July 29 [Tuesday]......Hudson River Boardwalk at sunset
Feeling energetic and considering the weather was just perfect I decided to go rollerblading on the bike track along the Hudson River tonight. I had been on several sections before but today I covered a much larger distance on a perfect day.
I rollerbladed from 6th Ave over to 12th Ave where the boardwalk / bike track is next the the Hudson. Starting from 26th Street I headed north (uptown). Around 34th you pass the naval air carrier, the Intrepid where it is docked. Then by 42nd is where the Circle Line cruises depart (they circle around Manhattan). Along the way there was a good amount of runners, cyclists and rollerbladers.
Just north of 50th street there are some old rusted pier ruins in the water which are quite fascinating and then a jetty where you can sit and look over to the New Jersey shore. Back on the track from 60th street things get interesting. The track now is right on the water edge and alongside are lots of small parks either for baseball, smaller running tracks and people playing frisbee or doing tai chi. Others just sit on the benches looking out at the sunset.

Further north I came to the 79th Street Boat Basin which is where rich people dock their boats, there were also some playgrounds and basketball courts. The track takes a detour there and moves to a less smooth surface around Riverside Park which I went on until the end which was around 95th Street.

Next time I may start off by heading downtown as the bike track goes all the way to the most southern tip of Manhattan down from Wall Street.

July 26 [Saturday]......Long Island Extravaganza!
Today was a busy day....
Our first destination was a visit to the New York Jets (NFL football) training camp at Hofstra University. We were to catch the LIRR railroad out to Long Island and got to Penn Station (34th st) with 8 minutes to spare only to find they had changed the train schedule since I printed my timetable and the train was leaving right at that moment and we still didn't have tickets. So we decided to catch an alternative train which would take us to West Hempstead and find our way from there. Once there, with no map and only a vague sense of direction, we set out on foot and eventually got on a bus which brought us to the terminal where we could catch a connecting shuttle bus to Hofstra University.
Today was the end of the first week of the Jets training camp before the upcoming season and 1,000 or so fans turned out to watch a mock game. I couldn't pass up the chance to see this, given that all their games are sold out to season ticket holders and there is a wait list of 15 years! Worse than SACA by far....
We saw the practice game for over an hour, only a couple of rows back in the stand so it was very close to the field and action. After the session we were lucky enough to get 2 autographs including the Jets latest Quarterback draft pick. On our way out, even Anh got a Jets airbrushed tattoo.

From there we had a 25 minute walk on the Hempstead Turnpike around to the soccer stadium where we met up with Marty and Lindsey to watch a NY Power (womens) soccer game. The game was ok, even had 2 Australian girls on the team and it ended in a 1-1 draw. Typical soccer.

Another 40 minute trip back to civilization (Manhattan) and feeling hungry, we took the subway down to SoHo to eat at "Peep", a Thai restaurant. Peep is a pretty trendy SoHo joint, we had to wait 20 minutes to get a table even at 10:30pm. Peep is famous for amongst all things, its bathrooms. They have a one-way glass wall in the bathroom so when you are in there you can see other diners eating (or who is trying to open the door!). They also have a movie playing on a screen in the bathroom and it is almost completely dark in there. Needless to say both Anh and I went in at various times to check it out. Oh, and the food wasn't too bad either.

Before going home, we walked around MacDougal Street and Bleeker Street which is the coolest place in Greenwich Village at night with an endless amount of activity happening.

July 21 [Monday]......New York Yankees & the storm
Tonight we had some cheap tickets to see the NY Yankees v Toronto Blue Jays out at Yankee Stadium (as we were out in the Bleacher seats). Despite being on a 5 game winning streak, tonight they were awful, losing 8-0 before the game was called in the bottom of the 8th inning when a storm came down.

July 19 [Saturday]......Greenwich Village
Today was the last oil painting class, so I took home my last 2 paintings, carrying one of them while wet back from 13th street. Later in the night we headed down to the Village to eat at Cafe Reggio. After that we took a walk down Bleeker Street to Magnolia Bakery where we got a supply of the cupcakes they have. Got on the subway and went up to 42nd street to see the new Johnny Depp movie "Pirates of the Caribbean".

July 15 [Tuesday]......The Pegs are here
After a long wait on backorder, our Pottery Barn Peg Set has finally arrived. It was a long 3 month wait but worth it, they are outstanding. Anh is a big fan. What is it you ask? Well at $US50 for 6 giant oversized pegs that serve no real purpose I leave it to you to decide. They do look great though.

July 14 [Monday]......Anh's on eBay again!
Anh's latest hobby is trawling ebay to find the complete set of tour programs from all of Madonna's 6 previous world tours. So far she has bought 3 of them online to add to the one she already owned. Now she only has one to go, the earliest one, from 1985, which will also be the one that will cost the most.
Anh isn't the only one though, recently I bought a tool from 1948 needed to make my room divider, so since the divider will have a 1950's look, I thought it would be even more realistic to use tools from the era also.

These days we have also switched to buying our groceries online and having them delivered to our apartment. We also rent dvd's online and they send them here, no more trips to the video store again! It might sound lazy (our grocery store was only one block away!) but that is the New York way. They have also just opened the Valet service in our apartment building where they offer just about every service you could need....at a price of course.

