SIGN UP FOR MY NEW BLOG

Tomorrow there will be the announcement (finally) on PARISDREAMTIME, MY NEW BLOG of the winners of the Lottery for the little Paris souvenirs, and more pictures from the IRON LADY, also TODAY I have put a new "suscribe" option on Parisdreamtime blog, so that you can get news about Paris in your mailbox as soon as they are out:)

love
Andrea

PS: HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL MY AMERICAN FRIENDS, I'D LOVE TO SHARE THIS WITH YOU ALL

Come to the new blog and have a look at the goodies:)

click on the image to be transported to my new house "Parisdreamtime" and look at the souvenirs you can win if you participate in my lottery.
(as I haven't yet installed a "follow" or subscribe button, I have to use this blog here to attract you:)

PARIS DREAMTIME

HELLO DEAR FRIENDS

NEW BLOG IS READY, I INVITE YOU TO COME AND JOIN ME AT PARIS DREAMTIME WHERE WE (Miss Doodle and the Metroheads, other Parisians and you and me:) HAVE SET UP A NEW VIRTUAL HOME!

Precipitation and The Empire State Building

Hey hey, it has been a long time...I know, but the fasting retreat has lasted longer than orginally planned. Now I'm back here renewed, refreshed, (having hopefully increased my grey-cellstock:). So, today I'm showing you pictures taken from high above, and give you a few words about what you shouldn't do, while walking on a busy street in New York City...

PRECIPITATION AND THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

..."For heaven's sake, don't run like that, there's no hurry." I say to my husband, who has set his mind on reaching the Empire State Building in record time. He is hurrying down 7th avenue like a real New Yorker.

I complain loudly "I want to LOOK at things, hey, just look at this beautiful...HMMMPFFF"

Next thing I'm on my hands and knees, didn't see the deep step in the sidewalk, didn't see that we had to cross a street here, cause my eyes were elsewhere. Husband is now 20 m ahead (for your information = 65,616feet) and doesn't immediately realize that he has lost me. Two women come to my aid and ask if I'm allright, then my husband is there to help me up, while I grumble, shocked: "I can't hurry like that, not early in the morning...(well, uhh, it must be around 10:30...) " We sit down on chairs in the little square I had spotted right before I fell so that I can catch my breath.

We leave after 5 minutes, everything is ok, my ankle hurts a little bit but nothing serious. When we arrive at the Empire State Building, we are amazed to find that we don't even have to wait in a line. Instead, staff is ushering us through security and a souvenir shop and into the elevator and up to the open sightseeing platform, which is on the 86th floor, or so. You have to pay an extra of 15 dollars to go to the top of the building, and an extra elevator is taking you there. I guess this is only because there's not so much space on top.

The platform is wonderful, we walk around, it's sunny and a soft wind is blowing, the visibility is very high. I take many pictures. The architecture seen from high up above forms a wonderful pattern. This breathtaking view will find it's way into my art somehow, I'm quite certain.

After having taken in the 360° view of the city, it's the elevator up to the 102nd floor, to the closed platform. I take pictures here too, through the thick glass windows, and am a little dizzy, looking down at the buildings. I just love those watertanks on some of the buildings, they look like something out of a Wild West film decoration, and so out of place on the modern buildings.

Before returning to the elevators, I ask the security guard if there is a way to go to the very top of the building. The tip of the top, so to speak. Or roof. He points to a door which leads up and outside, but only the maintenance staff is allowed to go there. I just asked because of King Kong.....

On our way down we are channelled through another souvenir shop, but we already bought something in the first shop (which, later this week, we spot for half the price in a souvenir shop somewhere near Times Square:). But we do take the picture they took of us, when we came in, and which they have ready for us now (everything is so very well organized:): My husband and I in front of the illuminated Empire State Building at night. - 20 bucks, but hey, let's go whole hog...


















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Kim - NYC 3rd Day

This is about how my husband and I met with Kim in New York City on day 3. Kim and I have decided to not put pictures of each other on our blogs, as internet is not really a safe place...hope you understand.

"Hi Sweetie, I'm waiting in the lobby of your hotel, near the guest-phones and I'm wearing red sandals..."

