J-5 avant les frites belges September 14, 2008

En ce magnifique dimanche ensoleillé, je réalise avec stupeur qu’il ne reste plus que 5 petits jours avant mon départ pour la Belgique. Argh ! Cata ! Rien n’est prêt ! J’ai juste mes billets de train et des réservations d’hôtels pour la quasi-totalité du séjour, mais à part ça, aucune idée précise du programme de la semaine. Bref, il va falloir s’y mettre sérieusement, et quoi de mieux que ce magnifique blog pour tout mettre au propre !

Après Sandrine à NewYork, voici le tome 2 des aventures de votre avignonaise préférée : Sandrine chez les frites au chocolat… ouais, bon c’est vrai que la recette fait frémir, mais je vous avais prévenus qu’il me restait beaucoup de chose à préparer. Si vous avez de meilleures idées de titres, n’hésitez pas à poster des commentaires (ou à m’envoyer des emails si vous êtes trop timides pour poster vos aneries en public).

Les habitués des lieux auront peut-être remarqué un petit changement dans la présentation du blog : ceci est une tentative d’amélioration du site visant à le rendre plus rapide et donc consultable par l’internaute lambda, celui qui ne me connait pas si bien que ça et qui n’est pas disposé à attendre plus de 15 minutes qu’une page s’affiche (pourtant, ça vaut le coup, non ? *je vous vois hocher de la tête de haut en bas, tout va bien, l’honneur est sauf*). Pour les plus curieux d’entre-vous, voui le site est maintenant sous Wordpress et non plus sous Drupal.

The day I spent walking in NY September 23, 2007

Today, I had breakfast with Natasha and Murat (from Russia), and we decided to visit NY together today as our plans were the same.
We started our walk in Central Park. I didn’t really enjoyed my short walk there last week because of the weather, but today, the sky is blue, the temperature is ideal, there are a lot of people running or walking in the park, the squirels are also here… it’s just per-fect!!
In Central Park we saw the Reservoir, Alice in Wonderland, Strawberry Fields (with the memorial to John Lennon) and some other nice places.
After Central Park, we took the subway to Greenwich Village and walked around. In some streets, you do not feel you are in NY because everything is so quiet (or maybe it’s only because it’s Sunday) and the houses are smaller, older… well it’s different (look at the pictures if you don’t understand).
After Greenwich, we went to Chinatown to have lunch (at 2.30pm) and then we went to Little Italy, where we had an excellent traditional ice cream (pistachio, of course!!!). We walked in the now famous street all decorated for San Gennaro Feast.
From there, we went to Soho and its particular architecture (many of the buildings were once factories). It’s amazing to see that each area in NY has its own culture, architecture and spirit (you can also see some pictures).
Then, I sugested we could go to the Flat Iron Building and we took the subway to go there. Unfortunately, only a small part of the building was in the sun (if ever you plan to take a picture of it, don’t wait for the end of the afternoon). We had a short rest in the park across the street, where we also took pictures of tree-shaped metal sculptures (I love the light effects on it).
We then again took the subway to see Wall street before heading to South Street sea port. From Wall street, we could already see Brooklyn skyline, which looked like gold thanks to the late afternoon light.
Arriving at South Street sea port, we went to the former fish market (now, you have restaurants and bars there) and found 3 seats to admire the sunset on the Queens and Brooklyn. We stayed for quite a long time and left only at night… many, many pictures later.
My stay here couldn’t end in a better way.
… well, once back at the hotel, I saw on TV that I could wave good bye to my plans for tomorrow as Ahmadinejad (the Iranian President) was in NY and would make a speach in Columbia University tomorrow… guess what wasn’t far from the hotel and still had to see? Yep, Columbia University!!! How did you guess?

The day I was back in NY September 22, 2007

This morning, I only had a rest in Boston as I’m very tired after having visited so many places and museums. I left the hotel around 1.00pm and went to South Station to take the bus. I was lucky the 2.00pm bus wasn’t full and they let me board with my 4.00pm ticket, hoping that we won’t be stuck in the traffic jam in NY.
That’s incredible to see how the nature has changed here in only 5 days: on my way to Boston, there were only a few yellow leaves in the trees and today, they were much more numerous and there were also a lot of red ones. It was wondeful and it will certainly be just incredible next week… I’d really like to stay here and look at the trees becoming yellow and then all red!!! Instead of that, I’m going to NY and on Wednesday, I’ll be back at the office in Montpellier *noooooooo!!!!! Life is so unfair!!!*
Arriving in the Queens, I suddenly understood that it was a brilliant idea to have left Boston earlier because there was already a big traffic jam to cross the bridges to reach Manhattan.
The weather here is not very nice (I think they had rain this afternoon). At one moment, the view was amazing: the highway was quite high because it was going over a huge cemetery, and right in front of us there was New York, with a pinkish and already very low sun, and the top of the buildings were in a sort of fog or clouds. It was like a dream. In that cas, I love traffic jams… it gives you a extra moment to see the landscapes.

