New York City

Last weekend was a 4 day long weekend as Monday was Presidents Day and Stuart had worked back at school till 8pm for 2 nights and was able to trade that off for the following Tuesday off.  So with Jakeb here, we decided it would be a good chance to go to NYC and leave Joshuah here and the 2 of them could go snowboarding.
We had a get together with Stuart's staff on the Friday night which was lovely, then Jakeb took us to the airport to catch a flight at midnight, landing at JFK airport at 6.30 am, Saturday.  We caught the subway (where a lovely older couple gave us their name and address to stay with them in Salt Lake City...they were fascinated by our story!) into the city to our hotel - Holiday Inn on 57th St and 9th Ave.  I'm glad I had Stuart and Google Maps to help navigate as I would probably still be on the train!!
We dropped our bag off at the hotel and went and had breakfast, where we sat next to a couple of girls from Sydney who recognised Stuart's "Mountain Design" jacket, so assumed we were Aussies! When we broke into our "strewths" and "bewdy mates", they found they were correct!
The first tourist stop for us was the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) as recommended by Jakeb!  Thanks for nothing Jakeb!!!  We are not interested in art, we don't understand it and it we found it to be pretentious and BORING!! So why did we go there?? My place to visit was the M&M store which maybe Jakeb meant, instead of MoMA...perhaps he got his M's mixed up?  It was a 3 storey shop dedicated to M&M's.  It was bright, full of gimmicky paraphernalia and far more exciting than MoMA AND we got to buy some very, very colourful M&M's!!

Times Square was next on the list of things to see and it is such a "buzzing' place.  Everyone there was smiling, laughing and taking loads of photos.  I found it fantastic and loved watching all the people, billboards, traffic and noises!  I was looking forward to seeing it at night!

We then headed down to Central Park.  A week earlier Jakeb had been there during the blizzard and it was covered in snow.  When we were there, the snow had melted, but it was still beautiful and it is such a sight to see with all the tall buildings hugging it.  It is one of those iconic places that I thought I would never get to see and it didn't disappoint.

We came across 6 young people singing in this building and it was so beautiful.  There were no musical instruments, just their voices.  It reminded me of being in Cambridge years ago,  and coming across a choir who were practicing.  Their voices were magnificent and I could have stayed and listened to them for hours.

We went back to the hotel as it was about 4pm by this time and I had a nap while Stuart went and queued for tickets to a show on Broadway in Times Square.  Unfortunately he came back with tickets to see Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf a play that has been on Broadway for 50 years.  Can I again be an ignoramus and say WE HATED IT!!  We were tired from being up for 36 hrs anyway, but it was a play with 4 characters who spent the entire play arguing with each other!  At the end of the 2nd act and after Stuart had nodded off  "too many times to count" (and quietly snored) we left.  We were the only ones to leave and after "Googling" what happened in the end, we should have left earlier as it didn't get any better!
Our hotel was about a 15 minute walk from Times Square and only a 5 minute walk to Central Park and Columbus Circle subway, so a pretty good location.
Stuart had read that you could get cheap tickets for Broadway in Brooklyn with much smaller crowds than Times Square, so the next morning we caught the subway to Brooklyn, found the place where the tickets were sold, only to discover they weren't open on a Sunday!!  It didn't matter.  I was happy to be in Brooklyn on a Sunday morning with Neil Diamond's Brooklyn Roads going through my head over and over!
We then caught a bus to the waterfront so we could see the Brooklyn Bridge.  As mentioned earlier, my sense of direction and ability to read maps is rubbish. After looking at all the bridges in front of us and commenting on the number of skyscrapers on the opposite side of the river and the Statue of Liberty to our left, Stuart announced to me that that we were in fact looking at Manhattan!  I had no idea! And I was actually standing under the Brooklyn Bridge!  Just as well Stu was with me as it would have gone unnoticed.  (When we were in the UK, I was supposed to be navigating us to Ben Nevis - the highest mountain in the British Isles - and I didn't see it as we drove past it!!!)  It was bitterly cold and windy but a spectacular sight!

We caught the water taxi across the Hudson River to Manhattan and ended up in the Financial District.  Being a Sunday afternoon it was very, very quiet and we were able to wander through it easily.  Again, seeing all these places we had heard of was fantastic.

Stu outside the NY Stock Exchange

It was about 3pm by this stage and getting colder and colder as we walked to the World Trade Centre Memorial.  The Memorial was very well done and is still drawing huge crowds.  It is 2 huge pits in the ground where the original WTC buildings stood.  There is a constant waterfall flowing into each pit (which had partly frozen) and the names of those who died engraved in the walls. There are the names of those who died at the WTC's as well as those who died on the planes and at the Pentagon.  I was particularly moved to see the names of women and "their unborn child'.

