New York, New York

There is reason that so many people wear t-shirts that say "I Heart New York". New York rocks. It's a crazy place filled with yellow cabs, bagels and places that remind me of the movies, and more fun in an "I cannot believe I am actually here" kind of way than anywhere I have visited yet.

Tane at Wall Street.

There were three highlights for me during our visit - going to Planet Hollywood and a Broadway show with Ngaire, visiting the top of the Rockefeller Centre, and taking a boat to Liberty Island. Seeing the Statue of Liberty was especially fun after we decided to by green foam hats to mark the occasion as these were perfect for some shameless posing.

If I were to name my top place in New York, though, it would have to be Times Square. Before I saw Times Square, I considered NY all hassle and no charm. Who knew that dozens of crazy neon lights and a three level M&Ms store would change my mind?

I loved New York, and can't wait to go back again one day. For a small island, Manhattan is somewhere that I could happily spend a lot of time in, even if dodging the yellow taxis is a daily occurrence. I didn't buy one of those cheesy t-shirts, but if I feel the same next time might just. Brooklyn Bridge, right before we approached some sifty looking Italian-Americans (one with a cut lip) in a parking lot for directions. We are sure that we interrupted a clandestine meeting and are lucky not to be swimming with the fishes ...

Gettysburg

Last week I visited the American Civil War battle site Gettysburg, the location of what many historians argue to have been where the Civil War turned against the South.

Like many other battlefields, little remains apart from grass, memorials, plaques and the odd cannon. It is still well worth a visit, however, especially to the gift shop where you are able to buy Confederate flags, Civil War chess sets and Abraham Lincoln memorabilia. The town of Gettysburg is charming, and my only regret is not reading up more about the battle before going there. I really enjoyed visiting nonetheless, and look forward to going back one day with Tane in tow.


On the left, Mikey looks a tad happy for someone born in the South. The photo on the right shows one of the many Confederate flags shown at the site.

London in the spring

In case you were wondering if Lauren was the only one having a good time, over there in the US, I should say that its pretty darn wonderful here in London at the moment. It's funny, it's not until living in this part of the world that I really appreciated what a big difference the change in the seasons makes. New Zealand doesn't have the major shift from winter to spring that the UK does, particularly because it's closer to the equator and most of the trees are evergreens. Here it was dark at 4pm back in December, but is now light until 8pm. All the trees that were grey skeletons a little while ago are now either covered in blossoms or emerging leaves. This weekend we could wear shorts and the parks were packed. It's amazing what a lift it gives to people. Sitting St James' Park yesterday, surrounded by groups of people chatting, laughing or reading, you could almost see the happiness radiating off everyone.

So here are a few reasons why spring is great.

1) Flowers! The daffodils are out everywhere and the flowerbeds are filled with colours.

Yes, I've put up two flower photos. It's true. I am a girl.

Perfect weather for football in Kensington Gardens.

Andrew Burge is in town!

OK, so my old uni flatmate, divemaster and traveller extraordinare Andrew visiting Europe actually has nothing to do with spring, but it was really cool catching up with him after a few years. Pity my photo in front of the Diplodocus in the awesome Natural History Museum was a lot less than awesome.

But despite it being so nice in London at the moment, I'm really, really looking forward to joining Lauren over in the States on Thursday. Yay!

Roadtrip, wooo!

I have been spending the last few days on the road with my best friend from school, Rachel, and her two kids. It has been great fun, especially spending time with them and watching the USA whizz by out the window. It really is a massive country, we drove for two days yet only passed through four states and covered in area of about 1 cm on my map.

Rachel with Mikey and Emmelia

The highlight for me, apart from spending time with the kids and catching up on years of conversations with Rachel, was seeing two Amish people on a horse and buggy in Upstate New York. That, and discovering dark chocolate peanut M&Ms. Happy. The wee Deck whanau has headed to South Carolina now, but I'm hoping to see them again soon. It's great that my friends live all over the world and that I am travelling myself, but it does make me a little sad that there are all these little people that I am not seeing growing up.

Capitol

Does it reflect badly on me that when I was standing on the steps of Capitol all I could think about was the many episodes of The Simpsons where they visit? Is it true then, that there is a Simpsons moment for every occasion? I think that there is - especially in Washington D.C. I haven't yet decided if that enhances or takes away from the experience of being here though!

