Our Princeton Weblog

How to describe our first experience of New York? As soon as we emerged from Pennsylvania Station (but not from track 29) onto 7th Ave, we were confronted by swarms of yellow taxi cabs - a sight almost as iconic as the Empire State building and the Statue of Liberty – and the reality of being in New York hit home.

Looking up 5th Avenue to the Empire State Building

The Flat Iron - corner of 5th Ave & Broadway

We were unabashed tourists – taking snaps of nearly every recognisable landmark that came into sight and doing lots of the obvious tourist things such as taking a carriage ride through Central Park (Actually, I wanted Michael to pretend he was Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk and take over the reigns but he wouldn’t – spoilsport!) (And if you haven’t seen Pillow Talk, get it and see it immediately – one of the most hilarious romantic comedies ever made [in my humble, but supremely well-informed opinion]

Some of the highlights:

* The Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. The statue in the centre ‘the angel of the waters’ is regarded as one of the finest pieces of public sculpture in the world and was something I really wanted to see in New York. The statue was designed by a woman and is a working class, female angel – things which offended a number of people when she was unveiled in 1873. For me though, she didn’t disappoint – she was beautiful, powerful and moving.

* The Empire State Building – apart from the endless queue (took over an hour for us to get from the to the viewing platform on the 86th floor) this was amazing. We went up at night and it was a dazzling sight. I’m not sure what was more amazing – the lit-up city or the vertigo. The viewing platform has just a low brick balustrade and a fine (but strong) steel fence between you and oblivion. Very stimulating! Apart from the amazing view, the Empire State is an incredibly beautiful art deco building. Whether outside looking up or inside looking down, there is much to amaze and admire. It was also special to me (as is much of my time here) because of the the echoes of one of my favourite authors – F. Scott Fitzgerald who described it as ‘the last and most beautiful of towers’. (Warning – more on F. Scott to come in later posts.)

Midtown and downtown at night from the Empire State

* Dinner (twice) at Tavern on the Green - a restaurant in Central Park that is kitchy but delightful, with tables under trees filled with lanterns, topiary animals (the King Kong was a highlight) and fabulous , interesting food (which as you all know, Michael and I have quite a fondness for!). After two exhausting and very hot days of trekking the city, wandering into this green and shady oasis, flowing with cocktails and champagne (yes, we did splurge on the good stuff), was heavenly and a fabulous, delicious, best-ever dish of mussels was the icing on the cake (if you’ll forgive us for throwing in a food metaphor).

King Kong joins us for dinner at Tavern on the Green

During this first weekend we also:

* Walked most of 5th Avenue (home of lots of flashy designer stores and of course, the fabulous Tiffany’s)

* Visited the Museum of Natural History – unfortunately this was only brief as we had been given the wrong information about closing time. However, we got in for free which meant we could save our pre-paid tickets for a longer visit next time

* Walked through the lower half of Central Park – huge! Exhausting! (see Bethesda Fountain reference above)

* Toured the New York Central Library – a beautiful neo-classical building which houses treasures such as Charles Dickens’ writing desk, Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of the Declaration of independence and one of the few extant Guttenberg Bibles . The gorgeous reading room (featured in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and other movies) is the size of a football field.

* Walked around Bowling Green (which was the village green of the original colony, New Amsterdam) and Battery Park, where we caught the Staten Island ferry for great views of the city and Statue of Liberty

Staten Island ferry from Battery Park

* Visited the Museum of Native America

* Walked around Wall St and the financial district to Ground Zero – the whole area is now a building site and cannot be viewed but being there certainly gave a sense of the magnitude of those terrible events

* Lots of walking and gawking at famous buildings such as ‘the flat iron’, the Plaza Hotel and the Chrysler and Dakota buildings. Dakota was of course the home of John Lennon and was where he was killed (Yoko still lives there) but it’s primary interest to us was as the apartment building where one of the great horror movies, Rosemary’s Baby, was filmed. It has very spooky neo-gothic architecture and gave the movie much of it’s atmosphere (and if you haven’t seen Rosemary’s Baby get it and see it immediately – but preferably not alone.)

As you may guess, at the end of our two days we were exhausted and glad to get back to our little hotel apartment and our air conditioning). However, we still had a booklet with a number of unused pre-paid tickets to various museums and and other sites, so we knew we’d be heading back soon.

