New York City - Day 4

Day 4 - Monday 6th May

Slow start trying to find the right subway to downtown Brooklyn. Finally made it just in time for the opening of the TKTS booth where we got tickets to Avenue Q, 40% off!

Headed for Brooklyn Heights, eventually decided on somewhere for a brunch of egg and cheese bagels with gingerbread chai, nom nom nom!

Amazing view of skyline from Brooklyn Heights Promenade, just like on Friends! Then walked over the bridge which was hot and busy.

Ended up in financial district, saw City Hall (surprisingly small for such a large city), the Woolworth building, Ground Zero and the new WTC, Trinity Church, Wall Street, and the Stock Exchange, Federal Hall and and the Bowling Green Bull.

Chilled out for half an hour on a park bench then wandered over to Little Italy. Had amazing pastries for afternoon tea swiftly followed by amazing pizza at Lombardi's!

Caught subway back to hostel, changed then headed out to make it to New World Stages (off Broadway) just in time for Avenue Q. Obviously still hilarious, and so much more intimate than the last time I saw it which was at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff (think: back row of a massive auditorium!), this time second row of a tiny theatre! So awesome to watch the actors faces as well as the puppets.

Finished day with hot chocolate in Times Square, before sleep in preparation for the final day!

New York City - Day 3

Day 3 - Sunday 5th May

Slept so much better! Slow start to morning but still out before ten, bit chilly! Met a guy trying to sell tickets to the Empire State Building who tried to speak British "street" and then proceeded to inform us that Baltimore is otherwise known as "Bodymore." Quite.

Saw flat iron building, very cool!

Walked about half of the Chelsea High Line, awesome linear park on a derelict elevated railway.

Had an amazing brunch in Greenwich Village, involving Earl Grey and Belgian waffle with yogurt, berries, almonds and honey, at the Bus Stop Cafe.

Explored the Village, starting with the Friends house! 

Lots of bicycle perving and incredibly cute dogs, awesome bookstores (a whole shop dedicated to secondhand cookbooks!) and stationers and chemist, cobbled streets and Washington Mews, finishing up in Washington Square Park.

Got the L line subway to Williamsburg. Found bagels and chai, did some people watching on a bench. Wandered around some quaint shops (the cheese store has loads of English stuff like digestives and black treacle!) then hung out at the park watching people playing a kick ball tournament!

Found a really cool bar for a drink then pan-Asian vegan restaurant for dinner, very tasty! Then subway back to Manhattan.

Went back to hostel for warm clothes and decided it was too early for bed so went to check out Times Square! So crazy!

New York City - Day 2

Day 2 - Saturday 4th May

Got some interrupted sleep, ear plugs were awesome! Shared room with two nice girls who unfortunately left. Went out around nine, got bagels and started seeing the sights around the hostel: Empire State, Chrysler, Grand Central. Ate bagels outside library before going in. Got tickets for Top of the Rock at sunset. Went in Tiffany's! and Bloomingdales, not worth it!

Got lunch from Whole Foods salad bar, and much needed chai. Ate in Central Park, amazing. Nice weather, bit chilly though.

Went to natural history, pretty awesome, Tamzy loved it!

Got more tea and went back to park. Did some relaxation on a rock! Tried to find non- existent carousel! (NB. I have now discovered that the carousel does actually exist!) Then desperate to pee got stuck in The Ramble! Did see Belvedere Castle though.

Made it to The Rock in time for our slot, amazing views of Manhattan in time for sunset. Got cold waiting for complete darkness but so worth it!

Found very late dinner at ramen place near hostel (mochi green tea ice cream!)

New York City - Day 1

Those of you who know me well will already be aware that my absence this month has actually been for a very good reason - my little sister came from the UK to visit me for a whole three weeks! As well as staying with N & I here in Baltimore, we took a couple of awesome trips together which I would like to tell you all about in a series of blog posts. I'm planning to pretty much just cut and paste from the journal I was writing while I was away. We started off in New York on Friday 3rd May, so here goes, enjoy!

Day 1 - Friday 3rd May

Woke up at 6.10 to go to the bathroom and decided to put WiFi on and check email before going back to

sleep, only to end up getting up: Tamzy's flight was delayed for 3.5 hours, meaning she missed her connection and wasn't going to arrive in NYC until 10 pm, five hours late! So I got up to see if I could get a later bus, but in the end decided to get my original bus anyway.