Arlington Cemetery

There is something very eerie about being in a place where hundreds and thousands of people that fought in various wars are buried. Whatever your politics, it is impossible to be in a place like Arlington and not agree that war is tragic. Nonetheless, Arlington Cemetery is still a fascinating place to visit. JFK is buried here, and you can see the eternal flame that sits on his grave. Bobby Kennedy is here as well, as is the tomb to the unknown soldiers.

The highlight for me, however, was the Iwo Jima statue. When I was at Otago I used to have the photograph on my wall, and have since seen the cheesy-yet-interesting-although-in-need-of-an-edit movie about the men in the statue, Flags of Our Fathers. So, while I know that the original photo was staged and the statue itself in an odd location in the cemetery (it almost felt like it was in a parking lot, I'd be interested to find out why it's not with everything else) it was still cool to see it with my own eyes.

Dr Pepper and D.C.

Yesterday I travelled to the USA for the first time in over seven years. It is great to be back though, and not just because of the Dr Pepper and pizza. I'm also hanging out with Dad in DC for the first time in almost two years, and getting to be shown around Washington D.C. by someone who lives here at present courtesy of the Fulbright Scholarship system.

Dad at the back of the White House. No sign of the Obamas, alas, although the town is still filled with inauguration memorabilia.

Washington DC is a lovely city, The Mall awesome to walk around as is seeing so many sights that I've seen millions of times before at the movies. No disrespect to Cheese-heads from Wisconsin, but already I like DC an awful lot more than the American Midwest I became familiar with last time. That's not just because of the frequency of hot dog stands for us to fill up on Dr Pepper and hot dogs at either.

Unfortunately, Tane isn't here with us but joining me here next week. Just to show he's not forgotten, though, I wanted to post this pic Dad took of me texting him while standing outside Capitol.

A day trip to Windsor

Yesterday Tane and I decided to make the most of the glorious beginning-of-Spring weather and join Patti for a visit to the Queen at Windsor Castle. Well, maybe not the Queen herself, but we did visit her house and she was home and that's probably as close as we hois-palois will ever get.

At least I got close to some men wearing fluffy hats the remind me of toilet plungers on their heads

Windsor Castle, a short trip from Ealing, is remarkable. The castle is amazing to look at from the outside, and the interior that is open to the public filled with so many treasures and works of art it took us a good two hours to look around. The highlight was Queen Mary's Dollhouse, complete with running water and bespoke portraits on the walls. This was followed by the worst part of the Castle in my opinion, a room filled with treasures plundered from the Empire which I felt was not remorseful enough about the circumstances in which the goods were acquired. These objections aside, however, it can't be denied that the castle was filled with goods worth more than I could ever hope to earn in a millennium. With Heathrow close by, though, it is amusing that you may be the Queen of England and still be in a flight path.

The flag in the photograph flies when the Queen is in residence. Given the number of planes flying around while we were there I am also curious what the Queen thinks of the proposed third runway ...

Bath-tastic

Jane Austen hated Bath apparently. After finally making it there last weekend I struggle to see why, however, as it has edged ahead of York by a nose to win the much-coveted Lauren's Top Place in England award. In fact, I liked it so much, Bath had me jumping for joy. Pity I didn't have the foresight to take my handbag off first.

Injury by handbag aside, it was a glorious weekend in a fabulous place. Bath isn't a nice town with some pretty sections, it is a pretty town with some spectacular areas. I spent much of my time there wishing that I was wearing a round gown and resident for the 1821 ball season. Especially as this is where the wealthy people stayed:
I would like to imagine that my ancestors had the means to live in these apartments and danced in the Bath assembly rooms, although I suspect that if they did they were more likely to have been the people cleaning out the chamber pots and loitering in the kitchens.

Tane at the Roman Baths with the Abbey in the background. You can't actually bathe in them though, so calling the entire town Bath really is a case of false advertising.

Bath was so lovely a town I am unable to write more about it as am running out of adjectives. One thing worth mentioning, though, was what seemed to be cunning revenge on Bath's most famous ex-resident for criticising it. It is true that no-one is sure what Jane Austen really looks like, but I would like to think that she didn't look as bad as the Jane Austen replica outside the Jane Austen centre. If I knew that future generations of my town would make me look like this, I probably would have criticised the town also!

Bra-zil, Bra-zil, Bra-zil

Last month my football-watching mates Lewis, James and I went to see two of the three most successful nations in football history clash in London. Brazil, five time World Cup winners, against Italy, four time champions. It was my first international football match and it was amazing.


The game was at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal's superb new home ground, which holds about 60,000 people and had almost every seat ocupied. The atmosphere was incredible. Both sides had hugely passionate fans, with chants of "Bra-zil, Bra-zil, Bra-zil" and "I-tal-ia, I-tal-ia" roaring out. The Italian fans, whose team had two goals disallowed, got particularly fired up.