What really hit me was how narrow the roads are and how difficult it must have been for the Emergency Services to attend the scene.  It is quite incomprehensible.  There is a small, old church,St Paul's, across the road from the site that was virtually untouched.  They are now building a new World Trade Centre...which will be the highest building in the US.

We caught the Subway back into the city and unintentionally came across Grand Central Station...a magnificent building, that had first really come to my attention when we were in Canada.  We went to a beautiful place in Canada in Jasper NP called Maligne Lake.  We went on a boat tour and stopped at a place called Spirit Island.  In the 1930's, an amateur photographer took a photo of Spirit Island and it won 1st prize in a KODAK photography competition.  The prize was to get the photo enlarged to billboard size and to be hung in Grand Central Station in NY, where millions of people got to see it over the years.  I really liked that story, so was glad to see the building (the photo was no longer there). Again, my observational skills were lacking as I took a photo from a restaurant in GCS, which I later found out was owned by Michael Jordan....I didn't notice it while I was there, dammit!!

We then walked to Times Square to the Ticketing Booth to purchase cheap tickets to another show on Broadway.  Because it was so cold there was noone in the queue, so we got two tickets to see Mamma Mia.  We had seen it in Melbourne, but didn't mind going again and had a great night.  The theatres on Broadway are so much smaller than in Australia, but it gives it a much more personal perspective and you are so close to the stage regardless of where you are sitting.
When the show finished we headed back into Times Square where it was SO COLD!  - 12C and a wind blowing, but again such a vibrant place, that you can't help but be happy!

Stuart even managed to get himself on a Billboard in Times Square!!!

The next day we left the hotel early to get to the Empire State Building.  The earlier you get there, the smaller the queue.  We bought some tickets from one of the sellers outside the building and went up to the 87th floor.  It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies, so the views were incredible.  The crowds were still quite large, but you were able to get a good spot to look out over New York.

Unfortunately when we bought our tickets from the lady on the street, we were tricked into purchasing the wrong ticket.  We had wanted to go up to the 102nd floor and had paid for a ticket to do that.  When we went to go up higher, we were told we didn't have a ticket.  So after a slightly heated conversation with one of the attendants, we were sent down to speak to the Manager.  We explained what had happened to him and he suggested that you probably shouldn't get tickets from those people on the street, but rather from the staff of the Empire State Building.  To cut a long story short, he was with us for 45 mins,  was so nice to us, we got our money back and he then gave us 2 express tickets for free to go up to the 102nd floor.  So our faith in human kindness was restored.
We then went back into Time Square and queued for 1 hr to get cheap tickets to see Rock of Ages...an 80's musical.  The time passed quickly in the cold air as we chatted to 2 women from New Jersey who again were interested in our story!!!
Stuart wanted to go and ice skate at Central Park so we walked back down there and hired some skates and off he went, without one mishap!!!

After the ice skating we headed back up towards Times Square, taking little detours and again stumbled across another fairly iconic building that Elizabeth had mentioned to me the day before....the Rockefeller Centre.  There is an ice skating rink in front of the building and it was great to see it.

Rock of Ages was fantastic.  Again a really small theatre...we were 2nd seat from the back, but 15 seats from the front.  The music was great as were the cast...a really funny musical and I would highly recommend it.  Some sights walking back to our hotel on our last night in NYC.

Our final few hours in NYC before we flew back to Denver were spent at the American Museum of Natural History.   Again, something I should have known wasn't for me....however Stuart really enjoyed it and we spent a couple of hours there...Stu looking at stuff, me chatting to a woman from Brisbane, who has 5 children who are all holidaying in NY with them (the youngest was 20 yrs old).  She was at the museum with her husband and was as bored as me, and was waiting for him as well.  So we had a good chat about WA, the Kimberley, Pilbara etc and I found that far more interesting than dinosaur bones!!

 We caught the subway back to JFK airport, which took a little longer than we anticipated and arrived back in Denver at 7pm Tuesday night, where Jakeb picked us up.  It was such an amazing weekend....who would have thought we could fly to New York for a weekend!!!!

Snow....taken from the plane......

Halfway through February....

I have been here for just over two weeks now and am still adjusting to things.  We went up to a place called Dillon a couple of weekends ago, so Joshuah and Stuart could snowboard at Loveland.  We left on Friday after school, but not before we had to find an after hours medical centre to get someone to look at Joshuah's eye.  He had a stye which had become infected.  We found a place and $165 later were on our way after getting some antibiotics for Joshuah.  (The eye is now fully recovered).  It took about 2 hrs to get up the mountains with traffic at a crawl most of the way and snow falling which was pretty scary.  Stuart did a great job driving up and down mountains, sticking behind trucks to give us better visibility of their hazard lights.

