New York

We took a trip on the 'Lucky Bus' to NYC last weekend just to get away and have a break. Em had seven days off in her shift rotation so thought it would be good to get out and go some place. Why New York, why not New York. The Lucky Bus only costs $30 each for the round trip so it's pretty cheap to get there. I've also wanted to go to the Museum of Modern Art for a while, and then there's all the shops for Em, so we both get a little of what we want. Also took in a trip to the Natural History Museum which is a great place, just too much to take in. Loved the dinosaurs and learned about life and rituals of tribes in the Amazon. Too many kids running around though. The Museum of Modern Art was kinda hit and miss, some great works by some of my favourite artists like Jasper Johns, Kandinsky, Miro and Pollock. Also some very modern art which are based more around concepts such as an empty white gallery room with a light, which turns on and off every 5 seconds which was part of an exhibition on time. I think the episode of The Simpsons when Homer gets a new electronic bed covers the same idea, well at least that's what came to my mind. "Bed goes up, bed goes down. Bed goes up, bed goes down. Light comes on, light goes off. I think I understood it, maybe I miss the point, but it's not 'Art' to me. I can’t really write what Em thought of it. Highlight had to be the Bradford regeneration video. To be stood in a huge New York gallery watching a presentation video about updating our home city thousand of miles away was a little surreal. We had to watch it twice, pointing out the landmarks, Town Hall, Cathedral, Jacobs Well, and The Library.

We had a good few days, French toast and pancakes for breakfast at a diner across from the hotel. A proper New York pizza at a place called ‘Big Nicks’ which I’m guessing refers to the size of Nick because the place was small, you nearly had to stand up to let other people out. When we walked in we thought we’d entered the kitchen, the pizza though was superb. A true New York experience, just as the guide in our hotel room described.

Watched the Oscars on the Sunday while the snow fell in New York, glad to see ‘The Departed’ win best film, probably my favourite film of last year. Although ‘Little Miss Sunshine's’ really good too, so if you haven’t seen either we recommend both. Not that our opinion really counts for anything.

The Baseball season is about a month away and all the teams are in spring training. The Red Sox have a camp down in Florida because it's too cold to be training up in Boston. All the players return heavy and over weight from their winter hibernation. Lots of attention on the Red Sox because of the new Japanese pitcher they’ve bought, cost them just over $100 million. He's starting an exhibition game tonight so may have a look myself, cause I like baseball. Didn't think I would, but I got really into it last year. We've bought tickets for a game in June which should be great, enjoyed the game we saw last year against the Toronto Blue Jays. So looking forward to that.

Well I think that’s enough of my waffle. The summer west coast tour is coming together so maybe more details on that next week.

Cheers for reading.