This guy was brilliant. We almost watched him rant and rave as much as we did the game.

Some true greats were playing in both teams. Ronaldinho, Robinho, Buffon, Cannavaro - some of the best players in the world. It was also the best game of any sport that I've seen live. Brazil were fabulous in the first half, taking a 2-0 lead and playing the kind of football that has made them legends. Back heels, flicks off the side of the boot, flashy dribbling - it was like watching the Harlem Globetrotters play a competitive game.

That's Italy in their famous azure blue and Brazil in their even more famous yellow and blue.

Italy came back and scored in the second half, but Brazil were the worthy winners. I'll never forget Robinho's second goal - the footwork and finish are absolutely stunning. Check it out (with French commentary!) here.

James, Lewis and I had a great time. I'm doing my irate Italian fan impression.

Technology, stop now please

Today I read that more people now use social networking sites than email. My first thought was "???", but then I realised that it's true in my case - I am just as likely to get contacted through Facebook than direct to my email.

This got me thinking, however, about Internet technology and how I find myself wishing it would just stay still. I like MSN and I like blogging, and it makes me a little sad that these two forums seem to be getting left behind already. Of course blogs are still very popular, but I have noticed that the number of people reading ours did seem to drop off after we signed up to Facebook. That is natural of course, I too am guilty of not checking the blogs of people who update on Facebook regularly as I feel I already know what they are doing. Facebook is fine and has its place, but I have reached the point when I would be happy if internet technology and social networking just stayed still for a while. I don't feel the need for more change, especially in the Twitter direction as knowing what Lily Allen had for dinner will not enrich my life.

Do you agree? Does this make me sound like an old fuddy-duddy?Some technology, however is good - I wouldn't want to put this in my pocket!

Movies, movies, movies (and sometimes other stuff)

Hi, as with Lauren's books (see below) I've set up a separate blog for my occasional movie reviews and reviews of other things, like books and concerts. That way my long-winded essays won't clog up the main blog! The reviews blog is:
http://tanesreviews.blogspot.com
I've started with a review of the latest superhero blockbuster, Watchmen.

Books books books

Last year I decided to start writing short'n'sweet reviews of books I've read. It's a little random, and the books I have reviewed are only the ones I had read in the weeks before writing. As I read about two books a week it is unlikely that I will review them all, but here is the link nonetheless to the blog! I am interested in your thoughts ...

http://laurensbookreviews.blogspot.com

A Killer concert

It was perfect timing - the night before Lauren's birthday, so us old people could sleep in. It was also the best rock concert we've been to. The Killers killed it.

I've been to shows by better artists - though The Killers are great - playing better songs with better sound. But I've not enjoyed anything else more. One of the main reasons was because as soon as The Killers came on stage and Human started pulsing out, everyone got to their feet and stayed there for the whole show, clapping, swaying, hopping and singing. It's frustrating being at a rock concert when you can't move for fear of upsetting the grumps behind you. Like during The Rolling Stones' Wellington concert back in '05. Bloody hell, it's Jumpin' Jack Flash, you should be jumpin'!

It wasn't perfect. The sound was fine for the softer and faster tunes, but it was rather muddy for the couple of mid-tempo tracks from the latest album, Day and Age. And they didn't play my favourite song from the album, Neon Tiger. But those are just a quibbles. Here's a few reasons why it was such a good gig.

Cracking songs: For Reasons Unknown, Somebody Told Me, Read My Mind - Brandon Flowers and co write some damn good tunes. It's hard to pick the highlight on the night, but I'd have to go with the mass euphoria when they played Mr Brightside. Mr Brightside kicks ass.

Surprises: The violins on the downbeat versions of Smile Like You Mean It and Sam's Town. Nice.

Discoveries:Wow, Dustland Fairytale is an American epic. Springsteen, eat your heart out.

Performance: Huge video screen, a storm of bubbles, the literally explosive finale - there was more than just sound to admire. True, Flowers' voice barely manages to carry the songs and the rest of the band don't do much, but they pull it off.

Seats: We were waaaaay down the back of the O2 Arena for Leonard Cohen, but close to the stage this time. It ruled.

