The Sunday before last we went to New York for the day. I had a meeting at Princeton (New Jersey, south of NY) on the Monday so we decided to spend the day in NY on the way down. We spent the day with my flatmate from my Sydney days, Elisabeth. Elisabeth lives in Manhattan on the route that the 'Sex and the City' tour bus takes. She has a cute apartment with a great view of Manhattan. NY city is a crazy place though. Elisabeth's apartment has a guy who has the job of spinning the revolving door when you walk through! And you have to give each of them a big tip at the end of the year. There are people walking round the street with their dogs - in prams! There was a gay pride parade on the day we were there but it was pretty disappointing compared to the Sydney Mardi Gras.
That afternoon we went to the Guggenheim. Elisabeth could get us in for free cos she a free pass from her work. I'm glad we didn't pay cos the main exhibition was crap. I'm also glad Elisabeth was there to keep me company while Pete looked at things! The exhibition was by an architect - though we only found one of her designs that had actually been built. Most were pretty weird.
After that we went to a Mexican restaurant and Pete had cactus for tea. The best bit was catching up with Elisabeth though.
I headed on to Princeton and Pete went home. Princeton is pretty much just a University town, not much else there. It is lovely though with lots of trees but a bit dull. I met with George Philander and his group and talked work. That evening we went to George's for a drink. It was a great example of the multicultural nature of oceanography. There were no Americans there, instead George is from South Africa, his wife Argentina, there was guys from Italy and Uraguay and Alexey (Russian) and me.
On the way back to New Haven I had MacDonalds for the first time in the US. Pretty much the same as in Australia - though I haven't eaten at MacDonalds for a long time!
The last weekend was totally hectic. Friday night we had dinner at Alison and Jon's. Jon is Australian and we were invited with the hope we would bring an Australian dessert, so I made a trifle. Jon has been in the US for years so I think he was a bit homesick. Alison told me he was eating left over trifle for breakfast the next couple of days.
Saturday morning we went to the gym. Pete has become a bit of a gym junkie - he goes to the gym which is about every second day. I'm worried about the effect this will have on the grocery budget. After that we went shopping. Pete has put us on a monthly budget which is very painful. I hate not having the money we used to have in Hobart! Saturday night we had dinner with a work friend Steve Sherwood and his family. His wife is from New Zealand.
Sunday morning we went hiking with Steve and Tracy
and Tracy's Mum. There is a place called Sleeping Giant, along the lines of Sleeping Beauty in Hobart without the breasts. In fact we climed to the highest point which was called his 'knob' and was positioned somewhere near his knees. We are standing on his knob in the photo. The whole hike was about 4 hours long so we were pretty buggered after that.Tuesday was Independence Day - the fourth of July. Fireworks all weekend. We spent last night on top of the geology building watching the local fireworks. Next year I think we will try to go to Boston or New York where the fireworks are much more spectacular.