We have been waiting for this call while resting a bit in our room after a beautiful morning and early afternoon (which I will talk about in another post). Now we are looking forward to meet my blogfriend Kim. We take the elevator down to the lobby and spot her immediately (husband does - I never wear my glasses:). She's standing near the old fashioned telephones with which you can call the guests' rooms.

She's wearing a skirt and red sandals and greets us with a big smile. I immediately like her, I mean I already liked her virtually but this is the real thing! Kim has dark hair and beautiful eyes of a very intriguing shade of green....

We are laughing and so happy to have this opportunity to meet, in such a wonderful city and we decide to go out for a walk down 7th avenue. We land in a pub on 40th stree called "Jack's Bar and Restaurant" which is not crowded at all. We have drinks, talk about our trip and this and that, there seems to be an endless choice of things we could talk about. (My husband amazes me cause he always says that he doesn't speak English but in fact he does quite nicely). We could go on talking like that for hours but Kim has to go back to her hotel to welcome her daughter, who will arrive shortly at their hotel. Tomorrow the three of us (husband has other plans) will attend the launch party at the literary agency on 7th avenue tomorrow, which begins around 5p.m. We decide to get in touch by phone the next day at 3pm so that we can fix a meeting point.

We leave the cozy bar, walk for a while together on 6th avenue, and then say goodbye to Kim.

My husband wants to see the place where the literary agency is located so we go back onto 7th avenue, but can't find it cause I can't remember the right number...instead we discover Macy's, (I like this gigantic billboard) where I buy a pair of jeans, husband helpfully carrying my jacket and handbag while I try them on...very brave...We don't stay long (I'll have more opportunities to discover New York Fashion during the next days) cause we are hungry and tired and decide to have dinner in the Edison Café at our hotel.

So we return to Broadway, it's getting dark now. Again, I cannot resist Times Square's photogenic charms... you can click on the pictures to see them big, I think it's worth the click.
Let's call this a post and see you in the next one....
love
Andrea

Getting acquainted with Manhattan - NYC Day 2

"Is it true that NIKE is almost bankrupt???"...

....I ask the young salesman in the NIKE shop on 5th avenue in an attempt to make conversation with a "real" New Yorker. He just came back from wherever they store their shoes, with an armful of runningshoe-boxes. He looks very embarrassed and one of my inner voices yells at me:"Are you nuts????? How can you ask him that? This guy works here, is very happy to have a job, and what do you know about this anyway???"......I blush and awkwardly try to explain that this is just a vage rumour I heard a couple of days ago in Germany. What I don't tell him is that I heard it from my mother who is certainly NOT the greatest international economy-observer, and that I forgot to ask where she got this information from in the first place. So much about Andrea and smalltalk.

We do not dwell on the subject. Among several pair of shoes I chose one of the less expensive and flashy pairs, leave them on my feet, meet my husband at the cash register, he too has new shoes. We pay. We came in worn-out tennis shoes (which we leave in the fancy Nike shop, no regrets). Now we are ready for the streets of New York.

Later we catch the bus on 5th avenue, not far from Central Park, at a bus stop at Bergdorf/Goodman. I should have taken a picture of their windows full of wonder (=designer clothes...). No price tags visible, so not to put fear into the potential customer (not me:).

I did take a picture of a TIFFANY window, attracted by a collection of keys. They say:
"Tiffany Keys. A magical collection of key pendants brimming with intrigue and allure..."
Some are brimming with what looks like diamonds, but I'm more interested in the effect "key-abundance" mixed with the reflections in the window.

The bus n° M5 takes us down 5th avenue, and we get off somewhere near Washington Square. I'd like to see the Arc de Triomphe which I often glimpsed in movies set in NYC. It looks just like the "little" Arc de Triomphes in Paris! Makes me feel at home:).

...Below now you find a condensed description of our day. Yes I know, these posts are "huge sandwiches", (quote Klaproos). But I feel that I have to write it all down and give it some time and space before it can be reshaped by my visual mind into something else than words...

I don't know, this is probably too much. I mean too many pictures.

Perhaps you are not as interested in seeing:

me tired and excited at once, buttering toast on Monday morning in the Edison Café, or fire escape ladders, sheriffs' cars, hot-dog-stand-operators putting the American flag up in the morning.

Colorful fruit-trucks standing under this typically American red light in front of this incredibly curved skyscraper reflecting buildings in a completely different architechtural style...

