Some things we did in our first week...

On Tuesday we moved into our lovely but very big and empty apartment (I think London has scarred us with small flats - we actually freaked out about the space and were wishing our kitchen was squeezed into the living room initially!)

After lugging all this stuff from Stoke Newington to Morningside heights (via Heathrow, JFK, a hotel on the upper west side, 3 taxis etc etc).

Explored our local grocery stores. I think I am going to LOVE food shopping in New York. Although my concerns so far include - no Halloumi and way too much choice in milk.

Spent a lot of time wandering around the city looking up....

 We drank lots of coffee all week including this one in Ground Support (Soho) where we also had possibly the best and most chocolatey cookie i've ever eaten. Look at that ooze.

Spent quite a lot of time on the Columbia campus (right at the end of our street) using the free wifi available in all their cafes and outdoor spaces. We now have internet in the flat but actually I still love hanging out watching students and soaking up a bit of university life.

Did the obligatory photo shoot at Dave's favourite place in our neighbourhood (for Seinfeld fans only...)

Explored our other park in the final days of autumn. Riverside park runs along the Hudson river and is less than 2 minutes walk from our flat

 Did what all people in a new city have to do. Went to Ikea. Twice. Thankfully Ikea Brooklyn is accessed from Manhattan via free water taxi which is way more fun the 341 bus to Tottenham Ikea! Lovely sunny views from the boat.

Then of course comes this...

We also ate the biggest pizza slices I have ever seen 

(have to confess i failed to finish mine - disappointing)

 And some absolutely delicious frozen chocolate custard. Yum!

We also managed lots lets exciting but time consuming things such as setting up bank accounts, applying for Dave's social security number, getting internet in the flat, unpacking blah blah blah. 

A pretty tiring but exciting and successful week!

Happy Holidays!

Thursday was our first Thanksgiving!

As we had no furniture or kitchen appliances at that point we refrained from attempting a full on turkey dinner but we did go see the famous Macy's parade. I know it's for children but it's our first thanksgiving! What we discovered at about 9.30 in the morning is that apparently people go from 6am in order to get a good viewing spot so by the time we got there we were at the back of a very large crowd. Note the families who brought stepladders to improve their view!

However it was a lovely festive atmosphere and I was totally fascinated to observe lots of real New York families in situ.

Parade chasing... (whilst doing my bit for Edinburgh tourism)

And a giant flying Kermit!

A very friendly American tourist insisted on taking our picture in front of these giant Christmas baubles

It was a gorgeous sunny and crisp day so we took a lovely walk home along the full length of Central Park. The views were incredible! I cannot wait to explore the park properly and am very happy that it's so close to our flat. Oh, and apparently it's quite geologically interesting too. Bonus!

We will definitely be back for some Christmas skating here, so festive!

View from west side (our side) of the reservoir. Pretty sure this is where Charlotte and her dogs run girls!

All in all a great first Thanksgiving. I hope that my next year we will be all set up to do it properly but this year we were very happy eating pasta off plastic plates in our furniture-less flat!

NYC hamburger

As a recently lapsed veggie that had yet to try a burger it seemed obvious what our first meal in New York should be... And lucky for us there was a Shake Shack on the same street as our hotel. We had been travelling for almost 15 hours with six over-stuffed suitcases by this point and we were tired and hungry.

I think Dave was skeptical about how much I was going to enjoy the experience but I totally loved it! I’ve always been a huge fan of condiments and these burgers were packed with onions, gherkins, cheese, mustard, ketchup, salad... Yum!

Still to master my burger grip

Before we left several friends sent me this Guardian article about the best 10 burgers in New York. Our success with Shake Shack (which is on the list) makes me think we should try and sample a burger from all of these places in our first year. Sounds do-able!

New York, New York

I can’t believe it has been six days since we moved to New York. Still feels like we are on holiday, albeit a very odd holiday where you spend afternoons in Ikea and mornings at the bank!

I thought I would start a little blog to help keep friends and family up to date with what we are doing (and eating!) out here and to encourage me to take lots of photos and generally record our New York adventure!

Lets see how long I last...

View from hotel balcony - NYC day one