their experiences in the camp.

You learn about these camps in history lessons at school… you can read about them in books and memoirs… but visiting one of these places is something else entirely. The emotions that went through me were a combination of sadness, disgust, nausea, anger, empathy… and shame… for knowing that human beings were capable of doing this to their own.

Wandering through the halls of this camp, there is an eerie atmosphere… Time has not allowed the terrible atrocities to become mere vague memories… it’s still feels very much as though it were yesterday. Which I suppose is not a bad thing, in order to not let society forget… in order to not let it happen again. Whish is exactly the theme of the memorials outside… simple words on a plaque stating ‘never again’. The most disturbing moment of this day was visiting the crematorium, which I don’t wish to write about in detail… but what I felt was just sickened. There isn’t any other way to describe it.

A few things we saw/learnt that were interesting and quite disturbing in themselves, were that what used to be the SS Barracks of the camp, which are closed to the public, are now used to train the Police. Kind of wrong, if you ask me. Secondly, one of the memorials outside in the yard is a plaque with the different coloured triangles used to distinguish the different types of prisoners… yellow for jewish, red for political, etc. But there were colours missing… pink, for the homosxuals, and green for the criminals. When the plaque was made the survivors of Dachau still didn’t want to be associated with these people… so their colours were not included. Which begs the question… has anything actually changed when it comes to attitude?

So we left Dachau thankful for having the opportunity to visit, but feeling somewhat depressed. It is certainly something I recommend to people to do if they can stomach it, it is not a nice experience, but it is well worth it.

The second sight we visited was Nuchweinstein Castle… the “Disney” castle set in the Bavarian mountains. Now I had been here once before with my family as a kid, but at the height of the tourist season there was a queue a mile long so we never saw the inside. So this was my opportunity. I had some rather great expectations, and they only grew after sitting on a train and bus for nearly three hours to get there. It looks quite beautiful perched there in the mountain side…
We took a horse and cart up, the driver of which took a liking to Amelia and spent the whole time flirting with her… note that he was about 70 years old and spoke little English! Cass and I spent the whole trip up giggling madly. When we got to the top we learnt the castle was built only in the 1800′s… but wasn’t finished because King Ludwig drowned. So the castle only has a few rooms open to the public, and they are all tack tack tack I tell you! I’m talking coloured glass beads made to look like jewels on massive copper chandelier things. All over the top and quite ridiculous. And then you go to the room where the throne should be and there isn’t one… cos he died. It’s just odd! So, Mum and Dad, don’t worry we didn’t miss out on much all those years ago! To top it off the place was covered in scaffolding, not a just a bit, but one whole facade top to toe… the side that you get magnificent photos of from a veiw point that we climbed up to. Anyhoo… at least it was a memorable day!

So apart from these sights and a bit of shopping around town, the rest of our time in Munich was devoted to, yep you guessed it, beer. We visited the Hoffbrauhaus (sp?) one night for dinner and I had the traditional pork knuckle with potato dumplings and saukraut and a Radler (=shandy) and we listened to some quality big German band beer music. The place is so massive you can get lost in it, and it was bustling with an boistrous atmosphere that I’m not sure if it is always like this or is excentuated by Oktoberfest. I also want to note here… the beer maidens that serve you in these places and at the festival, are some super strong women… my God! I’m talking at leat 6 steins in hand at all times… they are some strong wrists! I also want to point out my amusement at the local taditional get-up, the dresses and lederhausen… i never realised they actually wear these things for reasons other than tourism… but aparently they do! The boys love getting into their suede capri overalls on the weekends for a beer… cute!

Which brings me to… Oktoberfest. After trawling around the stores for days to find the apporiate bust enhancing beer maiden dress for Amelia, we found one suitable, got her dressed up, and set about meeting up with an Aussie friend of the girls Joel, and a German wearing his lederhausen (sp?), a friend of Mealz’s, Phillip. And then we hit the tents. We managed to find a possie in amongst some locals at the Augustina tent and i ordered my first stein, which surprisingly i didn’t find too difficult to get through. Many a ‘Prost!’ were said with the slamming down of stein glasses… it was all very merry! The elderly men sitting next to us certainly didn’t hold back their excitement… horny old buggers! And from Merry it quickly turned to very messy when we decided to move on to a tent which I can’t remember the name off and remember very little of. I do remember about 10,000 people dancing on tables which we promptly joined in with… and a third stein later resulted in my bottom meeting table as i slipped and fell… Table 1, Kate 0. Dammit. My bum still hurts to this day. The rest of the night is a serious blur…I remember sausages, saukraut, hot chips, a massive gingerbread heart, and a sore bottom. But thanks to German purity laws ensuring their beer only has 4 ingredients, my head wasn’t too bad the next day! The next night we returned to the grounds to see it sober, went on the ferris wheel, ate some more sausage and saukraut ( i never want to see cabage again) and took some photos that we were too intoxicated to do the night before. I must mention here too, the number of Aussie blokes who, normaly so stingey, actually forked out in excess of 100euro for lederhausen, all cos it involves getting pissed…typical! And of course we had a laugh at the drunken messy people and wondered if we were so bad the night before… i have sneaking suspicions we were…

And what did I learn from Oktoberfest? That i had a ripper of a time and intend to go back next year. Prost!!

