Has been a whirlwind few days...
Birmingham on Monday - spent the morning being shown the sights of Birmingham by a very warm and friendly local - he's spent his life in the city and knew it well. Lots to say about politics, race relations and what has changed and what has stayed the same over the past 40 years. Then lunch at The Club (it is said THE Club - you have to emphasise the word 'the' - a Birmingham institution). Met some fascinating (and very successful businesspeople and talked business, politics, history and etc.
Waited at Birmingham airport a few hours for our delayed flight. Eventually made it to Philadelphia quite late at night. Dinner at a cool little Italian place that miraculously was still open.
Tuesday morning early train to NYC (1 1/2 hours). Stayed at the Gansevoort Park Hotel and very happy with it. Good room - cool + good size, good staff, good location (on Park Avenue right near the 28th street subway station). Met up with Susie for an excellent coffee at The Ace Hotel. Wandered the streets, visited the New York Public Library (including a fantastic exhibition on religion and religious writings), shopped for discount designer clothes. Met up with Susie again and dinner at the bar at Keen's - an amazing old steakhouse - the sort of place where you order a martini without even thinking about it. Then saw Time Stands Still on Broadway - a really good play, with Laura Linney and Christina Ricci.
Wednesday morning at The Met. My favourite painting was in storage (Zuburan - 'The Crucifixion') but still always good. Checked out the antiquities, the armour and European paintings. Met Susie again for a great lunch at Momofuku Ssam Bar - really good. Wandered the Lower East Side then caught the train back to Philadelphia. A dinner last night for M's Fellowship group.
I wandered around Philadelphia this morning - good coffee at La Colombe on 19th. A lunch as part of the Fellowship, with the Chairman of Intel as the guest. She was very impressive. A relaxed afternoon and a formal function tonight.
Friday, November 19, 2010
The past few days
Monday, November 15, 2010
Birmingham, Alabama
Now in Birmingham, Alabama. I don't think they get too many Australians here. People seem very surprised to hear our accents and keep asking why we are here and telling us we're a long way from home.
Had dinner at Sweet Bones Alabama. Amazing barbeque. Bizarre fried pickles, great brisket, pulled chicken and steak + sides of collard greens, white beans and coleslaw.
It was a long day today - 3 1/2 hour flight from San Francisco to Houston, then another flight from Houston to Birmingham. Bad coffee, crappy service on Continental.
Started very early this morning driving to San Francisco airport - all good, other than a detour over the Bay Bridge when M misread the driving instructions and directed me most of the way to Oakland airport instead of San Francisco airport.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Berkeley
More San Francisco
Today is Veterans' Day. Visited Berkeley by BART (the very efficient train system). Wandered around town and the very pretty campus. This afternoon trolley car to Fishermens' Wharf - chocolate sundae by the water and wandered around. A really nice, sunny San Francisco afternoon.
Yesterday had a really interesting morning wandering around down-market residential areas of San Francisco - the sort of fascinating stuff I normally don't have time for. San Francisco really has a lot of homeless people.
Yesterday afternoon M and I visited Alcatraz - a short ferry, as the island is only 1 1/2 miles off San Francisco. Alcatraz was really interesting - an amazing audio tour and a slice of history.
Weird
Not sure which is more surprising - people repeatedly trying to give me flyers for strip clubs while I was walking down The Strip in Vegas hand-in-hand with M (at almost 30 weeks pregnant), or today in Berkeley when a drug dealer tried to sell marijuana to M.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
San Francisco #3
San Francisco #2
Tuesday early evening in San Francisco.
It's been a really fun couple of days since we arrived very late Sunday night.
Yesterday I explored Market Street and then wandered down to the old ferry building and the marketplace. The building is extremely well-restored, and has an amazing selection of gourmet foods. Lunch was a fantastic hot freshly-cooked fish sandwich, plus an unbelievably good steamed chicken bun from Out The Door (the takeaway version of Slanted Door. After lunch I headed to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA). A fantastic exhibition of Henri Cartier-Bresson photos, plus lots of other good stuff. Last night a fun and really good dinner at Farmer Brown - 'farm fresh soul food'. My first experience of Southern food - we had fried chicken and catfish, each served with a biscuit (like a muffin) and salad, plus greens and macaroni. I washed it down with a shot of bourbon and a Pabs Blue Ribbon beer.
Today wandered back to the old ferry building and my first really good coffee of the trip - at Blue Bottle Coffee. The waitress seemed almost emotional when I told her they served the best coffee I'd had in America and how it reminded me of home. Walked around the fisherman's market - very touristy, and lots of claws everywhere. Wandered around and found the North Beach neighborhood. Walked through it and sat in Washington Square park, then trolley car back to the Fairmont. This afternoon shopped around Union Square. For an Australian, American shops are very, very reasonably-priced at present.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
San Francisco #1
After my college football expedition on Saturday night, had a fun day yesterday with Rich, Simone and the kids. An amazing Mexican lunch in Old Town, complete with giant margarita, then a relaxing afternoon. A long delay on our flight from San Diego to San Francisco - but we eventually made it to our hotel by about 1am.
We're staying at The Fairmont. It is VERY old school - more than a hundred years old, and the hotel for which The Fairmont chain of hotels is named. Right at the top of Nob Hill - at the top of the hill - and our room overlooks the bay.