July 13 [Sunday]......Bronx Zoo
Beautiful day outside. Looking outside our window we usually see the flea market in the carpark across the street setting up on a weekend, however today it was much busier. We have a New York street fair right outside. It seems to go up to 34th street from where I see. Looking out our 17th floor window, if you put your head against the window you see straight up 6th Avenue, and can count the streets right up to around Times Square. I swear I can just see to the trees at the end of the road and that means Central Park which is 33 streets away.

Anyways, on our way out, we walked around the street fair and picked up some cheap food, I usually get the $2 pad thai. Our mission today was the Bronx Zoo so that mean't a subway trip, possibly our longest yet (not counting Long Island) at around 50 minutes. Doesn't sound like much, but with the size of Manhattan and everything so close to you, travelling like that seems to be a chore!

The zoo is the largest one of at least 4 zoos in NYC that I know of. The best areas were the Congo Gorilla Forest, the play fighting Snow Leopards, Sea Lions and Anh's favourite, the Children's Petting Zoo. Only really disappointing area was Tiger Mountain. Fighting amongst a crowd of 100 in a tiny pavilion to see 2 tigers was a let down after seeing and holding the real thing in Thailand.
However, seeing how some of the ignorant people act here (it seemed like they have never seen any wildlife before), there seemed to be more animals on our side of the fence.

July 12 [Saturday]......The Restaurant
Started the day by going online and picking up some tickets for a Philadelphia Eagles NFL game. It is so damn hard to get tickets in NY (Jets and Giants tickets are sold out for the next 10 years!), so I got some tickets for a game down in Atlanta where we can spend a couple of days. They sold out in 6 minutes so I was lucky just to get some.

We ventured down near West Broadway to an exhibition studio called Deitch Projects where they had a new show on, and they are usually quite progressive. From there I went to painting class and Anh stayed on Broadway to look at the shops.

That night we had reservations for a restaurant called Roccos over on 22nd and 5th avenue. I had wanted to try it as around a month ago, Roccos was used to film a new reality tv show called "The Restaurant" which starts on tv here next week. It is made by the guy behind Survivor and the whole show is about this well known chef,Rocco, starting a new restaurant, hiring all the staff and then the stories of the actual diners. I did hear that they had to apply to eat there and sign contracts that they would create some kind of drama while there. So we'll see what the show is like next week, but the food wasn't too bad tonight.

July 8 [Tuesday]......Random
Anh has gone back to the Foundling Hospital today where she has a contract for awhile. She is glad to finish at the real estate company who had a strange rule that females must only wear skirts to work.

I also added a bunch to the post from June 29 with some more about what is in Central Park that I had put off until now.

July 6 [Sunday]......Survivor Marathon
In a devasting blow, the damn cable is still out. This is heading into the third day with no tv or internet. We are feeling like we have gone back in a timewarp to the 1950's or something. Except we don't have a piano.
Cable guy came over yesterday morning and told us the whole building is out.
As a backup plan we have embarked on a Survivor marathon weekend. I bid for the complete set of Survivor Marquesas videos on eBay (the series not shown in Australia) and the tapes arrived in the mail a couple of days ago so we are watching them back to back.

Late in the afternoon, the cable came back up so we have now moved back into the 21st century - thank god.

July 5 [Saturday]......Relaxing in Central Park
Another lovely day, if not a little on the warm side (temperatures have been in the 90's). On our way to the subway at 23rd street we ran into a street fair running down 6th Avenue so walked down it, had some food and looked at the stalls. The fairs rotate the location they are held and usually stretch over 10 streets or more where they block the roads. Next was a subway trip up towards Central Park where I grabbed a quick hotdog from one of the street vendors and we walked into the park.

We sat in an area surrounding "The Pond" in the south eastern corner of Central Park. It's kinda like being at the beach where people sunbake or lie and read. After relaxing for awhile we walked over to 5th Avenue and continued up to East 82nd street to the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) where I really wanted to look at the modern art collection that we missed the last visit. Next was the Goddess exhibition that Anh had planned to see, which was a collection of designer costumes inspired by classical Greek dress. There were several famous dresses worn by Kylie Minogue, Nicole Kidman, and my favourite, the grey/silver one worn by Jennifer Lopez to the Academy Awards in 2001.

Going back to Chelsea there was a quick stop at the Krispy Kreme store before arriving home to find that the cable is still out!!

July 4 [Friday]......Independence Day
Today is the annual holiday for Independence Day. Had some trouble with our cable in the afternoon which meant no internet or cable tv. It's also damn hot so we are staying in during the day.

At night we planned to go over to see the 4th of July Fireworks over on the East River. From 23rd street we caught the cross-town bus which was absolutely packed and it took us to 2nd Avenue at which point we walked the remainder to the East River. The fireworks lasted around 30 minutes and kept the huge crowd entertained, there was plenty of red, white & blue. It also showed that the Australian fireworks are probably just as good.

Needing a late night meal, we walked over to Union Square to one of our new regular spots, Republic Noodles. It was also a welcome relief from the heat outside.

July 3 [Thursday]......Return of My Trieu
The day before July 4 means work ends early. My Trieu came over in the afternoon to our apartment. While I headed up to 39th street to get some materials for the room divider I am construcing, the girls had plans for Macy's. Later, we all walked over to a Vietnamese restaurant on 3rd Avenue coincidentally called "Anh". Later after My headed back to the Bronx with her cousin, Anh & I went to see the new Legally Blonde 2 movie.