Good Morning Upper East Siders… Breakfast at Tiffany’s anyone??

A trip to the Big Apple wouldn’t be the same without a trip down Fifth avenue and Park Avenue. 5th Avenue is a shoppers dream… a fashionista’s paradise…and a backpackers shameful nightmare. I threw on what decent clothes I could find in my ruck, thankfully I had been shopping already, and went on my outing down the famous avenue. Actually I did this on two separate occasions, once on my own, and once with Sarah, as it’s much more fun with company! One day I found myself in the cosmetic heaven Sephora, where I think I spent nearly 2 hours. This place is make-up paradise. They have every brand known to man and little stations everywhere where you can try on whatever you like. They have professional make-up artists all through the store, and I jumped at the chance to get made up as we were going out clubbing that night. I watched a very passionate gay male make-up artist use some fancy electrical airbrush make-up on a girl… it was so intriguing I think the poor girl got a little freaked by me staring at her with a stupid look on my face for 20mins. I left he place a little poorer but a little better looking, hehe. Also on 5th Avenue is Abercrombie & Fitch, the most pretentious preppy American casual clothing outfitter. But Sarah and I walked by here and were met on entrance by a shirtless guy with quite an impressive 6-pack, who we could have a Polaroid with for kicks. Of course we both walked out of there empty handed as far as clothes were concerned, but with a very nice looking photographic souvenir. I swear that every sales assistant in that place is a model, both girls and guys, all of them were hot hot hot. Sarah and I played Who Would You Rather with many of the male models in posters in the big stores like GAP, but honestly, in this one, neither of us could choose. We both left feeling a little flustered, haha. I have to admit, I found even many of the male mannequins in the shop windows throughout the city strangely sexy… yes I know that is strange, but that is the desired result of the work of some very very clever visual merchandising artists… who have clearly succeeded in doing what they aim to do when it comes to me! I have to say, the visual merchandising on 5th Avenue is fantastic.

What else on 5th Ave? Well, Saks, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany’s, Jimmy Choo… In Tiffany’s I spent a couple of hours checking out the bling, which in all honesty I didn’t get that excited about. I do think the Blue Box has a lot to do with the excitement over Tiffany’s. Sarah and I spent ages looking at the engagement rings picking out which ones we liked, and it took me quite a while to find one I really liked. Don’t get me wrong, it’s Tiffany’s, the diamonds are big and sparkly and impressive, but not my taste in most cases…too common… I prefer Cartier…

Hehehe

We did have a chat to a security guard there who pointed out a massive diamond to us, which he mentioned cost $6million… honestly, it was ridiculously massive, and kinda ugly for a ring in my opinion, but there’s no denying that that was one impressive diamond. And despite my lack of interest in owning a Tiffany’s Diamond Ring…there was something kinda special about being inside Tiffany’s on 5th Ave in New York… I could almost here Moon River playing in the background too…

We went into Prada also and I nearly had an orgasm over the shoes in there, not to mention the handbags, And on the day I was there on my own I was strolling past Bergdorf’s and was met by a film crew parked outside the front. Then I realised they were filming he Sex and the City Movie Sequel… I hung about with a few others for a while hoping to see some action but eventually got bored and figured it wasn’t gonna happen any time soon and left. Ah well, no star spotting for me this time. Not far up from Bergdorf and Goodman’s is F.A.O. Schwartz, the toy store of the Upper East Side spoilt brats. It was pretty cool though, I was met with shelves full of cuddly Spot the Dog, Elma the Elephant, and Peter Rabbit. There were beautiful dolls houses with all the cute accessories to go with it, the most delightful baby clothing, a fantastic lolly section which I went crazy over like a little kid, and a massive piano that you step on the keys and it plays the notes. A cool present for your kid… if you have a spare $200,000 to burn. Certainly for the Children of Park Avenue. I also took a walk down this famous promenade one day… I’m not sure I really had any expectations but this avenue is one very wide street just lined with flat fronted apartment buildings. Practically no shops, just miles of brick apartments, all the same height, and perfectly manicured garden beds on the pavement outside and in the middle of the road. Looking up the street from one end it actually looks quite impressive. And it is straight out of the movies, with a doorman at each entrance and drivers’ cars parked outside the front. The men walking up and down this part of town are well dressed businessmen and the women immaculately groomed with clothes to die for. Their dogs too, actually. The children in strollers are all down the road in Central Park with their nannies. I’m not joking, it is exactly the way we imagine from the TV. I’d love to know if their private lives are just as messy and if their wardrobes are really as impressive….

