Governor's Island in pictures

Coney Island in pictures

Friends in Philadelphia

We spent a lovely weekend visiting our American friends from Stoke Newington, last seen briefly on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Corey and Tom's two older children are about the same age as my girls, and they've added another baseball dynamo boy to the family. The girls had a great time as you can see from this blog here.

We visited briefly the historic sites. I think we were a bit exhausted after the previous heavy history and museum weekend in DC. So instead we headed to the wonderful Reading Terminal Market and then home to hang out before heading out to a fantastic and magical fireworks display in Longwood Gardens. The fireworks were gorgeous, the setting lovely and afterwards we walked (with hundreds of other people) in the dark around the garden to look at Bruce Munro's light exhibition.

Now I'm sitting in Canada, and I realize we managed to see every old friend we had in North America on our journey and even added a few San Franciscans en route. It has been one of the best things about our trip, being able to spend time and catch up with old friends see too infrequently.

Washington DC in words

We spent a long weekend a month or so ago in DC. We were very lucky to find a lovely vacation rental for our short break, six blocks from the Capitol building and very close to Eastern Market, and it had wonderful air conditioning. Tom didn't want to leave.

We took the train. First proper train journey in the US. Cost a ton as I didn't book far enough ahead. No reservations though. You have to hunt for a seat. And what a hassle getting onto the platform. They don't let you down until the train is there. Which leads to a couple of hundred or more people trying to fit through a small gap onto an escalator onto the dungeon like platform/track. Think Birmingham New Street - not my favourite station... Apart from that it was fine. Except when we discovered that the reason our chairs were facing each other in a four was because one set wouldn't turn around. The guard accused us of turning them around, which elicited protests of cluelessness and innocence. How on earth was I supposed to know you could swivel the chairs round to face the opposite direction? Also how can you design such a system but can't manage to issue seat reservations.


So DC.


There is something so tidy about this place. Planned. Utterly unlike the kind of messy capitals that Europe has taken a couple of millenia to produce. It has a slightly unreal feeling. All those suits walking around engaged in the business of government or law or lobbying. It is also quite lovely. We were staying in Capitol Hill close to the last remaining covered market (a legacy of sensible 19th century planners) which is undergoing a renaissance with new interest in organics and fresh food and so on. We walked as much as we could bear - it was in the 90s and sweaty. We also hung out in museums.

We visited the Lincoln Memorial and stood where MLK stood to make the "I have a dream" speech.

We walked through the Vietnam Memorial, through to the WWII memorial, the Washington Monument, past a glimpse of the White House and on to the American History Museum. The transport section was excellent, as was the Jefferson exhibit on his slaves. And the Greensboro counter performance was spell-binding. Really. I don't normally go for this kind of "acting" but she had everyone in the audience engaged and recreating the experience of the sit in. Chills down my spine. We also saw Kermit and Dorothy's slippers and Harry Potter's outfit and Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven clothes (that man is tall!).

Day Two involved a visit to the Library of Congress - great for this bookwormish family, and a tour of the Capitol. This was quickish, well organised and distinctly apolitical. All the clips of the Congress cut off any speeches made by modern day representatives before they said anything too difficult. The statues donated by the States were fun. Lots of people you have never heard of. And lots and lots of Native Americans - ironic really.

Day Three was spent at the National Museum of the American Indian which was wonderful. It is formed around a superb collection covering the entire two continents and centred on the collection of George Heye. Sections cover particular themes - spiritual life, modern day, history - and are curated by the tribes themselves, which gives them a viewpoint, depth and currency that marks them out from more traditional museums. We've seen some stunning Native American collections in museums across the US but this was probably the best.

We then walked next door to the Air and Space Museum. Unfortunately this was fuller than Heathrow on the first day of the summer holidays during a baggage handlers strike. And actually its layout is a touch old fashioned as everything is divided up into rooms which increases the feeling of being surrounded by people. So actually I had a better time at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. But the exhibits are wonderful - Lindbergh's plane, the Wright brothers, loads of cool NASA exhibits. I'd say try to go on a day out of season.

And on our last day, Emilia requested we visit Ford's Theatre. That is, the site of Lincoln's assassination. This is also a National Park. The museum is a touch cramped - the theatre is still a working theatre and the museum is underneath - but filled with fascinating information and artifacts. And then we went up to the theatre auditorium itself to hear a monologue by a park ranger on the last day and the assassination. It was superbly done. No props, just the location and one man talking us through what happened. He did it excellently.

