New York State of Mind

Guess who went to the Opening Ceremony of the US Open and watched Serena Williams play live tonight? Me! That's who :) :) :) but I get ahead of myself.

The past few days have been the time of my life so far! On Saturday I left Connecticut for the shining lights of the Big Apple once more... I am staying in Mount Vernon, New York, with one of my campers. They have a beautiful house in a gorgeous neighbourhood just outside New York City and have very kindly welcomed me into their home. Sunday was somewhat of an adventure. Many of you don't know it yet, but I chose to invest a small portion of my savings in a decent little camera, so I walked into Bronxville (a very cute little village half an hour from where I stay, NOT to be confused with the Bronx) and took the train into the city to take my camera for a test drive. The train took me to Grand Central, glorious as always, and I spent a few moments admiring the beauty of it before walking out into the city. It felt like I had never left.

I saw some very interesting sights. The first was Pakistan's 67th Independence Day parade down Park Avenue. Huh??? Colour me confused... Thought I had come to America?! I was so confused, I forgot to take pics! But hey it was funny to see all the fat dignitaries (I assume) marching in their fancy suits and sashes behind their little green and white float in the sweltering heat! :) the float reminded me of RAG and I spared a moment of silence for the poor souls who sacrificed their fingers in the making of it. (Tuks students will understand that reference!)

A few blocks further was an even funnier sight: the museum of sex. Yes you read it right and no I'm not joking! Although in all fairness I couldn't quite believe my eyes either! I thought it might just be a store with a funny name to attract customers so, naturally, I went to investigate. Boy was I wrong! For the more modest readers among you (and those prone to mild heart failure if exposed to scandalous materials) I will spare you the details. But let's just say I got more of an education from eight minutes in that store than I did from all the sex ed talks at school! Lolsies sorry mom ;) I was also amused to hear the not so melodic sounds of Die Antwoord playing in the museum! Ten points for internationally misrepresenting the South African music industry! :-/

Next I found Macy's... The world's largest store! It has eleven floors!!! IN. SANE. They have three Starbucks(es?) and a McDonald's IN the store. Score one for bigger and better! I was gobsmacked (I finally REALLY understand that saying). I also visited Madison Square Garden to see if I could take a peek inside, but sadly it's being renovated so it was all closed up. Shortly thereafter, my camera battery failed me, so I slowly (tired feet hindered me slightly!) wound my way back up to Grand Central and headed back to Bronxville. It was a LONG walk home from the station! Need to recondition my feet to get ready for this tourist lifestyle! :)

Today was AMAZING! Camera battery fully charged and ready for action, I caught a ride into the city with Donna and Holly. They had tickets to watch day one of the US Open which took place in Queens. As we arrived, we ran into Billie Jean King. Merely the first sign that it was the start of an incredible day. I'm struggling to type fast enough to satisfy my enthusiasm! :) I hopped on the subway into Manhattan, again arriving at Grand Central, this time well prepared (camera charged!) and spent the rest of the day looking up and snapping no less than 562 photographs! It was the best day :) got lovely pics of the Chrysler and Empire State buildings; visited the famed Fifth Avenue Apple store and took a ride in their Great Glass Elevator (sadly not Mr Wonka's) and made friends with a cart horse in Central Park whose name was Samson. He was a beautiful muscular black horse with a white star and the sweetest personality. I fed him carrots. He liked me... I could tell. Lovely fella :) I visited the Central Park zoo and Central Park and watched some of the seal show. Sadly that was at 16:30 and the park closes at five, so I deemed it unwise to buy tickets. But I'll be back! I then walked fifty blocks up Fifth Avenue to find the Woolworth mansion. It was the eleventh most expensive house in the world (jury's still out on whether I found that one...); found a turtle in the Jackie Kennedy reservoir dam in Central Park; named said turtle George (it felt right); got back to the tennis stadium for my ride home, and they had been handed free evening tickets and thus had decided to stay for the opening ceremony and evening matches (S. Williams and R. Federer!) so we got me a ticket and off we went! 

Well, today was my day for celeb spotting, 'cause they were all out in the Open (get it? :-P). I saw... (Drum roll please!) Billie Jean King, Selena Williams, Lenny Kravitz (performing, no less), Kevin Spacey, Zachary Levi, Olivia Wilde (didn't get a pic, sorry brother! :-P), Jason Sudeikis, Cuba Gooding Jr., Anne Burrell, New York Mayor Bloomberg, and Donald Trump and family (the whole stadium booed him, it was awkward :-D). Probably more that I've subsequently forgotten in all my excitement but that's enough name dropping for this post :) the match was a bit one sided I'm afraid (as all women's matches involving Serena tend to be because the woman is an amazon and hits the ball so hard it may as well have been shot from a canon!) unfortunately, just after Serena stylishly concluded her merciless obliteration of her poor opponent 6-0, 6-1, the skies opened and Roger's match was cancelled! I was very sad :'( But WHAT A DAY! I shall sleep with a smile tonight! :) 

Tomorrow, if all goes to plan, you shall see hundreds of photos! Finally :) And then, as the sun sets, I shall be comfortably cushioned in a Broadway seat watching a Broadway production of a Broadway show ON BROADWAY!!! Phantom of the Opera... I'm lucky, I know :-D 

Stay classy beautiful people, you shall hear from me soon! c",)

Let the adventures begin!!!