And a few of my favourites…

Having just mentioned Central Park, can I just say, this was everything plus much much more than I had expected,. This beautiful park is massive in size,far more than I htough, and you don’t really quite realise from the map, you realise as you are walking from one end to the other. It’s far nicer than Hyde Park in London in my opinion. It’s filled with special places… quiet greens to lay in the sun (great for a hangover…) or to have a picnic. Several ponds and lakes to enjoy, to jog around (which I had every good intention to do every day on my visit but…well, didn’t) or to paddle a boat in (would have loved to, but couldn’t do it on my own as I had visions of me going around in circles helplessly, and had no-one to take a romantic trip for two with). One of the lakes is particularly lovely as on nice day when the water is smooth the Manhattan skyline is reflected almost perfectly in the glass water. There are brilliant fountains, cute stone bridges everywhere, street performers doing their arty thing everywhere, massive fields to play sports, such as volleyball, although it wasn’t quite the same watching white guys in sports shirts and sweaty t-shirts as in Rio watching tanned men in Speedos on the beach. Along the roads that wind through the leafy trees ride horses and carts (Where is Mr. Big when you need him?) and bicycle taxis and yellow cabs… oh so NYC. The only regret I have about my visit to this great city is that it wasn’t a month or so later… the trees of Central Park in fall would be nothing less than spectacular. I will make sure my next visit is timed to see this. I think that this was very nearly my favourite part of the Big Apple.

A close second would have to be Greenwich Village. Again, an unexpected delight. Many visitors to the city probably know this to be so, but I had no idea about anyting really, and this was a wonderful day. Terrace apartments lining the leafy streets, and Bleecker St, the cheekiest place for indulgence whether it be for your taste buds or your wardrobe. We visited the Magnolia Bakery and queued up outside to get inside to purchase a cupcake, and window shopped along the street, home to Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and many boutique fashion houses. By the end of our ‘walking tour’ we ended up in a park at the end of 5th Ave, and realised as we were taking photos of it that the fountain in the park was the same fountain used in the opening credits of Friends… so that was also quite cool to see. The day even started off well as we visited the Chelsea Food Market by accident. Expecting a flea market, I was more than happy to find this awesome food market in its place. I could have spent hours and much money in here although my waistline in probably thanking me for not. But if I were living in NYC, this would be, in addition to WholeFoods, a supermarket recommended to me by my cousin who shares my obsession of good food, the place I would shop at.

Actually I feel I owe WholeFoods a paragraph to itself. On entering this place I thought I had died and gone to food heaven. The Salad Bar- delicious fresh salads of pastas, grains, Quinoa which I never knew existed until I went to Peru, Thai Beef Salad, green salads, rice salads… Antipasti bars with olives, dolmades everything I love to steal from the platters at home before I go out on a Saturday night, when the folks are having guests over for dinner. The hot food bar full of curries and other fabulous looking stews. The soup bar with soups I could eat all day every day… Sushi that I could also eat all day every day if I could afford it (loved the abundance of sushi bars in NYC). There are so many bagels to choose from it’s impossible, a dessert bar with Tiramisu that you can help yourself to (I was in heaven). There were punnets and punnets if delicious sweet berries that I thoroughly enjoyed munching on in Central Park. Not to mention the bar full of different lasagnes and other specialty meals to take home. You could almost buy an entire roast dinner for 6 and pack it up and take it home. People often complain about the food in America, but NYC is another story all together. There are sandwich delis everywhere to get a great Panini from, and Sushi on every corner. There might be a lot of crap, but there is a lot of good to in the Big Apple, when it comes to cuisine. You just have to look! I regret not making it to Little Italy or Chinatown, but there is always next time. The only complaint I have is the abundance of Starbucks (very ordinary coffee) and lack of smaller privately operated coffee shops… but that is something I will always love Melbourne for particularly I think. But Melbourne, bless its wonderful coffee, is definitely missing out when it comes to WholeFoods.

I Heart NY

Well, I have nearly mentioned everything I wanted to now on this fabulous city. I’m not sure how many times I called it fabulous so far but that is exactly what it is… I loved every minute of it. I didn’t really have many expectations, people either love the Big Apple or they hate it. Since I loved London and Paris, loving NYC comes as no surprise. It is not just a big bustling city to me, it has character, excitement, and it’s magical. I know much of it is over the top and tacky and just screams “I have too much money”… like the Upper East Side. And some of it is just plain ridiculous, like the m&m store. But it still remains one of my favourite cities so far. I loved strolling through the busy streets, finding a small little deli to eat lunch in. I loved the stunning cathedrals which I didn’t expect to find in a city outside of Europe… I loved the excitement of Times Square and Broadway, and the style on 5th Avenue. I loved the food. I loved the great big classic art deco skyscrapers that tower over the city. Most of all I loved strolling through central park and seeing something different each time. I heart NY!!