Then, after a long while on the road, we arrived in Chinatown, I took the subway and arrived at the hotel. It’s quite old and not so clean, but I’m there only for 2 nights then, that should be ok.

The day it was almost the end September 21, 2007

Today was my last full day in Boston. I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon and I will arrive quite late in NY then, I’m really not sure I will be able to post here.
My day started early again, with a visit of Harvard and the Museum of Natural History (in Harvard). The museum wasn’t as big as the one I saw in NY, but it was very interesting and I’ve learned several things. Do you know the color of the pigment of a blue feather? It’s black, but some air bubbles make it look blue, hahahah!!! You didn’t know, right?
After that, I walked a little more in Harvard and then took the bus to the JFK museum. I’m happy I took the time to visit it. The museum is outside the town
and from there, you can see Boston from the South. The museum includes a lot of videos and make you travel into the past, with a reconstitution of Kennedy’s Headquaters for the 1960 elections or Bobby’s office and a lot of pictures, letters, clothing and other objects related to JFK and his family.
When I came back in the center of Boston, I stopped at South Station to visit Chinatown and walked to the hotel to have a (very) short break. Then, again, I took the subaway and went straight to the north, to visit the Museum of Science... it just seemed they made the museum just for me: The whole part related to the earth was excellent. I spent so much time there that I didn’t make it to visit the rest of the museum. I had a great time there.

The day I went to the town of witches September 20, 2007

I had the schedule for the trains to Salem and someone in the room took it *me happy*. I went out of the hotel quite early and went to North Station, rushed to take my ticket on time for the 8.30 train boarded and 35 minutes later, I arrived in Salem.

NY was smaller than I thought, Boston is small and Salem is… tiny.
A lot of houses a made of wood, there’s a small port and a lot of museums about witches.
The first thing I did was to walk around the town, taking some pictures (well, I didn’t really had the choice because it was only 9.00 and the 1st museum opens at 10.00, hahahah!!). It really looks like a town for tourists addicted to witches and other strange stories.
At 10.30, the tour of the House of the Seven Gables started. No pictures. You listen politely to the guide telling you all the details you don’t care about, you then take a few seconds to look at the objects before your leave the room. I hate guided tours. They take such a long time and you don’t really see the things as you want.
At the end of the tour, I stayed in the garden to take pictures and then went to the Peabody Essex Museum, a huge collection of objects from all over the world brought there by sailors. There were a lot of very nice items.
It was hard to leave the museum, but I had to as I also wanted to visit the Witch Museum. It looked far on the map, but in the reality it wasn’t: I went 1 street to far, and lost time… only a few minutes, but that was enough to miss the 12.30 guided tour!!! It really bores me to wait 30 minutes for a guided tour, and also, with the 1.00pm tour, I would have missed the train to Boston and could have said good bye to my other visits in Boston. Because of that, I decided not to wait for the next tour and to go to the station. You guessed I missed the train by 2 minutes and had to wait for almost 1 hour.
I arrived in Boston at 2.15, picked a trolley pass for tomorrow (one of these trolleys fo tourists that go from one site to another, with comments by a guide). Then, I went to the Gibson house (one of the houses I wanted to visit yesterday) and had to wait 15min for the no-pictures-please-guided-tour, wich lasted a little more than one hour… of course, the “little more than” costed me to miss the other house because it was too late for the last guided tour of the day.
Did I ever tell you that I hated guided tours???? I’ll remain polite on this blog, but I promise you I have enough of these guided tours. I’ve wasted a lot of time and missed a lot of beautiful places because of them.
I was so tired and fed up I went to the hotel to have a rest and decided not to go to the museum of contemporary art, because modern art is not my thing.
End of the day.

The day it was too late September 19, 2007

I’m very tired and today, the post will be short. I’m also a little fed up because the museums close early and I didn’t do what I expected to do: for a lot of small museums, you must follow a guide who speaks english and tell you much more than you need to know and all this make you waste your time and miss other museums. That could sum up my day.

