Good morning everybody! After a bad night's sleep, writing of the blog and dozing off for a short while again, we got up and went for breakfast at Balthazar's. Oh dear! This is definitely THE place to be for the more upper class New Yorkers! We were being served by well trained waiters, perfectly dressed, like a French restaurant requires.Had the choice between a "cup" of cappuccino or a "bowl" and saying that the waiter pointed with his hand a small cup. What we received however was supplying us with enough caffeine to run through the day! (what we actually needed) ! and the light boiled eggs with "soldiers" (did not know this was even an English expression!) and the home roasted granola with fresh fruit and yoghurt were superdelicious ! Not to be done every day, coz a bit expensive (40$ for only that is not really cheap) but the best way to start your day!! Then off we went to find us a travelbookshop, but the (only one) in the neighbourhood was closed on weekends! Bit strange though. And as we were then already quite close to Brooklyn Bridge, we decided to walk the bit and it gave us a flavour of Chinatown.If you wouldn't know where you were, you'd think you'd be in Hong Kong or so! We were approached a couple of times by people mumbling something to us (and no offence, but most Asian people are by definition hard to understand when they speak English) The only thing we could make out was "Rolex" or "handbag lady?", eum...did you want to make a statement darling, saying I'm not elegant?! Anyway...after some searching we found the pedestrian entrance to the Bridge. This is absolutely cool and amazing! It was a pity that the skyscrapers were topped off with clouds, but on the other hand this gave it a hint of mistery. In Brooklyn we walked around in the Heights, took a look at the waterfront to see the skyline of New York, saw Lady Liberty in the distance, stepped all the way down to Fulton Street, hoping to find a bookstore (strange area though, a bit of "lost" glory) took the underground to Greenwood Cemetery, one of the largest and most beautiful cemeteries in the world. It was rather a park, where the graves seemed to have been "seeded" lying crisscross on the lawns and on the hills. It was huge and beautiful with flowers blooming, and different trees growing and ...just so quiet and lovely! Then we walked through another huge park on our way to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. In that large park an american myth prooved to be true: fathers are playing baseball with their sons! Throwing and catching and throwing again, cheering them and encouraging them, and these small american boys, with baseball hats, and special trousers and that big glove...quite cute to see! The Botanic Gardens are a MUST, really, well that is, if you like flowers and herbs and plants. You have to pay a fee (8$) but it is worth it. We came accross a few couples having their bridal pictures taken! And that proved that an other thing is true: the bridemaids do all wear the same dresses and this flowery thingy on their wrists . Yesterday was THE day to get married in Brooklyn!!! Then, on our way to Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge again. Manhattan bridge is almost equally lovely as is Brooklyn's, so we sat underneath it, took some pictures of early evening-New York, got half deaf of the train rambling over the bridge, like every two minutes, and looked for a place to eat. We first passed a Spanish-Mexican little place, we managed to find us a seat, but it was quite smellly in there, the food looked ok, but we had to go order it ourselves, queue for a while and being quite tired (which is an understatement!!!!) we decided to leave and find us a place where we would be served! Which we found! With a beautiful view on NY's skyline and superdelicious pizza, served on a kind of "cake plate", you know a bit above the table on a foot. There were a few "standard" pizza's and a choice of toppings. Mmmmmmm! That and a glass of prosecco made the day complete. The walk back, over the bridge, with NY by night in front of us was also something not to forget! By 22:00 we were "home" again where - tatààààà!!!- Marc's bag was waiting for us! Yiehàà! And now I'm writing this here, the night was noisy again, the firebrigade here puts on their alarm for sports sometimes and some people find it really necessary to shout a bit under our window. We had pooring rain last night but now it is dry again, with a strong wind, let's hope that will change into sunshine again as the plan is to go to Central Park.... Let's see! Have a good day you all and take care!