Joshuah and Stuart went snowboarding the next morning and I stayed at Dillon where our hotel overlooked mountains and a frozen lake.

I was kept entertained by kite "surfers" on the frozen lake, which was a little different to the kite surfers in the estuary. My favourite sight was the dogs running on the lake after their owners who were racing away on either their snowboard or skis!  They looked like they were having so much fun!

Joshuah and Stuart had a great day snowboarding together........

before Stu and I headed off for a drive to see some of the other smaller ski towns........

The next morning we took a leisurely drive back to the house, stopping at Georgetown to look at people ice fishing and taking driving lessons on the ice!!  It was bitterly cold with a strong wind blowing, but beautiful sunshine and blue skies.

Stuart desperately wanted to go out and see what they were doing, but the ice looked so thin that we thought it best left to the experts! One did have to question the reasoning behind it, although I suppose Kristoffer goes out fishing in 48C temperatures, catching bait in saltwater crocodile country, just to get a barra...this was the other extreme!

Glad to see that they had the right part of the frozen lake for driving on and for fishing!!

We then drove up a mountain originally to see buffalo and instead ended up at Buffalo Bill's gravesite.  I guess I should know more about Buffalo Bill, but I don't...but it was nice to see his gravesite atop a mountain with his wife Louisa buried next to him.  OK I have succumbed to pressure...here is a bit about Buffalo Bill......William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917) was an American soldier, bison hunter and showman. He received the Medal of Honour in 1872 for service to the US Army as a scout. One of the most colorful figures of the American Old West, Buffalo Bill became famous for the shows he organized with cowboy themes. Annie Oakley was one of his star performers!!  That's enough!

Denver

Last weekend Stu went snowboarding at Keystone with Joshuah and met up with Morgan who had come across on a bus from Greeley with some other Uni students.

On Sunday Stuart and I went for a drive up to the mountains.  It was snowing most of the time and "oh so cold" but again so picturesque.  We came across a small hill where families with mainly little kids were toboganning down the hill.  It is amazing to see little kids with all the gear!!  Flasher than ours!  I would love to have seen the boys toboganning down the hill, but I likened it to them swimming at Koombana Bay, when they could risk life and limb by swimming at Salmon Beach!!  Why would you go there when you could go up huge mountains!

Someone's driveway.....

After lunch we headed down the hill and decided to stop at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.  It is a rock structure near Morrison, Colorado, where concerts are given in the open-air amphitheatre.  It really is a stunning place.  We parked at the bottom  and proceeded to climb a huge set of stairs before we finally reached the stage and looked up to see the seating above us.  Either side of the seating and stage are huge rocks, which reminded us a bit of the Pilbara!  The view from the top was stunning, with Denver in the distance and snow capped mountains behind you.  We went into the Museum which was fascinating and saw the vast number of people/bands who have performed there.  It only seats just under 10 000 people, but most entertainers say it is their favourite place to perform.  I am keeping an eye on the line up for this year and will hopefully get tickets to a concert there. (For those of you thinking of going to Red Rock...there is actually parking at the top of the bloody Amphitheatre, so no need to climb all those bloody stairs!!! You live and learn!)

A close up of Denver from Red Rocks

 

We left Red Rocks and headed to Downtown Denver before picking Jakeb up from the airport, who was coming in from New York.  We didn't have much time, but it gave us a taste of what the city was like and we will go back there another time.

I mentioned earlier that Jakeb had returned from New York. He was there during the huge blizzard that hit NY and of course I was terribly worried about him.  No need!  When I heard the news that the Mayor of New York had ordered everyone off the streets I rang him and suggested he get back to his accommodation. He was enjoying wandering through Central Park.  I finally relaxed when he rang me to say he had made it to his accommodation.  He loved New York and managed to see so much and his dream of being a paleontologist when he was 4 was  revisited when he showed us all his dinosaur photos from the numerous museums he visited!

Jakeb ice skating

Central Park

New York

And some local scenes....

A small ice rink near home..

Apparently they are a basketball team

Stu warming up after the movies....

Speaking of the movies....we went and saw Les Mis again last night and the lady serving us asked where we would like to sit.  I said she could choose as we didn't know the cinema.  She suggested a seat with a bar in front of us and then she said we could put our feet on it.  I said thanks, but we wouldn't be drinking!!  Stu looked at me in total disbelief and she ignored me....probably thought "stupid Aussie!!".  Anyway we went into the cinema and lo and behold there was a bar...actually a metal frame...where we could put our feet and not a drink in sight!!!  I really am an idiot!  Oh and Liz....Stu enjoyed the movie and didn't fall asleep!!!