A Treasure

On the cruise to the Balkans with Anne-Marie and Sharan and Peter we went to St Petersburg and in the gallery shop at the Hermitage this treasure caught my eye. The colour the intricate art work and the pearls embedded in the lid...I looked at others...the price was higher than I thought I'd spend...but as Anne-Marie said how often will you be back in St Petersburg...the joy from this treasure is truly worth it.

Need this...

 The prompt for today is "Need this"... that idea was in my head as we traveled on our Swamp Tour on/in an Air Boat. The wind whipped through us, chilling and invigorating but that couldn't dampen our enthusiasm for the beauty of the swamp. It was a still day so the reflections were constantly drawing my eye and camera lens to them. What I needed was warm clothes and a hair brush :)

We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a number of birds including cardinals

The aspects of this image that appeal..  the shadow, the simplicity of the colours and the wall.

One word

Each year over the past five years I have tried to have a word that follows and carries me through the year. This year my one word is EMBRACE. 

I want to Embrace the life I have here in NYC and thoroughly enjoy, appreciate and reflect on all the gloriousness that is my life. 

And so in the spirit of this I am embracing the moments I see around me and the parts of people's lives I see. 

I love Edward Hopper's slice of life paintings.

 We saw this painting in Washington DC and it exemplifies the types of photos I like to take. Slithers of everydayife and the bits and pieces that are going on around me. 

Sitting waiting to board my flight to New Orleans today I tried to capture EMBRACE in a photograph. Embrace-that holding onto something... in this case it was a couple...

Not the best example of an embrace so perhaps I can keep that as a theme for my photos during the year as well as embracing the life and journeys of my year. 

However I was able to embrace an example of taking in the little moments in life a la Edward Hopper...

I am still amazed by the traveling companions people in the US are allowed to have. Mind you this little chap was far less inrush ice on my journey than a little girl who was overtired and screaming No no no and hitting her mother for about half an hour on this very small plane.

Happy New Year!

What a glorious day sharing parts of this wonderful city with my great friend Fran!

We started in Brooklyn Heights in our long days journey into...Manhattan.

We happened upon WH Auden plaque which proclaimed that Auden had written the poem "A New Year's Letter" there in an apartment on the top floor. How appropriate for us, in our touring on New Year's day.

 I did a little research and here is a snippet....

From W.H. Auden's "A New Year's Letter":
O every day in sleep and labour
Our life and death are with our neighbour,
And love illuminates again
The city and the lion's den,
The world's great rage, the travel of young men.

Proclaiming my ignorance of his body of work, I knew his name was familiar however it wasn't until said research that I realized I knew the name because it was his poem that was the eulogy (poem) in Four weddings and a funeral.

 

 


The walk down by the Watchtower building and then up and onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

A coolish walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

And then a subway trip to the Highline!

I did part of the first of one of my 13 in 13 #5 new places I haven't been before- I hadn't been to the end of the Highline on 30th Street and now I have!

The art work on walls

The wit and humour in windows

More wit and humour

This graffiti reminded me of Dina Wakley's scribble lesson

 We then walked home to 48th Street for a restorative cuppa.
We made it in time to our Top of the Rock booking and the light fading with the lights coming up.

And capped off the day with dinner at Ellen's Stardust Diner and the singing wait staff!

Another busy day of touring

Walk through Brooklyn

I started the day heading off to Brooklyn to meet up with a new school. A relatively short trip on the subway and into a lovely part of Brooklyn, enjoying the company and the weather and the stroll through the leafy streets. 

Love the brownstones

Love the colour

Home and a quick text to Andrew and finding their location.
We met up down at the Staten Island ferry. Great way to see "the chick with a stick". Leisurely- other than the surge to get on and off the ferries.

Amusing ourselves between the ferry rides involved yet another opportunity for Kate and Lynne to connect with furry creatures. This time the "explosives sniffer" dog.

And then Nick mucking around avoiding having his photo taken- gotcha though!

The trip on the subway to City Hall made a speedy connection for our walk onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

The day ended with a trip to the theatre- Spiderman- turn off the dark which gave a bit of a recap of sights in NYC for the tourists with me.