So stay tuned for further New York adventures!

OR

Not born in the USA

(Male readers beware: this email is written by Cate and contains shopping references)

Being in America is a strange experience. In one sense everything is so familiar that it seems like you haven’t left home but then, as you go about your business, you discover that all the details are different and you can’t assume anything. It’s a bit like looking at a photograph that you recognise but that’s slightly out of focus.

The first couple of days, I definitely experienced some culture shock. It wasn’t so bad for Michael - he’s been here a number of times before and knew what to expect and generally how the rules work. Going to a restaurant, a supermarket - even what you can buy at a supermarket (or rather what you can’t), all involve new rules and customs. Most of the time, Michael knows the rules; sometimes we work it out, and sometimes we just give up and smile and say ‘We’re Aussies - please tell us what the hell we are supposed to do!’

Everything in America - we’ll the bits we’ve seen anyway - is big. Big roads, big cars, big buildings, big malls, big food servings, big coffee. Apart from what it’s doing to the planet there’s also the feeling that in many cases quality has been sacrificed for excess. This is particularly true with food - you have to be very careful what you order in a restaurant and what you buy at a supermarket - for example, the fabulous looking cornbread with jalapenos and cheese that I bought last weekend was sweet (and proved inedible).

We have found good quality food here but you have to go searching for it. We found a fabulous delicatessen last week that stocks wonderful produce from all over America and Europe and we stocked up on great bread, fabulous cheeses, pate, olives, cornichons - you name it, we went to town. We’ve also found a couple of excellent supermarkets - the one closest to us (and, rare bonus, actually within walking distance!) specialises in locally grown, organic food. And last week we enjoyed fabulous and cheap hamburgers at a traditional style American diner/restaurant.

There have also been plenty of enjoyable aspects of adjusting to this sister-culture. Learning to drive on the right-hand side of the road was a blast! It was kind of like learning a new video game (although you have to bear in mind that you don’t have a couple of spare lives up your sleeve.) Shopping at the Gap was also fabulous - plenty of quality there, and the prices! Macy’s was pretty incredible too, though I was feeling severely jet-lagged the afternoon we went there, so flaked very quickly. (O well, guess that just means I’ll have to go back sometime!) Walmart was sadly disappointing but Marshalls (a kind of cross between Best and Less, FSW and Target) was fabulous! O the shoes!! (I’ve been very restrained (for me) and only bought two pairs so far!)

Our first week in America ended with a three-day weekend thanks to the 4th of July holiday on Friday. We were very willing to throw ourselves into a festive, American, patriotic cultural experience but it was all remarkably low key. Michael’s work colleagues weren’t planning to do anything much but watch baseball on TV and chill out. But we, intrepid travellers and adventurers, headed off in search of parades and fireworks. We didn’t find any parades, and only saw fireworks from a distance but we did wander through the main local Princeton celebration - a kind of low-key fete in the grounds of ‘Morven House’ in Princeton (which served as the seat of Congress - and therefore made Princeton the capital - for a brief few months in 1783). Enthusiastic guides in period costume showed groups through the house (which was beautiful) and encouraged us to appreciate and celebrate our liberty and freedom - which of course made us cynical Aussies smile to ourselves, because we’re far more into knocking than appreciating (which is a good thing, right?) But hearing about the war of independence at first hand does give an insight into one of the formative events of the American psyche and provides a context for American patriotism and the focus (you might even say obsession) with civil liberties and ‘no one - especially the government - telling me how I should live my life’.

But let me conclude this rambling missive with my absolute favourite, all-time best thing about America ( I should perhaps add so far, but I really can’t imagine anything beating this):

As it grows dark, the air lights up with moving, shimmering flashes of greenish white-light - fireflies! Often at night after dinner we go for a walk just to look at them. In daylight they are just rather non-descript brown bugs but at night it’s like watching very delicate fairy lights flashing all through the trees or, as in Michael’s perfect analogy, like a thousand tiny camera flashes in a darkened stadium. I often also think that it’s like having little glowing fairies flying all around you - whimsical I know but it’s such an incredibly beautiful, even moving, experience - one of the most beautiful encounters I’ve ever had with the natural world. If there was nothing else to enjoy in the US it was worth coming all this way just to see the fireflies. And the wonderful thing for us is that they’re actually not widespread. A lot of Americans who are here from other areas working with Michael had never seen fireflies before coming to Princeton. It’s quite special to think that we are based in one of the few places in the US where this incredibly beautiful experience can be enjoyed everyday - definitely something to appreciate!