Pity the fool

This morning I picked up a copy of the free morning paper The Metro as I dashed to make the District Line tube. The Metro is great. It may leave black ink on my fingers and contain the odd article that makes me want to roll my eyes at someone, but it's a good read for the way to work. Today was no exception, and had a quote in it from Mr T that almost made me laugh out loud. You can read the whole interview here, but here is the highlight:

Mr T on why he has the best catch phrase: "When you say: ‘I pity the fool’ it hits home. Some times you are working around fools and when you pity the fool, you are showing them mercy."

Mr T on which fool he pities the most at the moment: "I pity the Devil. He is about sin and corrupts the minds of young people. He is definitely the fool I pity the most right now."

Hilarious. I can't decide which fool I pity the most right now, but it could well be everyone else that isn't eating pineapple lumps right now as I am. That certainly meets the "showing them mercy" criteria. What fool do you pity? Will you be more successful than me at slipping "pity the fool" into conversation today?

Thanks Mum and sisters!

My birthday was great - we went to The Killers in concert last night (best concert ever!), I had the day off work, got a fabulous gift from Tane, had a lovely afternoon sightseeing in London with Stephen, and dessert with friends. The highlight though was getting these flowers from Mum and my sisters - here is a photo of them so you can see what they looked like in the end. THANK YOU!

10 great things about York

On the weekend, Tane and I joined Patti and Stephen for a fabulous trip to York. York is the loveliest place I have seen in England so far, so lovely even it inspired me to write a list of 10 awesome things about it. Here goes:

1. Yorkminster Cathedral. This church is amazing, adjectives to describe it would only sound cheesier than a cheesecake covered in cheese sauce.2. A poignant plaque. Tucked away in a corner of the Minster there is a plaque that I would have ignored had the words "New Zealand" not caught my eye. The plaque was for the members of the York regiment killed fighting the Maori in the NZ Wars, many of them at Rangiriri. Next time I am driving past Rangiriri and see the Cemetery I hope I remember to think about York and just how far from home those men are buried.
3. York's old town. We ate in a pub built in the early 1600s still called its original name, "Ye Olde Starre". Cool. This isn't a great photo but gives you an idea of what much of central York is like. Places like York also make you realise just how much London lost in 1666.

4. A small shop in a Tudor house selling hard boiled lollies. Mmmm.

5. The most fabulous dolls house shop I have ever seen. It sold everything from doll churches to miniature roasts, and almost made me want to take up a new hobby. Or, at least, buy a miniature lemon meringue pie.6. Fairfax House, the best preserved Georgian house in England. It should come with a warning though: "visiting may make your current house feel woefully inadequate and cheaply furnished".

7. The old wall. It goes around most of the old city, and is great to walk on. Tane especially enjoyed yelling "you will never capture my castle!" to cars passing below. We also discovered that people back in Ye Olde times were a lot shorter than now. If Stephen and Tane hadn't ducked they would have been concussed coming down the stairs as we exited.

8. Random place names.9. Winning a free t-shirt. Tane wears his in the photo below while I wear a facial expression that clearly shows that by then I had eaten too many of the lollies described in #4.

10. Being out of London. I loved our trip so much now I am eagerly awaiting a summer of travel and seeing more of Old Blighty. Yay!

It's Oscar time!

This is the part of the year when Lauren and I go to the pictures and see as many of the films picking up lots of awards nominations as we can. Yay!

Here are my thoughts on the nominees at the major categories at the upcoming Academy Awards, except Best Supporting Actress, as we’ve only seen one of the movies. We’ve managed to see all the Best Picture nominees, which we don’t always get to do in New Zealand, where smaller movies can take months to arrive, but as always there’s plenty of much-nominated films that we’ve not seen - like The Wrestler, Doubt and Vicky Christina Barcelona.

Best Picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is the favourite here, and it deserves to win. The other films are very good, especially The Reader, but Slumdog’s verve and brilliant storytelling give it the edge. But it’s a shame that the best film of the year, WALL-E, or the best superhero movie of all time, The Dark Knight, didn’t get nominations. They’ve got a good chance of picking up plenty of awards in the ‘minor’ categories, like effects and sound, but they should have had a shot at the big one.
Check out the comments for Lauren’s thoughts on the nominees and my top films of the last 12 months. Please leave your thoughts too.

Best Director
Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry – The Reader
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant – Milk
Probably Boyle, if the Academy is sharing everyone else’s love of Slumdog, but I think Gus Van Sant might sneak this for Milk. I have a suspicion the Academy wants to make a statement by recognising this strong film about the US’s first openly gay politician, Californian Harvey Milk, particularly given the state recently quashed proposals to allow gay marriage.

