We arrived back yesterday from 10 brilliant days in the US, staying with my bridesmaid Sarah, her husband Scott and their 8-year-old twins Ruby and Jacob at their gorgeous New Jersey home. We had a ball. They live in a beautiful part of the state, with an amazing show of Autumn colour and much more Wall Street than Bada Bing. Scott and Sarah are very generous hosts, we were made so welcome and we ate and drank very well, both at home and at a few events they organised for us. The kids played really well together and we taught them our favourite card game, Rat-A-Tat Cat. The close proximity to New York meant we were in Manhattan most days. We had been to New York many times before we had the kids, but this was our first trip as a family and I was interested to see if it would work. When we were childless, we would walk around Manhattan and Brooklyn at our own speed, stopping to rummage through shops and drink in bars and restaurants. This time we needed a little more structure, so it was as much fun for the girls too, but still they amazed us with their stamina as we still put in the miles and did a lot of walking. I'll let these photos do most of the talking.
On our second day, we met up with our wonderful friend Luke, who was visiting from Sydney and we were lucky enough to have one crossover day. Here he is with the girls on the High Line, a very cool new park built on an elevated section of abandoned railway track, stretching from the west village to the Meatpackers district.
The girls check out some Halloween decorations in Greenwich Village.
A great view of Lady Liberty from the Circle Line boat
More Halloween larks in Tribeca.
The beautiful and moving World Trader Centre Memorial, created as two waterfalls in the footprint of each of the towers. The names of everyone killed from the 4 planes, in the towers and the police and fire department are engraved on the walls surrounding the waterfalls.
Under construction, the new so-called Freedom Tower that will replace the buildings that fell.
A great afternoon spent strolling over the Brooklyn Bridge to the newly developed Dumbo
district in Brooklyn.
A walk to Midtown to see the Flatiron Building
On Friday night the grown ups got dressed up and had hair and make up done by Scott's sister Jackie, so we could attend a charity fundraising Halloween ball with 500 others. It was like no other event I have ever been to. The costumes everyone wore were amazing (there were 4 other sets of Alice in Wonderland groups), silent auction items included trips to the Caribbean and Europe, and the bidding was done via iPhones we were all given when we arrived. There was great food, an incredible band and during the live auction guests bid on a dinner for 10 ($10,000), 3 nights in Rome ($9,000) and a puppy! ($5,000). There was a lot of money in the room, as well as a lot of booze, and the night ended with Sarah and I literally helping one of her very drunk (and very lovely) friends into her house and half carrying and pushing her up the stairs to her bed.
We awoke on Saturday morning to very heavy and thick snowfall. The TV stations were going nuts with live shots from all over New York, New Jersey and Connecticut as the unseasonal weather (it was the only the third time there had been snow in October in the region since the Civil War!) caused havoc.
While we thought this was great (here's a lovely shot of Sarah and Scott's house in the snow), it created a huge problem. As the trees were still full of leaves, the extra weight of snow was bringing down trees and branches all over the place. With power lines also falling, there were roads blocks all over the area and several of Sarah and Scott's friends and family lost power in their homes. We had to keep the kids in the house on Saturday as branches crashed down in the garden and on the house.
On Saturday night we headed out on a wild goose chase of backroads and u-turns to get to this Japanese teppanyaki restaurant for dinner. The kids loved seeing the chef throw food and cook in front of us. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the other dinner Sarah and Scott organised on Tuesday night at the esteemed James Beard Foundation in New York. This world renowned culinary institute promotes good food from sustainable sources and regularly hosts chefs from all over the world at special dinners. I was thrilled when Sarah told us she had booked a dinner there. She knows what we like. On the night we went, it was an 8-course, wine-matched degustation dinner, cooked by twin brothers Tom and Rob Aiken, who run a Michelin-starred restaurant each - one in London, the other in Philadelphia. We were in a private dining room with a view of the kitchen. A very special night.
We spent our last day enjoying Halloween. First in the city, where we surprised the girls by meeting up with Laura, another lovely friend from Sydney who came to visit us in Hastings in the summer. She was also in New York by coincidence and we spent a great morning toy shopping at FAO Swartz where we had a laugh dancing and playing on the giant piano keyboard made famous by
Tom Hanks in the movie Big.
We drove back to New Jersey in time to brave the snow and power lines to go trick or treating with Ruby and Jacob. All the houses on the route were brilliantly decorated, everyone dressed up and the kids collected enough lollies to last them until next Halloween.
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