With love to all,

Cate (&Michael)

(Next week’s bulletin - New York, New York!)

PS. It’s not been easy sorting out our address book from over here so feel free to forward - especially to any family members as we don’t have all addresses

The upgrade you’re having when you’re not having an upgrade

OR

Just getting there is half the fun!

It all started so promisingly - we picked up our hire car on Sat 28th and headed off to Sydney - a bit later than we’d planned but what the heck - we were on the road! Spent a lovely evening catching up with Anne-Marie (Cate’s sister), her husband John and son Adrian, followed by an early dash to Mascott Airport Sunday morning. And that’s where it started to get a little ugly!

Now if you’ve never been to Sydney airport at 7am on a Sunday before, let us tell you, it’s a happening place! The check-in queues were rather daunting - weren’t we pleased with ourselves that Michael was traveling business class so we could go to the short line? That was until they sent one of our bags through without tagging! Then we discovered that all the good seats in economy were taken and no - our helpful attendant couldn’t upgrade Cate because economy wasn’t sold out (as if that’s a rational argument!) Very apologetic at losing our bag, however, she told us to speak to the customer service person on the flight to see what he could do for us.

We then headed up to the Qantas lounge where Cate was refused entry (ya just gotta love Qantas!) However a slightly hysterical retelling of the lost bag story had the desired effect and the attendant finally swiped us through. When we got a call 30 minutes later to say our bag had been found, we began to think things were looking up. That was before we boarded and found ourselves sitting on the tarmac for nearly two hours waiting for some undisclosed technical problem to be resolved. (As we only had 2 and 1/2 hours to make our connection in LA, things were starting to look a little dicey! ). To make matters worse, the customer service guy (CSG) told us he couldn’t sit us together (not even in economy!)

Cate found herself sitting in the equal worst seat you can get in economy - one of the two inside seats of the inner row of four. When drinks started going round she grabbed a bottle of anything and everything (except the chardonnay) and started making friends with the two women on either side with whom circumstances were forcing an intimacy none would have chosen for themselves!

Meanwhile, Michael was finding it hard to enjoy to the full the comforts of business class because he was so distressed at having an empty seat beside him and no Cate to fill it! After three or four hours of relentlessly nagging the CSG and telling heartbreaking stories of lost bags, the CSG finally relented. Once all the lights were dimmed after ‘dinner’ Cate was escorted in stealth to business class - heaven forbid any economy passenger should see another economy passenger being upgraded!

Things were certainly more comfortable for Cate after that but let’s face it - 14 hours on a plane, even in business class, is no picnic and there was immigration and security to face in LA at the end of it all! Actually that part wasn’t too bad - the American’s have done a lot to streamline the process in recent years. It even got quite exciting at one point when Cate was pulled aside for a body search (she’s such a suspicious looking character!) However, it was all over very quickly and our hearts were then gladdened by the joyous news that our flight to New York had been delayed and we’d make our connection.

After another wait, our hero and heroine finally made it on to their American Airlines flight and folded themselves into tiny seats (no business class here!) to then enjoy yet another hour on the tarmac. Once we finally got into the air however, our flight proceeded smoothly and we landed in Newark (just outside New York) at about 6.30pm Sunday evening (local time).

We picked up our hire car and Michael swung bravely out into the New Jersey traffic - heading down US Route 1 to Princeton. He’s driven in the US before and didn’t have too much difficulty adjusting to the right side of the road - just kept turning the wipers on whenever he wanted to indicate - which was kind of amusing for a while. By the time we got to our hotel it was way late and we were way wrecked. Fortunately Michael had a rest day on Monday which allowed us to get our bearings and settle in before he reported to work on Tuesday. However, just when we thought it was safe, jet lag set in and it’s taken almost a week to recover.

That’s why this initial bulletin comes so late after the scintillating events it describes. But have no fear - the next exciting episode of Michael and Cate’s excellent US adventure will be landing in your inbox soon!

Stay tuned (and have a nice day!)

Love

M&C