Daddy-Daughter dumpster day!

Today was a very interesting day. We took part in the city's "Summer Streets" program today.

On three Saturdays in the month of August the city of New York closes Park Avenue to traffic from the 70s all the way down to Christopher Street. The street is then open to cyclists, roller-bladers, runners and walkers.

We decided to take the subway down to Grand Central and walk down Park Avenue from there. It was a very nice day, with great weather and a fun dip in a DUMPSTER POOL!

The dumpster pools came about in the last year or so. An effort to bring portable pools to the hot mess of New York City - they have become something of an attraction on their own.

They were installed not far from Grand Central and my daughter and I had a nice dip in a dumpster on this warm afternoon.

You can't tell by the photos, but it was pretty darn COLD! I did get used to the water temperature after a few minutes, but she took a little longer to get comfy.

We toweled off and then headed uptown, walking home through Central Park.

All in all a great day!

Big Apple Block Party BBQ

Many months ago, on June 12th, we decided to head down to Madison Square Park to sample some delicious BBQ food at the "Big Apple Block Party BBQ."

Our little girl even got in on the action.


The food was great and the weather was pleasant.

RW

Carl Schurz Park

We are fortunate to live close to Carl Schurz Park. Grace just loves riding the swings, and now that she is walking, she loves exploring the playground too. Besides the expansive playground, the park also has beautiful walkways, lush trees and flower displays and a small and large dog park/run. There are plenty of benches and grass space to sit and relax...we have enjoyed a few picnic lunches in the park too.

The "Brooklyn Flea"

Today we decided to go on an adventure out to Fort Greene Brooklyn to explore The Brooklyn Flea. Apparently the Brooklyn Flea runs year round, but this was the first weekend of the summer season for the market, meaning that it operates outdoors (during the winter, the Flea operates indoors at another location).

It was an eclectic mix of vintage clothing, antique furniture, artisan wares, artisanal food vendors, some live music and GREAT people watching.

It was delicious, fun and funky all at the same time. There were homemade pickles, homemade sauces, cheeses, soaps and clothing. We even saw live lobsters dropped into a pot of boiling water... magically they turned colour and were much less live than when they went in....

It was a beautiful sunny day, not too hot and well worth the trip. We will definitely do it again. The kiddo was just happy we found some swings on the way home!

Touring OLD NEW YORK

Last Saturday, we took a very interesting trip back in time to old New York.

The New York Transit Museum organizes a tour every so often of the old, long closed, City Hall subway station. With the intrepid kiddo strapped to my chest, the 3 of us rode the Lexington Avenue Express #5 train to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall station. We then checked in with the tour-guides and then boarded a #6 Local train which took us approximately 600 feet down the track to the old station.

This was the original terminal of the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) line that ran north from City Hall to Grand Central, across 42nd Street and then up Broadway to 145th Street. The station was opened in 1904 and only stayed open for 41 years when it was closed due to low traffic. The Express trains to Brooklyn eventually stopped only 600 feet up the street at the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall station and many found it more convenient to simply make the trip north for more options.

The station has been designated both a New York City landmark and a National Landmark and really is a site to see. Now days, it is just a loop on the 6 train where the downtown trains pass through on their way back uptown.

Here are some photos.

The Hoser Hut

What's a Canadian in the Big Apple to do during the Olympic Hockey tournament?

Find the Hoser Hut of course! Well, unfortunately the Hoser Hut does not really exist. If you have no idea what I am talking about that means you probably don't watch the CBS show "How I Met Your Mother." In an episode of the show, Robin (the show's Canadian character) finds a home away from home at the Hoser Hut. The fictitious "Canadian Bar" in New York City is a bit of a satire on the many bars around the city that have become a home away from home for the many college teams from far away places across the US. A recent article in New York Magazine listed bars in New York that have been adopted by various College and University sports fans from around the country. This followed a similar article in the same magazine in 2007. With the size of the city, it seems that no matter where you're from, there is a bar catering to your sport or your team(s).