After that Millie and Lottie wanted to go to the International Spy Museum. This isn't part of the Smithsonian so not free and was actually pretty darned expensive. At first I thought, oh lord what a rip off. I think it was the whole "you're a spy on a secret mission, here's your identity, blah blah blah bit". But in fact once you got into the exhibitions proper it was very interesting with a full history of spying, from the ancient world onwards. We got as far as the Cold War and then had to get our train.

Washington DC in pictures

Supreme court under scaffolding as was much of DC

Capitol

Lincoln Memorial

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It's a very fancy-pants building!

Inside that dome

Native American Museum - thoroughly recommend

The actual Wright brothers plane plus huge crowd and wonderfully enthusiastic docent somewhere in there

That waistcoat from the Apollo 13 mission

Spirit of St Louis - wow. My dad would have loved to see this. 

We appear to have taken more pictures of this building than any other...

See!

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island: some words

I'd visited NY twice before but never managed to get properly off Manhattan. Or indeed above Central Park. No excuse this time.

If you are going to go to the Statue of Liberty you really must also go to the Ellis Island Museum. She has all the landmark status, but the Museum is much more interesting. And leave time. It is a day's outing and we could easily have spent more time at Ellis Island.

Oh, and get the free audio guide - it really won't be the same without. They do a children's version as well as the adult version.

The Statue of Liberty was what you know, only closer. Currently you can't get right up to her as they are doing some restoration but there she is, and there is a detailed talk with clips and quotes and so forth telling you about her history and what she means to people. It isn't as jingoistic as Mount Rushmore thankfully.

Ellis Island is quite another experience. This was the gateway to America for much of the early 20th century. I hadn't realised that operations didn't start until 1892 so my own ancestors, who moved to Texas, didn't travel through here. But Tom has a 3x great uncle who arrived in 1909 (we checked the lists online when we got home) and it was something to imagine him, leaving his family and arriving alone from the West Midlands and climbing the stairs as we did into the great hall above.

The museum itself is short on artifacts but has wonderful photographs, is well laid out, taking you through the immigration process, and the audio is superb. First person accounts abound bringing the whole experience alive. Ellis Island was the busiest port of entry and some 40% of US citizens can trace their family back to the museum.

History is messy and the history of the US is no exception. At the same time that the Lakota Sioux were being driven from their lands in the Black Hills and forced onto spartan reservations, Europeans were arriving in New York, leaving and in some cases fleeing, poverty and oppression. And racism was evident in the process as the Chinese and Japanese were treated very differently, and as the US authorities attempted to engineer the make up of its future population along racial grounds. And sexism too abounded. Women could not enter the US alone until after World War II, the assumption being that they could not support themselves.  Children under 16 travelling alone after 1907, were returned to their home country. There were heartbreaking stories of people being turned away but actually the vast majority of arrivals were allowed entry.

In a sense our travels from west to east have been a journey through time. From the first missionaries of California, in the 17th century, from Spain, via the explorations of Lewis and Clark and the experiences of the Native Americans in the West and further east until we reach New York and the huge rush of immigration of the 20th century. One aspect of our journey which I have loved is the way that everything has linked together, echoes of previous stopping points are found all along our route. While the travellers of the past arrived first at Ellis Island, it was one of our last stopping points, and we have seen some of what they might expect.

There is a staircase out of the hall after you have been processed. The stairs either side are for those let in, the middle for those being sent home. We walked down the middle but willingly, unlike those whose steps we followed.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

I LOVE the Met. It's like the British Museum, Tate, V & A and National Gallery rolled into one. In a gorgeous building which goes on and on and keeps giving you new treasures.

I love the Met so much I joined as an Associate member and went three times.

A sampling of the treasures we loved:

All things Egyptian especially William the blue hippo (Lottie) and the truly amazing models of Egyptian life from a tomb and the statues of Hatshepsut and the temple.

The Rembrandts. And the Hals portraits. And a magnificent Brueghal. And the portrait of Lavoisier and his wife.

The Spanish courtyard which seems almost secret hidden down corridors and suddenly found.

The room of Singer Sargents - can he paint me please? him or Gainsborough or possibly Modigliani. And another of room of Paul Klee. And another of Cezannes (more wonderful apples amongst other things.)

Incredible Benin brasses. Sadly by the time we found this collection my kids were dead on their feet and starting to grumble. So merely glimpsed but loved.

The Schiaparelli/Prada special exhibition which was packed with older ladies who lunch poring over the detailing. The girls and I had a great hour doing impossible window shopping.

Pollocks and Warhols and Twomblys (Twomblies?) and an Anselm Kiefer as striking as the one that made an impression on me in Des Moines.