It started well because I managed to catch the first Boston Duck Tour: you sit down in a huge car, visit Boston following the streets, and at one moment, the car jumps into the water and becomes a boat, sailing on the river!!! Was really fun!
After this, on the way to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, I stopped at the Mapparium of the Mary Baker Eddy Library, wich wasn’t very interesting (even quite boring… and I had to wait 15 minute before the tour started and couldn’t leave before the end… 20 minutes later).
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is absolutely gorgeous!!! The building itself is amazing: the inside court is a trip to Venice with its decorated windows, the rooms are wonderfully decorated from the floor to ceiling, the furniture is incredibly well done with a million details, and as it wasn’t enough, you have a wonderful wollection of paintings, drawings, sculptures… I would have been the museum of my dreams if only could have taken pictures there but, once again, it was forbidden… I’m starting to hate that city.
When I went out of the museum, I had a cruel decision to make: to be on time for a cruise on the Liberty Fleet Tall Ship, I had to choose between visiting some house-museums (3, with very short open times and all with guided tours), or to visit Fenway Park, the famous baseball stadium home of the Red Socks. The Red Socks being the symbol of Boston, I’v opted for the tour of the park (and also because I’ve visited quite a lot of old houses recently). I thought the tour of the park would last half an hour as there were tours every 30 min… but in fact, there were several guides and the tour lasted 75 minutes… oooops!!! The tour itself was culturaly very intersting and the guide captivating because it was obvious he LOVED the Red Socks. On the other hand, at the end, I was looking at my watch, thinking I would never arrive on time for the cruise. Indeed, I took the subway right at the end of the tour, but when I arrived at the port, all I saw was a wonderful “sold out” sign on the cruise board. If I were a cartoon character,i would have had a very dark cloud above my head. Grrrr!!! I just hate that.
Let’s go back to the center of the town to visit the house-museums. I lost so much time to go to the port, 1 one of the museums was already closed. I went to 1 of the other 2 (the one closing first), thinking I would have enough time to visit the 3rd one… pffff! Once again, I had to wait for the begining of the guided tour and the guide was talkative and the tour ended too late for the 3rd museum. It really drove me mad.
At 5.00pm, I went to the Museum of Fine Arts wich is closing at 9.45pm on wednesdays!! I left the museum at 9.15 and had dinner before going back to the hotel. I’m now lying on my bed, almost sleeping… I don’t know what I will do tomorrow, but I hope it won’t be too late again!!
Good night!

Almost no pictures today, sorry!

The day I took 332 pictures September 18, 2007

I’m a pictures addict, but I think I’ve never taken so many pictures. Today started early because some of my roomates woke up at 7.00 and then I did the same.
I started with a church close from my hotel (the Christian Science Church), then Trinity Church, then I went to Boston Commons (the park) and followed again the Freedom Trail. This time I did it all, from Boston Commons to Bunker Hill And the USS Constitution. Here’s the whole list: the State House, Park Church, Old Granary Burial Ground, King’s Chapel, the Old Corner Bookstore, the Old State House (I did visit it, but it was forbidden to take pictures), the Boston Massacre site, Faneuil Hall Marketplace, the memorial for the victims of World War II (I know it’s not in the Freedom Trail, but I saw it anyway), Paul Revere’s House (did visit it too, no pictures again!!! the house is so old, simple and nice), Old North Church, Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, Bunker Hill (294 steps to get to the top, without lift to have a wonderful view on Boston) and the USS Constitution (did visit it too, and also the Cassin Young, another - and more recent - navy boat). All this was a very long walk but I finished visiting the Cassin Young around 1.30pm, wich allowed me to do other things: I went to the aquarium because I could get my ticket for a short cruise in the harbor. Instead of waiting stupidly 45min for the next cruise, I decided to take the time to visit the aquarium before and took a ticket for the 3.30pm cruise.
The aquarium is small but great. I took a lot of pictures there (like in all the other places today).
The cruise was fun too but the sun wasn’t on the right side to take pictures. You know what? Boston is small!! I shouldn’t have come here after NY!!!
I went to the Science Museum to get a ticket for the “Boston Duck Tour”, a fun tour of the city by car, but it was already too late: almost everything ends at 5.00pm here in Boston!!! It’s incredible!
After this, I went back to the hostel, had something for dinner and went to the top of the Prudential Center , and guess what? It was open today!! It was already the night and the town is just wonderful with all its lights!
Now, I let you because I really need to sleep.

The day I left NY September 17, 2007

This morning I woke up early (6.30am… who said holidays were cool???), had a fast breakfast (a very yummy spices & orange cake I bought on Staten Island yesterday) and took the subway to Chinatown to take my bus. As always, I arrived early because you almost never wait for the subway here and you always find your way easily. While waiting for the bus, I started speaking Russian with an Armenian lady taking the bus to Boston. She has several grand-children living in France… the world is soooo small!!!!