Best Actor
Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn – Milk
Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
Pitt is very good, Langella’s portrayal of the flawed president is better, and Penn is better still as Milk. But Hollywood loves a comeback, which former drug washout Rourke has done in grand style, so I think he’ll get it. Other actors who would have been worthy nominees in this category are Colin Farrel in In Bruges and David Cross, the young man in The Reader.

Best Actress
Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie – Changeling
Melissa Leo – Frozen River
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kate Winslet – The Reader
Only seen Jolie and Winslet’s performances, which are both excellent. Winslet is the hot favourite and deserves a win, both for pulling off a very challenging role and for being perhaps the finest actress of her generation.

Best Supporting Actor
Josh Brolin – Milk
Robert Downey, Jr. – Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road
Ledger would be the favourite for this even if he didn’t get the sympathy vote. With his death, he’s unstoppable. Has there ever been a better performance as a villain? Nice to see Downey Jr nominated. The dude playing the dude playing the dude disguised as a dude was hilarious. Deserving of a place is Brendan Gleeson, who was wonderful as an ageing, philosophical hitman in In Bruges. The reliable Ralph Fiennes was also top draw in The Reader.

Best Original Screenplay
WALL-E
Happy-Go-Lucky
Frozen River
In Bruges
Milk
A tough one. In Bruges is brilliantly wordy, WALL-E is brilliantly unwordy, but Milk might get it for the reasons stated above.

Best Adapted Screenplay
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Doubt
Expect this to go with the Slumdog tide – if it doesn’t, that could point to an upset in Best Picture. By the way, Lauren says the book the movie is based on, Q&A, is well worth reading.

Click here for a list of all the nominees. Expect The Dark Knight, Slumdog and Benjamin Button to share the technical and musical awards.

Reality TV being too real?

As I have nothing wise to report or anything witty to write about this evening, I have decided to jot down a few random thoughts about something I read about today - Jade Goody.

I don't know if any of you have been following the story of ex-Big Brother and famous-for-being-famous woman Jade Goody, who was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer and has found out she has weeks to live. This is indeed tragic, she is only 28 and will leave behind two small boys. The thing that has boggled my mind, though, is that she has said that she will allow TV crews to film her death. On one hand, it makes sense - after all, I only know about her at all because of reality TV. She was in the Indian Big Brother when she was diagnosed, and you can see the video of when she found out about her cancer on You Tube. She has also said that before she dies she wants to make as much money for her boys as she can, and filming her death may be one way to do this.

On the other hand - filming the moment that she dies? Is it tacky, tragic, or both? I hate the idea of it myself, a video of the moment you die is like the ultimate photo that you can never decide to delete after the fact. I would also be too scared of doing something terribly undignified in my last moments, but then again I would never go on Big Brother either so am clearly very different than her. I can't quite decide what I think about it, but as I said earlier the story continues to boggle my mind and leaves me very sad for her and her boys.

What do you think?

Winter wonderland

Outside the apartment right now is a white world. 20cm of snow has fallen in London in the last 24 hours, the heaviest snowfall since 1991.

The front of our apartment last night, after a few hours of very heavy snowfall

The view from the back of our apartment, the next morning

20cm may not be a big deal for you Canadians and Scandanavians, but when you're from a part of the world where the only proper snow you get to play in is on top of a very high volcano, it's a big deal indeed. I was a very happy camper - particularly since my work was closed and I got to spend much of the day wandering happily around the neighbourhood, admiring how everything familiar had gotten a coating of magic.

However, there was a very big down side to all the white stuff, as Lauren found out on her way to work.

Little did she know ...

This much snow is not only a big deal for me, it's also a big deal for this part of England - where the public transport system almost collapsed. No buses were running, much of the tube system was down and there were heavy delays on the trains. Lauren's journey to work took almost three times longer than normal.

One of the tube trains stalled at the station

While Lauren's train was stalled on the tracks outside the station, things began to get a bit tense. One man started hyperventilating. A woman decided she had had enough and tried to force the doors open so she could walk to work along the tracks - which could have been fatal. Eventually, after getting into a fight with another passenger who was trying to stop her, she smashed open a window trying to open another door. All the ruckus, of course, meant that the train was further delayed and tempers got even shorter.

The woman, who was kept inside the train, was arrested when she did get off.

I had a much better day, wandering around and taking a zillion photos. Some of the people were slogging grimly through it.

But not the kids. All the schools were closed so they were all out in their parkas and gumboots, throwing snowballs, tobogganing and, of course ...

Making snowmen!

I had a great day. Though I suspect after a couple more white days, with transport headaches and looming deadlines, the thrill will have gone!