Hello everybody! Here we are again with the sequel of our adventures in the USA!! It is good to be here again but... It all started already a day before our departure: I had to go for a meeting to Austria and the return was not that flawless: in the airport in Vienna the system was out so loooooooooong queues at the check-in.Thank God for the internet and for the possibility to check in upfront!! So when that problem wasn't a problem anymore, we went on. We took our trolleys with us as handluggage. Of course, all our toiletries were in there, so had to try to convince the man at the X-rays to let us go through (my colleague and myself) and again a solution was given: we could check our trolleys in at the last moment, cool! that was solved. Then the plane left with about 20 minutes delay...no problem, then we had to make a loop before Brussels due to heavy showers, and when the plane had landed, we had to stay in for at least 30-45 minutes as there was no ground personnel due to the weather. Ok, when that was solved we had to wait another toooo long time to get our luggage which we found by shere coincidence on one of the belts that were functioning!! I got home after 10. This only to picture the situation. (Next morning we were picked up by my parents with a 20 minutes delay due to some road travels in our neighbourhood, which brought me close to a nervous breakdown. We managed to arrive in the airport in time, dropped our luggage and went to the gate. Why oh why do they put too little people on the luggage-check early mornings?! and why do they never speed up?! anyway, we arrived just in time for boarding, one split second left to go to the toilet. sigh... Flight to London was perfect (except for the really shitty sandwich we received) and we arrived well on schedule, but again we had to wait inside the plane due to heavy traffic. Ahum! Still no problem though, we went smoothly to the other gate and came at the British control/check...Christ! No way you can stress these people!!!take off shoes, take off belt,..I always wonder why you have to go through all that misery again after having had it already in Brussels. Then we saw that our plane was boarding at gate B35. Unfortunately, B35 was still a train and a good run away! So we arrived just in time again, this time no split second for the toilet! Our flight was good, a bit bumpy once in a while, good movies and fortunately Marc had chosen excellent seat at the back, with no neighbours and close to the toilets. so after a good G&T and a whisky-cola, our trip could start. After lunch, I was dozing off, when suddenly Marc asked where I had put the travel guides... me?! huh?! I did not put them anywhere, thought that you would have packed them? not! ààààrrrggghh, drama! Ok, we got over it after half an hour or so (that is, me).Fortunately we had spend one day a few weeks ago, planning all and making print outs. Cool, we landed well at about 11:15, didn't really rush to get out of the plane and then found us at the end of the line for immigration! Took us one hour and some fingerprints! Ok, then to the luggage belt....shit! where were our bags?! the nice lady asked whether we took a look behind the belt and made us do the tour again (duhh!) Nope, still not there! So we went to BA-luggage services where we were served by a wannabe comedian ! anyway, he was nice and helped us out and we were told that my bag would arrive with the next flight (around 13:00 o'clock) but unfortunately Marc's was still missing. We received a 50$ voucher and some good tips on where and how to spend them plus some restaurant tips. So off we went, with very light packs this time!!!, to the airtrain. We made some extra sightseeing by chosing the wrong direction, but the weather was good and it was nice ! But we then found our way to Jamaica Station and to the correct subway (J-line) into Manhattan. You meet all kinds of people in that subway, quite interesting to observe! We were probably the only "real whites" there.Off at Bowery station and found our hotel without any problems.(Sohotel in Broome Street) Check-in was a bit hard for the receptionist due to too many people and us having an unusual name, so she drove me again close to a panic by saying that she couldn't find it!!!! But she managed to find us with some help of the back office and confirmed our 7-days stay (and an immediate hole in our budget as we had to pay the entire amount) Our room is really nice, very small but charming with an ugly view to the street. After double checking our lost luggage (still no news) we decided to take a walk in the neighbourhood (Little Italy - Soho -Chinatown) The weather in NY is superlovely, hot, sunny, just great! We did some clothes-shopping for Marc (and discovered that they could not accept the voucher!!) and have sniffed the atmosphere. Had dinner at Vincent's (so-so) and dropped into a coma in bed. Yeah...."I want to wake up, in a city that doesn't sleep..." ahum! We did indeed!! Feels like sleeping under a bridge to be honest, a lot of street noise gets into our room, we have the feeling the windows are widely open, people are yelling and screaming and shouting in the middle of the night, on a mattress covered with a layer of plastic (yes, it is the business we work for but that doesn't mean we want to sleep on it!! Far too hot and noisy!!!) ...it is now 05:15, and as we were awake anyway, we already took a shower, and decided to write this blog. We'll visit Brooklyn today and will keep you posted! Bye for now!!!
Italië 2024
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