Another reason why I love New York...

Everything seems to happens here. It's easy to see how some people could view it as the centre of the universe...Take yesterday as an example. As I was strolling to my yoga class in the early evening, I noticed there were a lot of police around and road closures in my neighbourhood. Strange I thought...and then I noticed all the dressing rooms on the footpath, the lighting trucks...apparently they had shut down downtown to film Jennifer Aniston's new movie - 'The Baster'. I just love that I run into random stuff like this here, especially on a not especially special Tuesday evening. It's great!

The last few weeks have been fun. Well, i'll take it from where I left off last time. My Auntie was in town that week, and luckily we got to spend a lovely day together taking in the American Folk Art museum. It was really interesting and they had some amazing pieces there. The following day I had a couple of friends, Rachel and Rebekah, arrive from Mexico, escaping from the Swine Flu. They stayed at The Loft for a couple of days before heading off to a hostel uptown. That Sunday we had a bit of an adventure together - we made our way into Harlem and randomly into a Gospel church with the whole big choir. It's just how you imagine it to be....all including the money hungry minister demanding 20% of your income....hmmmmmmm. It was a great experience though, the songs were amazing!

That afternoon we checked out the Natural History Museum- right up my alley. It's HUGE there and they have some amazing stuff!! It was fun. After we were museumed out that night we went out to see some live music in Greenwich Village at a jazz club, which was also lots of fun =) The following night we took in a Poetry night in the East Village which was really powerful - a one woman show all about growing up in Brooklyn in a multi-racial family.

Later that week I met up with a friend of a friend and spent a lovely morning wandering through Central Park. No matter how many times I go there I still seem to discover somewhere new I haven't been yet!

I was very lucky to have 4 days off the following week, and so I took off to Boston for a couple of days just to get out of the city and check another out. Boston is really lovely and much less fast paced than NYC so it was a lovely change. I was lucky enough to do a walking tour of the Freedom Trail there where I was the only person on the tour! I got lots of great info on American History and how Boston was involved, such as, the Boston Tea Party of course! Also while I was in Boston I took a ferry out to one of the islands in the harbour. The Island I visited used to be a tip, and also a place where they made poor horses into glue....nevertheless it was nice to have a stroll around on - they've definitely done some work on the the place!

I met up with Rachel and Rebekah again on the Tuesday and we had an adventure in The Bronx, just having a general wander and taking it in. Then we got lost. It took us a while to get back to the Subway but we did make it back to Manhattan!! That night we went to the Arabic Comedy Festival and it was great to have a good 'ol chuckle.

Work has been good fun. We get to do cool stuff, like last Saturday, helping plant flowers in the local park. Just between you and me, I think I enjoyed it more than the girls did but anyway! Bee and Freda's older brother Gabriel arrived on Sunday with his dad, and Gabriel will be staying on with us until we're all done here. It's really nice to see their whole little family complete again even if it is just for this week while Adam is here!

My friend Cynthia arrived on Saturday from Toronto to stay for a few days. We went out on the town on Sunday night in search of a nightclub...we found a jazz club which was just as good! On Monday we went on a bit of a shopping adventure in Chinatown and SoHo before Cynthia had to leave Monday night.

And that's all for the minute!

TTFN xo