Bus was good but full of French school kids! Listened to lots of music. Stopped at a rest stop in New Jersey so I got an extra state!

First views of new York skyline very surreal! Getting off the bus very overwhelming, so busy with traffic and people! Went to Macy's for restrooms, awful place! Tried to find a recommended food truck but failed so walked back and ended up with salad sat in a little square.

First glimpse

Found hostel easily, friendly staff and nice and clean. Has WiFi! Spending some time chilling before going back out, don't know what to do! Tamzy should be landing soon if on time, but instead I have to wait five hours! Will go to Grand Central to catch bus to airport at 8, but still have three hours to fill...

So I waited an extra 40 or so minutes at the hostel until I knew Tamzy had landed then went out, first to Starbucks for a chai latte, then wandering 5th avenue in circles for a while trying to find the Girl Scouts headquarters. I eventually found it after I stopped looking, typical! Then I wandered past the public library, had some cool views of the Chrysler building, and checked out Grand Central station, which is nowhere near as grand as I expected! Found the airport shuttle stop then went back to a Panera on 5th for pasta and salad. 

Got on the bus for La Guardia around 8.30pm, thinking I'd seen on the website that it took an hour. No way, it took a maximum of 25 minutes, meaning I was here before Tamzy even left Philly. Stoopid!

Tamzy arrived safely, so exciting! We got bus back to city, checked her in to hostel and went downstairs to drink tea and chat about plans. Excited for first proper day tomorrow!

Stay tuned for the next installment!

Spring has finally sprung!

I had such a lovely morning today. The uncomfortable muggy weather of the past few days broke last night to leave us with a beautiful fresh sunny spring day today. But first to share a couple of random tidbits from earlier in the month.

Firstly, I finally got my act together in applying to volunteer for Girl Scouts! Now just waiting to hear if they've found a troop for me to help with!

Then last weekend was one of the few that N has been home recently. We celebrated with sushi :)

So today N is away again, but I got to go to Patterson Park with my favourite little girl and her mummy, which was lovely in the sunshine. We were headed to Fort McHenry but were thwarted by some kind of crazy running people. But I reckon it was fate because we met a lovely fellow Englishwoman when asking if we could meet her dog (you can get away with that kind of behaviour when in the company of a two-year old apparently!), who lives nearby, and we're going to meet up again! Always exciting to meet people from home!

We looked at the pretty flowers:

Fed the ducks:

And played in the playground, before going for pizza. Awesome morning!

Cherry Blossom Festival, Washington DC

I was lucky enough to have a conference in Washington, DC the first week of April, which happened to tie in with the latter end of the famous cherry blossom festival. Before we get to the pretty pictures though, let me share a fuzzy picture of a living legend:

The great James Watson of Watson & Crick fame, as in discoverers of the structure of DNA! I can't even tell you how excited I was to be in the same room as this man, even if he was very very far away!

Which leads me to the other thing: the scale of this conference was like nothing I have ever seen before, just look at the size of one of the plenary lectures, and this room was full! Incredible!

Being not too fond of crowds I skipped the Rally for Medical Research on the Monday and instead went in search of these famous cherry blossoms, and boy, I was not disappointed! There were a lot of people there too, but at least I was free to move around! Now for pretty pictures:

One a penny, two a penny

Yes I know, Easter was weeks ago, I fail at blogging, but I have beautiful images of hot cross buns to share, that I know you don't want to miss out on.

I was alone on Easter weekend, N has been away a lot for work the past month or so; not to mention the fact that neither Good Friday nor Easter Monday are public holidays here! So it could have been a miserable one, but thankfully I was invited to a two-year old's Easter egg hunt, which made the weekend a whole lot more fun!

We went to a place called Cylburn Arboretum, where I'd never been before. It was really lovely, and had a very English country garden feel which was rather nice.

It was the first time the weather was really nice, although still a little too chilly for our posh picnic really. Still very enjoyable though!

And finally some daffodils!

I filled the Sunday by making hot cross buns from Paul Hollywood's "How To Bake". They came out awesome, but went stale incredibly quickly. The one's I froze right away are still awesome though!

I also indulged in some American Easter candy. Peanut butter for the win! Nom nom nom!