The windowcleaners high up there cleaning window n° 105, the Tiffany-Window with yellow keys and cabs, our new shoes against asphalt, the corner of 5th Ave and 32 street, the Arc de Triomphe on Washington Square.

The empty bar in Greenwich Village where they serve wonderful Espresso, the cozy shops, streets and house-entrances there, more fire-escape ladders (I admit, this must be an obsession of mine as are the yellow American school buses which I just looooooooooooooooooooove!) and....

Times Square, again, there's always something on Times Square catching your eye or your camera-lens...
(coming soon: The story about how I met Kim)

Oh and one last thing: I got bored putting my watermark in the right bottom corner of each picture, so I just melted it in, my way of digesting New York City, hope you don't mind:)

Click to enlarge (with some it works, with others not, will try to be more professional about it next time:)

New York City - First Impressions: Arrival

I'm back. With an overload of impressions. Lots of things I want to show and share with you and talk about, but I'd like to do this nicely. I'm not a writer, but I'll try hard to make this readable.



"Were you guys not happy with my service or anything?"...

the very friendly, small, thin, eldery waitress inquires (she has a face that reminds me of a certain little cute animal, but I cannot remember which one) . We must have got something wrong with the tip!

Earlier today, after a more than 8 hour flight from Francford/Germany to NYC we wait in a queue for an hour and a half at the overheated Newark airport. Then they take our picture and fingerprints and we are free to go. We take a shuttle to our hotel, I'm too tired and hot to take pictures during the trip, but very excited when the NYC skyline comes into view.

Half an hour later the driver leaves us at the back entrance of the Edison Hotel on 48th Street. We check in, get our key and head off to the 16th floor. Surprise surprise!....this is not what I/we had expected. What have I expected? I don't know, something newer, more modern, something brighter, whiter? But I do like this room. And the faux Renoir above the headboard. This has some kind of "last century" charm to it. Art deco. American Art Deco I suppose, mixed with 1940 Elegance. The mattress is excellent, the faucets are a bit difficult to handle, the shower has a funny way of spraying water in a wide bow upon you and everything else in the bathroom if you don't pull the curtain carefully enough, and it makes spitting and hissing noises.

We conquer the room, put clothes on hangers, take showers to wash off the fatigue. We dress in fresh clothes and out we are. On our way through the lobby I think: this is impressive, the ceiling so high, everything looks so huge, the desk, the sitting area with enormous armchairs and lamps, or did we shrink during the flight??

The revolving frontdoor spits us out onto 47th Street, just a few steps from Broadway and Times Square. WOW !!! I have an overwhelming light-color-crowd experience. We walk down Broadway, together with lots and lots and lots of other people, many families. Now I remember, today is Mother's day. It's early evening, around 6 or so, but in our heads and bodies it's already Midnight. We are thrilled, excited to be here.

After a while, it's time to find a quiet place where we can have a nice dinner. Places there are many, they are all but quiet. Somewhere between 45th and 42nd Street we turn and find a nostalgic looking Deli, it looks crowded with families, but we are motioned to a free table immediately. We order drinks and Hamburger and potatoe pancakes with apple puree, hmmm, reminds my my moms potatoe pancakes = childhood.

The waitress asks us where we are from and when she hears that we're from Paris she says that we must be very tired because of the time difference. She knows cause she lived in Mykonos, Greece, for 10 years, she tells us. Went there with her husband. I don't ask why she came back.

I love my pancakes, my husband loves the coleslaw which came with the meat, finding the meat too dry. Then we ask "our" waitress for the bill, she brings it and we think that the amount added between the subtotal and the total (which is indeed the tax!) must be the tip. That it is included somehow. We pay, she comes and takes the money away and is back two minutes later, asking us if her service wasn't good enough! We sheepishly confess that we don't understand what she has written on the bill.

She is very patient with us tourists and says:"Just double the tax, that's what I always tell my son, just double the tax" (Did she leave her son in Mykonos, then?) We give her a good tip, she's happy, I feel a bit silly for not having figured out this tip thing before.

Next thing we're back on Broadway, Times Square, 47th street, in the lobby and in our room. We try to stay awake cause we don't want to be up at 4 tomorrow morning. But at around 8 I doze off.....