Walking our legs off

It was a grand plan to do a walking tour of the area in which we are staying. We started out at 9:30 heading for the Luxembourg Gardens just up the road a bit. Gorgeous, spacious, wide paths, great expanse of trees, small exhibition of posters celebrate Chopin's birthday, people sunbathing, strolling, enjoying the sun and the shade, joggers, in allalovely spot.
The walking tour in the guide book then took us to St Sulplice. A big church not far from the gardens which was famous well before the Da Vinci Code and has frescoes by Delacroix. A peaceful, large church with chairs rather pews.

Then the book took us to the completely wrong corner so we thought the cafe we were going to have coffee at had closed but on checking when returned home we found the map had the place marked in the wrong spot. Perhaps tomorrow we can check it out. But we still found a place for a coffee...we are in Paris after all.

Feeling a little revived we then set off for Isle de Louis one of the islands in the middle of the Seine. We walked past the Notre Dame (how blasé!) and continued to stroll to the central street of e island and strolled on down the main street popping into whichever shop took our fancy. They were open this time. Up until about 15 years ago we hadn't had Sunday trading in Melbourne, how quickly one forgets these things and takes it all for granted. I won't digress into othe other things that have changed and we have forgotten about like the bread delivery and the milk delivery by horse and cart!

Lunch was a piece of quiche in a little cafe and a lovely glass of Ginger beer. Much revived again we headed for the shops on Rue de Rivoli and in doing so passed and paused at the gardens in Hotel de Sens... A great photo opportunity. Then we pushed on to the shopping area and success I found a lovely jacket that fills my view of a little something from Paris.

Then more shopping and walking... No more purchases on my part but loads more walking until we arrived back at the apartment exhausted.

A bit of a rest and then out to dinner at a nearby restaurant. Astroll around some different streets in the balmy evening air and home to bed!

A day around the town

"who'd have thought..." we said as we gazed at the firmly closed doors of the department stores... Yep the department stores are shut on Sundays in fact most stores other than those around the tourist areas are shut on Sundays. It was a long topic of conversation over lunch as we had decided we'd do a spot of shopping to find that special little something that screamed Paris! But it was all silent on the shopping front.

However we had already had an absolute treat in the L'Orangerie where we finally made it to see some Modigliani paintings it was part of their collection as opposed to a special installation which the banners at Musee D'Orsay seemed to imply. However we spent time enjoying the ambiance and beauty of the Nymphaes ie Monet's water lilies which are in a cyclorama in this lovely building in the Tuileries

A bit of a line wait gave us time to chat and take a few photos of each other and the parts of the Eiffel Tower that we could see from the Tuileries wall. After out trip to the fateful, fruitless shopping area we had lunch and headed to St Chapelle yet another sight of beautiful things in this case the spectacular stained glass windows.

Strolling through Paris back to our apartment in St Germain took us through some narrow streets past some open shops with jewelry and other things to look at then finally home and resting in preparation for an evening out.

We eventually made it out and had a lovely quiet dinner near our apartment and an ice cream from the ice cream store at had about 100 people waiting at it during the afternoon but not so when we made it to the counter.

Yet another lovely day in Paris and two more to go!

In Paris

For reasons best known to someone other than me I have not been posting!!!! Sort of obvious when you look at the date gap between this and other posts.
I have been siting here in our holiday apartment in St Germain Du Pres reading the "Happiness Project" on my ipad and died that I can post my photos on my blog when I download them on my return to New York. I like to have photos in my blog especially when I am traveling but I was unable and too disorganized to get the cable from Apple to enable this to happen with my iPad and that's what I brought with me is time.

We have arrived in Paris after our four days on the canal boat. I couldn't write about them at the time as we had no Internet access, in fact we had very little other than the joy of cruising along a canal through the French countryside and developing our skills in boating.

