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Wednesday 29 November

Well, we had a stall at the UN Women's Guild Bazaar, raising money to help children in need. We sold kangaroo stew, and anzac biscuits. A lovely lady from the Aussieshop came and sold showbags of Australian sweets, which were very popular indeed with passing Aussies. The anzacs were easy to sell too; just put a few broken pieces on a plate for people to taste and... you know how it is.. they are totally addictive.

On Saturday night, I went to a local restaurant called 'faim?'. I was there for a birthday party. Problem was, the birthday party isn't till this weekend. Dumb eh? Still, its a great restaurant so I was pretty happy to sit at the bar and eat guinea fowl on thyme-roasted vegetables with apple risotto.

Sunday 13 November

I know, I know, I have been horribly slack with my correspondence. I promise to be good and get some stuff on the web page.

My trip to New York was short but sweet. I arrived on Monday afternoon/evening which coincidentally was Halloween. Julia told me there was a Halloween parade in Greenwich village so I caught the Metro downtown. I got out of the metro station to find myself beside the road where the parade would pass. I bought a slice of pizza from a shop and stood. And waited. And waited. Of course, as the crowd all stood there waiting (for some 3 hours!) we got to chatting with each other. I discovered that we were almost a little United Nations ourselves .An Australian, two Russians, two Chinese, two Japanese and of course, just a few (thousand) Americans. I ended up with a young girl of about 10 who came and stood in front of me. She said that she was in NY because the electricity was out at their house in Florida because of the hurricanes. She was later joined by a small boy wearing a truly horrible mask. It was a classic skull mask, but with clear mask over the top. The small boy held a squeeze bulb which when pressed pushed dark red fluid in rather gruesome flow down the face, catching momentarily in the gaps of eyes, teeth and nose.. blech.

The parade had some interesting floats, but on the whole seemed to be a bit of a mess. It looked like pretty much any person who rocked up with a costume (and I mean any costume) could go in the parade. There were proper floats, but between, bunches of randomly dressed partyers. I was told that this was the biggest Halloween parade in the US. (over the next few days I was to hear quite a few 'its the biggest in.... " comments), and certainly it was long. I gave up before the end. However there were a few gems.

In the morning I headed out to my first destinations, a walk through central park, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oh. My. I spent the entire day there, took hundreds of photographs and somewhat fortuitously, got kicked out before I could get to the bookshop. Fortuitously because I got to see it a little and would have done serious damage to my bank account there. I only actually managed to see one section, and took some 300 photographs.

My goals for my time in New York were simple - see a bit of NY, go to the Metropolitan Museum, buy a pair of boots and maybe some clothes and a laptop computer.

So Wednesday was the start of the boot/clothes-buying search. I figured i would check out Macys. I didn't have any luck on the boot buying side, but I did see some lovely clothes, although bought none. I wandered around the area just looking and seeing what there was to see. I then headed back to the apartment for a short rest before going out for dinner.

Thursday was the Guggenheim; sadly this usually spectacular building is all covered up, presumably for renovations. Next stop Staten Island Ferry; had to do the statue of liberty thang. Here she is..

I also got a kind of cool photo... check out the strange effect

Then I wandered into the china town area and then home. I had dinner in a mexican restaurant which whipped up a very decent guacamole at the table, although it reinforced my general experience of food in the US, which is oversalted.