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Go team!
San Diego
Now in San Diego; our hotel is right on Pacific Beach and quite nice. Simone generously picked us up yesterday, and we spent the afternoon with her and the kids - La Jolla beach, then back at their house in (or around) Poway. Rich joined us after work and we had a really relaxing evening. This morning walked up the beach for breakfast at World Famous - amazing and huge Mexican-style breakfasts.
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Vegas
Today leave Vegas for San Diego.
My first time in Las Vegas, and I've had fun. We've stayed at The Encore, which has turned out to be a really really good hotel. A very big, well fitted-out room with the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in, and the hotel has great facilities. My only negative would be that it's up one end of The Strip so a bit of a hike to most of the other casinos.
We went to the Republican Party of Nevada's election-night party (thanks to Paula), which was fascinating - and which I've already mentioned. We went to Le Reve, the show at The Wynn / Encore and it was spectacular. We ate at a good New York-style deli at The Encore (complete with matzoh ball soup and v good pickles), had a passable coffee at a Parisian-style cafe on a cobblestoned street at Paris and had an excellent meal at The Lakeside Grill at The Wynn. The Lakeside Grill is situated on the Lake of Dreams, a man-made lake and waterfall inside the resort. It is actually quite beautiful, and the restaurant elegant with very good service and food. It was slightly jarring at 7pm, when a giant frog appeared at the top of the waterfall and sang 'What A Wonderful World'. Actually I think it was lip-synching the Louis Armstrong original.
I played poker for a few hours at The Wynn/Encore poker room against a mix of Nevadans and some tourists and pretty much held my own. Fascinating people watching. One guy from New Jersey would not stop talking about how good the biscotti he bakes are. At one point we had a dealer called Cowboy. A talkative guy up the other end of the table had recently been to Guetamala, and the table was collectively amazed that one could possibly travel somewhere so far away. I kept my mouth mostly shut and watched and listened and played and drank the free drinks brought by waitresses in extremely brief outfits.
And last night we went out with Paula (a friend from New Zealand M has made on the Fellowship she's currently doing) for a buffet dinner at The Wynn - surprisingly good food - a walk up The Strip, and an hour or so of blackjack at Bellagio - I came out slightly ahead.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
At the Republican Party of Nevada 2010 mid-term elections victory (?) party
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Standard Grill
Just had a great dinner at The Standard Grill - the restaurant at The Standard NYC (the hotel at which we're staying). The bar and restaurant at The Standard are at present the hottest place in New York - packed every night with hot young New Yorkers and others. Monday night Quentin Tarantino had the afterparty here after the premiere of Inglorious Basterds, complete with Brad and Angelina, among many others. People who've been at the bar and restaurant so far include Lindsay Lohan, Renee Zellweger, Cameron Diaz, the entire fashion world (including Anna Wintour) and pretty much everyone else.
Had a fun day today hanging around and shopping in SoHo and NoLita - incredibly hot, but fun anyway.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The Standard, NYC
Staying at The Standard, NYC - it is pretty new and is built above the Highline (an abandoned above-ground train line being turned into an awesome public park) in the Meatpacking District, which has awesome shops and restaurants and great cobblestone streets.
We have a fairly tiny - but very cool - room, with a glass wall giving great views over NYC (the Highline, the Meatpacking District and the Hudson River).
Had a few drinks last night (Tuesday night) in the Beer Garden -the hot NYC bar at present. Amazing / bizarre drinks (my drink of choice for the evening comprised rye, a raw sugar cube, a lemon twist and absinthe bitters), a full-on summer electrical storm, a fun conversation with a songwriter and lifelong New Yorker with whom we shared a table.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Cruz Bay, Saint John - random and general
A few observations:
- chickens clucking around the main street
- multiple, conflicting caribbean and south american music playing everywhere - music blaring from bars, cars and pretty much everywhere
- the smells of barbeque permeating the streets
- poor driving, given everyone is drunk on rum pretty much all the time
- rastafarian-looking guys wandering past with huge dreadlocks and/or huge beanies full of dreads
- four-wheel drives slowly driving past, stopping frequently to chat to pedestrians
Virgin Islands so far
Had a fantastic day yesterday... got up early and drove around, checking out some beaches. Went for 2 short-ish hikes around the Cinnamon Bay area - one was through tropical rainforest and was beautiful (but very very sweaty) and the other was a steep climb up a hill - also beautiful and also very sweaty.
Then drove on to Waterlemon Bay... a great beach reachable only by hiking along a fairly good path. The little bay was great - although a little rocky - but with a white-sand beach with probably the best snorkelling I've ever done just close to the shore. The coral was unspectacular - the floor was mostly rocks and sand - but the fishlife was amazingly varied and plentiful. Plus followed a number of beautiful green sea turtles.
After that drove to Maho Bay for more snorkelling. A much larger and more popular beach - there may have been as many as 20-25 people there, along the long beach. We set up in the shade - incredibly relaxing - then snorkelled. Quickly found a HUGE green sea turtle and followed it for ages.
In the afternoon a walk around town and towards Salamons Beach - very humid.
Relaxing evening - cooked a bbq at the resort, and bunkered in.
Tropical Storm Ana (now downgraded to Tropical Depression Ana) hit overnight - lots of wind and rain.... Today is fairly grey - a relaxing day