I arrived in Connecticut at 5:30 on Monday evening and Jess fetched me at Hartford station. We headed off to meet her fiancé, Jimmy, at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. The food was amazing but the dessert was mind blowing: white chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake. They had three pages of menu dedicated solely to cheesecake (Mom, you would die!). After dinner we headed back to Jess and Jimmy's gorgeous new little apartment in Meriden and watched a movie.

This morning Jess and I headed to Hamden to hike up the Sleeping Giant (previously mentioned in "the inside scoop"). It was a lovely day and a beautiful trail. We got to the top and decided to FaceTime both our moms. Totally awesome :) when we got down, we headed into Hamden to visit the bank (I used a drive thru ATM!) and almost got hit by an absolute idjot (spelt like that intentionally) on the way out. Jess called her a poephol - I was so proud! :) 

We stopped at a jewelry store and I got myself some Alex and Ani bracelets and one for Jess as an engagement gift. They are huge thing in America right now. A sort of charm bracelet. I love them :) they are made from recycled materials and each charm has a meaning behind it. there are also various charms connected to charities which means a portion of the profits goes to the charities when you buy them. I got five bracelets: a western saddle, a feather, an Aries charm, a medallion that says Live Music and one that says Completely Blessed. I shall be a trendsetter when I get home! I am sure of it :) 

Anyway, when we got back to her apartment I met her new pet - a hedgehog named Omri! He is too cute!!! He curls up in a ball and sticks his spikes out all around him if you out him on his back! I had a good giggle when I met him!

Jess and Jimmy and I went to Sakimura for dinner and had habachi. It was awesome! They cook the food in front of you and put on a whole show, squirting saki and tossing zucchini into the patrons' mouths and spinning their spatulas etc. I caught the zucchini :) lolsies. It is awesome to watch! We took half our food home in a doggy bag, and I found out in America you make your own doggy bag! They bring the box to you and you do the rest! 

All in all a great first day back in civilisation! 

Stay classy beautiful peeps c",)

Summer camp ends

Sadly, not much to report on the end half of camp. As usual, I am so sorry for the long silence, I simply had not a moment to myself! And also, not enough happened to be worthy of a blog until camp ended. A few storms, some performances at logs, a couple days off and my tent won tent inspection two weeks in a row :) other than that not much else happened. The end of camp was interesting though.

I had a few lovely days off in second session. One of which took me on a long 4.2 mile walk down the road for a break. It was lovely! We had a few more falls which were mostly amusing and not at all serious. Poor kiddies were traumatised though :-p they're so funny when they're scared! Lolsies. Camp ended with what I can only describe as a ritual. It sounds terrifying, I know, and it was! Basically a Waldorf wedding ceremony without the rings. 

We all walked in to the camp house in our tent groups (except for myself and three others who were playing the Canon in D by Pachelbel - memories mommy? :-p) and were handed a thick birch twig as we walked in. Once all the ceremonious "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..." speeches were out of the way (yes, I'm mocking a little but not exaggerating by much!), each tent went up one at a time and our birch twigs were bound together while someone stated that the campers in tent blah blah blah were forever bonded together in camp friendship. The tent counsellor then threw the bonded twigs into a fire. I felt incredibly squirmy and awkward. After that, the campers left the next day and we sorted out all the tents for family camp before the families arrived on Tuesday! 

Family camp was far more relaxed than actual camp. Mostly we did pony ride style lessons. Some kids were so little that we had to quintuple roll the stirrup leathers and their legs didn't even reach the bottom of the saddle! Bless them, they were so cute :) one particularly cute little four year old fella, Emmett, took a shine to me. He was absolutely adorable! He asked his parents to go away so that I could babysit him. Too cute :) he was a real proper little rough 'n tumble tyke. Arrived at camp with a black eye! They just don't make kids like that anymore :) after family camp, we had a very tearful goodbye with the horses :'( for some of us, it was as close as we had ever been to having our own horse and it was pretty hard to let go! We closed up the barn far quicker than any of us thought possible, got fed far too much pizza for dinner on Sunday night and left early on Monday morning for the bus so that we could finally GTFO (Google it :-p) of Maine. I've never felt so happy and free.

I took a bus to Boston with all the riding girls. Had a tearful goodbye at South station as they went off to New York and I headed to Connecticut to meet up again with my beautiful friend Jess. As much as I won't miss camp I will definitely miss those girls! We had an amazing team. 

Stay tuned for adventures in Connecticut! And as always, stay classy c",)