Our first full day (yesterday) in Paris touring had us up early and off to Musee D'Orsay but not to the museum ,yet, but to the wharf outside and on a canal cruise of Paris. You'd ink after a week of canals we'd have had enough. By the end of the 3 hour cruise we had had enough of locks I have to say but the tour of a different aspect of Paris was lovely. We ended up at Place de la Villette and it was a good spot to then catch the train and travel to the Musee de Jacques Mart Andre where we had been four years ago and seen a fabulous photography exhibition of e works of the Paris Match magazine photographers. Photos of celebrities in different and interesting situations. The purpose of the trip was to buy the book from the exhibition that I hadn't bought last time as I thought it too much to carry and too expensive. I have regretted it ever since and couldn't buy it on line but now..... I have it and it isn't all that big nor was it too expensive. The current exhibition at the gallery was from Greco to Dali. An interesting exhibition with some lovely works by Sorolla and the ever bizarre Dali. The house is a little like the Frick in NYC in that it has permanent exhibition which is the house itself and it's art collection and then has a different art installation every so often.

We decided we would walk back to Rue De Rivoli to do a little shopping but it was such a long way and we needed a bit of a breather to renew our energy for shopping. Not much success along the part we walked in terms of shopping but we were strolling along with views of Place du La Concorde, the top of the Eiffel Tower and then eventually alongside the Louvre.

We caught a Metro train to Odeon and walked back to our apartment via some shops. No success in the fashion buying stakes but great success in the vying of items for the soon to be bored great niece/nephew. If we knew the gender of said child we'd have bought even more!!!

Home to our apartment overlooking from the first floor, the bistros of Rue du Seine. A bit of a rest up and then out to find a bijou jazz experience. Many of the places advertised or listed on the Internet and in books are closed. Bilboquet the most famous of jazz places was just a few streets away but is now apartments. Sadly. However we found another jazz place with great food and ambiance just up the rue from where Bilboquet was and had a delightful late dinner listening to a jazz combo, hardly a band when it's a piano and a sax. It was a great day in Paris filled with sights, sounds and photos.

Time to leave Key West

We had a lovely relaxing time in Key West and had planned to leave today- which we did.

Had to get the "love token" in the frame- the view from our balcony

and proof that we were there with the "love token".

Driving around Key West before heading out we went past the end of Highway 1 and then drove around the block so we could head off from...

the beginning of Highway 1

A bridge we did not take!

Then eventually we drove back into Marathon where we stopped on the way down. I managed a few "drive by shots" of what we passed up on the night we stayed there.

This motel was just too orange!

We were particularly happy that this motel didn't have a vacancy given that this...

.... is it!

The GPS was great taking us along the Overseas Highway.

We did wonder if it was just one crocodile?!

What happens when it rains in paradise?!

The day started out beautifully. We walked along to Whitehead Street and saw a cruise ship off in the distance and managed to get the marker without any tourists hanging around- I had to be quick!

Then we walked along Whitehead Street ....

past the lighthouse

to Blue Heaven for a great breakfast.

We enjoyed the music, the sandy floor and the various characters that worked and ate there.


Back at the resort/hotel we made the most of a swim in the ocean and a swim in the pool and then when we decided it was time to have lunch it rained!

What else could we do but make ourselves known to the barman and enjoy our lunch and a day lolling around.

Strolling around Key West

This is how our day started! Walking across from our room to the cafe for breakfast this was the first image I captured for the day- I felt it bode well for the day and it did!

After breakfast we went for a walk along Duval Street

Cigar stands are not uncommon which unfortunately means you are bound to get caught in th back draft of some bloke strolling along puffing on on of the suckers.

This is no longer a movie house but as the sign say- a Walgreens

I had to snap the sign then the guy from the store said he has stickers of the sign (very enterprising) so my mate Shirley will get her sticker sometime in the future. The story behind the surf and skate store according to our informant (the owner) is that his wife's name is Shirley and she can't surf as well as the play on words when asked "Surely there's no surf beach at Key West?" he can reply "I sell skateboards too and don't call me Shirley" or something along those lines. He told us according to his survey 90% of Shirley's can't surf and 70% can't swim.


I wanted to get the church without the power lines in front but the sun made it a bit more difficult.

The tree in front of the house is what made this more interesting to me.

There is a long history and story surrounding the Chicken Wars in Key West here's one link

A glimpse of Hemingway's house.

Strolling along Whitehead Street

Self explanatory marker!