I could go on. The Museum does. It is amazing and wonderful and probably my favourite museum in the world. Even Lottie loved it (because of William).

Queens Museum of Art, NY

Thanks to my friend Moriah (I say this a lot, because Moriah is wonderful and knows so many interesting places to go to and things to do).

Anyway, as I was saying, thanks to my friend Moriah, the girls and I set off one particularly hot and sunny day, for Queens (G to 7 which is an L train and thus more fun and less smelly than the subway). We were heading to the Queens Museum of Art to see the Panorama of New York.

First we had a picnic in the park in front of this fabulous fountain - from the World's Fair of 1964-5 and I think featured in the first Men In Black.

And into the Museum for some cool art - temperature and quality. The highlight for the girls was certainly the panorama which is a scale model of the whole of New York, built at the time of that World's Fair. There's a raised walkway around it, some of it glass so that you can see the model under your feet. They update it when they need to, though the World Trade Center Towers won't be removed until the new complex is built. 

The Museum also has a scale model of the water system of New York state - sorry forgotten the geographical term, but it's basically a landscape model including all the rivers etc.

And lastly but definitely not least there was an excellent and interesting exhibit on art from the Caribbean. It was grouped by theme rather than period so that old paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries appeared next to contemporary art and installations. It was very refreshing to see so much, to me, unknown work.

New York - some obvious but still wonderful stuff

Where are we?

I think I may have to take up creating personalized holidays or something. Because seriously, I am good at this. Or lucky, or something. I have found some fantastic places to stay. And this apartment in Brooklyn is no exception. Actually the apartment is small, comfortable and thankfully has both air conditioning and a garden. But it's not glam or anything. In this case it's all about location.

We are staying just north of McCarren Park in Greenpoint on the edge of Williamsburg. It's the first city  since SF, we've stayed in where we've been able to shop at local grocers and have no clue where the nearest supermarket is. Our neighbourhood is a mixture of Polish and hip, which reminded me of Hackney where we used to live in London. We are close to the subway, restaurants, a park, boutiques, pretty much anything you want. And people. Very close to lots of people. In the streets. In their neighbouring apartments. On the subway. It's the first city I've been to in the US where you think "now this is a city." It is huge and dirty and busy and diverse and noisy and smelly and alive and exciting. People do not say hello to you in the street. They don't even smile if you do something nice like hold a door for them or make space or something. I don't mind. Reminds me of London. And I love it.

Although, I can definitely see why I left London eventually and that there will be a certain amount of relief to get back to our quiet Welsh valley.

In the meantime, we are living in Brooklyn, visiting or in Tom's case working in Manhattan, and feeling very lucky.

Arriving in New York

I love New York. I've loved New York since the first moment I saw the Manhattan skyline lit up one October evening in 1994, driving into town from La Guardia. I may have loved it longer than that. It was inevitable that this would be our last stop en route. We did think of heading north to Boston for a week or two at the end. But decided to extend our time in New York instead. And when we got here, we decided that all the weekend trips we'd planned may not happen either. We are going to Washington DC soon. And I'm hoping to set up a weekend in Philadelphia with friends too. But for the rest, we are staying put.

We drove here from Batavia, NY having been allowed back into the US (always relieved when that happens!) and stayed the night in upstate NY. Our route took us down through rolling hills, pretty farmland, into woods that seemed to coat Philadelphia and New Jersey. There were so many trees in New Jersey that I'm not sure anyone lives there apart from in Newark, as there wasn't really any other sign of habitation.

And then Newark appeared and beyond, New York. And the driving got WAY more challenging than it had ever been the entire way across the States. Give me a herd of bison to navigate my way through over the traffic into Manhattan, any day. We went wrong at least twice, and emerged onto streets with familiar names like Canal and Broadway and Delancey. All I can say is that driving across Manhattan is not for the faint-hearted. It makes Hyde Park Corner seem like a country road. Thankfully people weren't driving fast because there were way too many of them to do that. But they were driving aggressively with lots of honking and I was trying to see where the hell we were heading to, and Tom was trying to work out which lane to be in and not to hit anyone or be hit, or honked at. And by the time we got to Brooklyn, we were both of the opinion that the car had to go ASAP. That was before we discovered the lack of parking in Brooklyn, the twice-weekly street cleaning, and the road works and film crews adding to the problem.

Niagara Falls

This is one of those places that you're supposed to go to. There it was, roughly en route, and so it was added to the itinerary. And of course when you get there it is what you expect. An enormous natural wonder surrounded by a huge number of tourists, high rise hotels, buildings, bridges, "visitor attractions".

We came, we saw, we left.