Monday, February 27, 2012

Pretending to be a student

Now that I'm job hunting and working on various projects I find I'm at my most productive when I follow Dave to the Columbia Library where he works a few days a week. It's right at the end of our street in the gorgeous main university campus. 



There is something about a library, especially a university library,  that brings a sense of calm over me. I'm one of those weird people who actually look back fondly at the period of my undergraduate finals. Now there are noticeably fewer piles of books on the desks (and many, many more MacBooks).



 If you look closely you'll see Dave was working on some very technical and important volcano data... 


After a morning's hard work a sandwich in the quad, soaking up the sunshine whilst enjoying a spot of eavesdropping was the perfect addition to my faux-ivy league career.





Sunday, February 26, 2012

Day-trip to Brooklyn



We spent a glorious, sunny day in Brooklyn last weekend. It really felt like spring. 
I still can't get over how lightly we have got off with our first New York winter.

We popped by favourite shopping spot Brooklyn Flea in the morning and then walked up to lovely Park Slope. I really like it there, it has a nice Stoke Newington feel about it and I love the gorgeous brownstone buildings.


We met friends for a yummy lunch. Boys ate eggs and bacon, girls ate Freekeh and goats cheese salads. Freekeh's the new quinoa apparently. When did quinoa become old? It was tasty though and felt pretty healthy which is a nice change for this city!

More coffee then a nice walk in Prospect Park where we spotted these people getting very excited playing some sort of medieval war games. Some of them were even topless and coated in blue war paint. Eccentric.


Then on to the Brooklyn Museum which was great. Really nice mix of exhibits and amazing, spacious building. Weirdly for a Saturday we pretty much had the place to ourselves - such a rare treat.




Dave was quite disappointed in my inability to depict waiting.


Our favourite section was the intriguingly named 'visible storage'. 
Basically thousands of items from the museum archives that you can rifle through yourself. Such a good idea!






Dave and I popped up to Williamsburg for some more vintage homewares trawling followed by pizza and a few drinks.



A lovely day was finished off with a surprisingly great subway musical performance which gathered quite a crowd on the way back uptown. 


And then the final cherry on top we arrived home to discover my permission to work has been granted. I'm now fully legal!! 
(Now to find a job... the next adventure. Eek).

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Pancake Day

I love blueberries. I love chocolate chips. I love maple syrup.
I definitely really love American style pancake stacks.

I've been trying to master them myself...


And regularly order them for brunch.
Yum.


But somehow they just didn't seem right for Shrove Tuesday.

For a start you can't really flip them 
(and for Dave that's pretty much the whole point).


What we needed were the classic, thin (but not crepe thin) pancakes of every British childhood. Drenched in lemon juice and sugar, rolled up and quickly gobbled down.



Every year I wonder why we don't eat these more often. Perfect!

Friday, February 17, 2012

The most incredible view


Going up to the viewing deck of the famous Rockefeller Centre was one of the touristy activities we had been eager to do but had decided to hold off on as we knew all our UK visitors would also want to go to the 'Top of the Rock'. 




We timed it really well, going up about 4.30 so we got to see the view in daylight, dust and after dark.
It was completely breathtaking and none of us could stop taking pictures.
Classic Manhattan view.






Looking north along Central Park and up towards our apartment 
(on the left at the top of the park).


And some more obligatory classic tourist shots...











Thursday, February 9, 2012

A week of being a tourist


We've had our first UK visitors this week and it's been brilliant fun. 
It was so lovely to get to spend time with such good old friends and have the chance to show them some of our New York discoveries.

We really made the most of every minute (I went a bit Monica with a printed schedule!) and the 6 days were spent walking, talking, exploring, drinking, shopping, laughing and doing a lot of eating (of course). 

More details on what we did to follow but here are a few photos of us being tourists in Manhattan (and Brooklyn).






















Come again soon please!

(Last 3 photos courtesy of Cat - thanks)