So, as the Olympics approached I was commiserating with my fellow Canadian ex-pats to see if we could find the fictitious "Hoser Hut" in order to properly watch Team Canada's run to the hockey gold.

It turned out that the Canadian Association of New York had teamed up with an Australian themed bar to present each Olympic Hockey game featuring Team Canada, with full sound, with Molson Canadian and Labatt Blue on special! He Shoots he SCORES!!!

So, I have to admit there is nothing like watching the Canadian team score 4 goals in the first period against Russia along with 300 screaming and yelling fellow Canadians. I was able to catch the Slovakia semi-final game as well. Sadly, I had to work on Sunday and was forced to watch the game on the computer. Very pleased with the result of course.

A friend did get to catch the game and here is a little video of the scene at Van Diemen's/the Hoser Hut.



RW

People in love in this city are shown no quarter!

One of the things I love about New York City is the incredible convenience factor of having nearly everything one needs or wants within close walking distance. Within a 6 block radius of our apartment we have found:

• 5 Supermarkets - of various price and quality levels.
• 3 small grocery stores.
  
• 8 Pharmacies.
  
• 15+ drycleaners/laundromats.
  
• 20 Convenience stores - except here in NYC they are referred to as "bodegas."
  
• 10 Hair/Nail Salons.
  
• 2 Video stores - one of which will deliver and pickup the movies for free!
  
• 10 Wine/Liquor Stores.
  
• 10 Chinese food restaurants - one touts itself as "Hawaii BBQ & Chinese Food."
  
• 1 Peruvian restaurant.
  
• 2 Argentinian restaurants.
  
• 8 Pizza joints.
  
• 3 Non-pizzeria Italian restaurants.
  
• 5 Sushi restaurants.
  
• 1 Indian-Chinese fusion restaurant.
  
• 1 French restaurant.
  
• 1 Brazilian restaurant.

Fortunately for our budget and bank accounts we have not tried every one of those restaurants. We do hope to wind our way through many of them during our 2 year lease.

But, the convenience factor was really driven home for me on the weekend of St. Valentine's Day. The invasion began slowly on the morning of Friday the 12th and it was complete by my evening walk home from the subway. It seemed that nearly every second corner had been captured by a legion of flowers! Where the flower stands normally had flowers on the sidewalk opposite the traffic, they had flowers lined up in menacing rows on both sides of the sidewalk. I had to walk through a gauntlet of flowers just to get home. Sounds terrible... I know!

Actually, it was a nice way to walk home.

With everything being so convenient, there really is no excuse for NOT arriving home or at your sweetheart's door without flowers (at least occasionally) and there is certainly no excuse for missing St. Valentine's Day.

RW

P.S. I didn't forget. How could I? I brought home some white and red roses for my ladies and one of them even got a blue box with white ribbon....

American Museum of Natural History

We spent Sunday exploring the American Museum of Natural History. (http://www.amnh.org/)
We received a family membership to the museum from my sister...what a great Christmas gift! We took the M86 crosstown bus, which proved fast and convenient for our Sunday morning journey. The museum was crowded, but still very manageable. The facility is enormous - it will take us a few visits to get familiar with the exhibit spaces, elevator locations, etc.

One highlight included The Silk Road, an exhibit that takes you along the famous trade route from AD 600 to 1200. The journey travels from ancient cities in Asia to the Middle East, starting in Xi'an, then Turfan, Samarkard and ending in Baghdad. The exhibit is hands-on, from watching live silk worms spin cocoons in Xi'an to exploring the night market and smelling the spices in Turfan.

We learned that along the journey camels carried a majority of the items for trade. The life-size camels along the exhibit were fun to look at and see how they would have been packed for the journey.

Welcome

Hello there family and friends and welcome to our blog.

We hope to share some adventures with you as we discover our new hometown and adapt to living in one of the greatest cities in the world.

Check back often!