At 9.00, our bus left Chinatown, took Manhattan bridge (it’s very high above the river), crossed the Queens, the Bronx and then left NY. After 4h30 on the highway surrounded by trees, we arrived in Boston. Ahahah!!! The town is muuuuuuch smaller than I imagined!!! Before the bus stopped, I had already seen several buildings and other places I planned to visit. I shouldn’t loose time going from one place to another.
The bus stopped at South station. I took the subway to the hotel, left my luggage there and started my visit at 3.00pm. Tonight, I’m back at the hotel and I’ve seen Boston Common, America’s oldest public park, more than the half of the Freedom Trail : the State House, Park Street Church (under restoration), Granary Burying Ground, King’s Chapel and its Burying Ground, Old Corner Book Store, Old South Meeting House (I will visit it tomorrow with my GoBoston card), Old State House (I will visit it tomorrow too), Site of the Boston Massacre, Faneuil Hall (a good place to eat - you find all kind of food: american, italian, chinese, indian…).
It was already too late to take some nice pictures as the old buildings are smaller than the more recent ones and are in the shadow in the afternoon.
Before going back to the hotel, I went to haymarket to see the bus station to go to Salem. I still hope I will have time to go there.
I also tried to go to the Prudential Tower (the local Empire State building) to have a panoramic view or the area, but it was closed.

The day I took the Staten Island ferry September 16, 2007

Today was my last day in NY before I move to Boston (I will come back here for one day at the end of my trip, but I don’t think I will have the time to visit a lot of places).
The weather forecast was right: today, we’ve had a wonderful day and I don’t regret I planned my visit of Staten Island for today.
I left the hotel at 8.30, which I thought was very late as I had to stop at the bank, but I arrived just in time to take 9.30am ferry at the extreme South of Manhattan. The Staten Island ferries are some very big boats: you have at least 3 decks, You have a lot of seats inside and also outside (that’s great when you want to take pictures). It was quite cold anyway and I stayed inside most of the time because I was having breakfast (a huge muffin and a surprisingly good coffee, both for a very reasonable price).
It took only 25 minutes maybe to arrive in Staten Island… this was much earlier than I thought. That’s why I decided to walk to the botanical Garden, which was the first of the 3 places I wanted to visit (the other 2 was opening at 1.00pm only). On the way I saw the SI Yankees Stadium (baseball), and a tribute to the the WTC victims.
Did you know that Staten Island was a BIG island???? The road was looong before I arrived a the botanical garden, which is located inside Snug Harbor, the cultural center of the island. The place is extremely quiet and beautiful, with a lot of flowers, trees, benches, cottages (one of them was a restaurant and 2 guys were playing jazz outside). It was perfect to relax and take a million pictures. They even had a Chinese Garden with a wonderful pavillon.
At 1.00pm, I went to the Noble Maritime museum, also located in Snug Harbor and dedicated to a printmaker (John A. Noble). It exhibits his work, his houseboat sudio (!!!! - they’ve put a part of a boat inside the museum!!!!), and a collection related to Sailors’ Snug Harbor, a retirement home for mariners.

After this I went back to the ferry terminal (by bus this time) to take the bus to the Historic Richmond Town museum. This museum is a trip into the past. It was like the Van Cortlandt house yesterday, but with 28 buildings dating from the late 17th to the early 20th centuries. Some people with historic costumes were explaining the history of the house they were in. I also took a million pictures there (several shots per room, they probably thought I was mad!!).

It’s time to pack my luggage now (it’s already 10.00pm and I have to leave the hotel at 7.30 tomorrow morning). I’ll try to post a message tomorrow, but I don’t know yet how it will be like at the hotel in Boston.

The day I tried to understand modern art September 15, 2007

Today is Saturday and all the museums open later than on week days… a good excuse to wake up a little later (7.45 instead of 7.00). I realize that I’m leaving on Monday morning and my stay in NY is almost over. I’ve seen all the major places and museums here, except 2: the Van Cortlandt House (in the Bronx) and the Museum of Modern Art.

I really started the day at 10.30 and to the subway to the North, and stopped at the Van Cortland park to visit the Van Cortland House, a Georgian-style mansion, symbol of NY’s colonial past. Even if I knew that NY was one of the first settlments in America, I didn’t imagine I would see such an old house kept intact, with all its furniture and everyday life objects. It was one of my favourite visits since I arrived in NY.

The second and last museum of the day (because museums open later AND close earlier on the week ends) was the MOMA (Museum Of Modern Art). I won’t say it was my favourite visit in NY, because I don’t understand anything in modern art. I tried but well, that’s not my thing. It sometimes made me think that they did some colour testing to choose the right one to paint the walls of the museum. For the records, we’ll only say that I went there and saw some artwork by Picasso, Kandinsky, Cézanne, Matisse and many others.
I came, I saw, I went away.

One my way back to the subway, I crossed the Avenue of the Americas and at first I thought the San Gennaro feast had invaded the street, but it was something else, with more international food (with some crepes, a taste of Paris).
I was so tired I went back to the hotel early and collapsed on my bed.
Tomorrow will be my last day here and it’s supposed to be a sunny day. I hope I’ll be able to go to Staten Island.
Good night or whatever.

http://www.vancortlandthouse.org/
http://moma.org/