NYC en Albertson

Two days ago I arrived in New Zealand. A warm welcome by my family: Christa, Hobbe and Marieke. Tomorrow I will fly to Melbourne because of the wedding of my cousin, Gerrick. 

Before you know it will be a month and a lot of experiences later, so before I go and explore NZ, I'll tell you all about New York!

I arrived on a sunday after what they call a Red Eye Flight. I thought this would be perfect: a flight of 5,5 hours during the night, a few hours of sleep and all day to discover NYC. So i was surprised when Jenique (my cousin) wished me good luck on the flight... Now I know why this flight is called a red eye flight...i didn't sleep at all and slept during the day after a breakfast with Hagelslag and Cava! 

 That night I stayed in Albertson, we drank wine and talked in the kitchen for hours (wondering why the kitchen is always the best place), it was great! I felt very much at home, and I think everybody from the Ziekerstraat 27 knows why ;)

 During the days I went sightseeing in Manhattan, most of the evenings I spent in Albertson with Jenique, Nicolas and Luca. It was great to be with them!

On Monday the four of us went to Manhattan. They showed me around.

Hotdog!

A two dollar bill, it's supposed to bring good luck, because they're very rare. I didn't get it though.. it was Nicolas, that lucky bastard ;) But at least I have a picture!

We had lunch at the Birreria in Eataly, a very nice place! The first Eataly was founded in Italy (how surprising) in 1978. It's a marketplace where you can find fresh and good quality products. They work according to the Slow Food style, which means that it's organic and fair and most of it comes from local farmers, etc. On the roof you find the Birreria, a restaurant and brewery. In summer it's open, in winter they close it with a glass ceiling and because it was very sunny it felt like we were in a sauna.

The Flatiron Building on Madison Square. Completed in 1902, it was one of the tallest buildings of NYC at that time and the first skyscraper north of 14th Street. The neighborhood around it is called flatiron district, after it's signature building. It was actually supposed to be named the Fuller Building, after George A. Fuller,  founder of the Fuller Company, that was specialized in skyscrapers. Fuller was called the 'father of the skyscraper'. He died 2 years before the completion of the Flatiron Building and locals persisted on calling the building The Flatiron.

We walked all the way down to lowest point of Manhattan in the Financial District where it was VERY cold, but we saw a beautiful sunset!

And i could see the Statue of Liberty already, very small of course. (I'm such a nerd.. does anybody recognize this sentence from a movie?)

The sculpture that stood in the Plaza of the World Trade Center, called 'The Sphere'. It's now placed in Battery Park as temporary memorial. I was amazed that it wasn't totally destroyed.

Tuesday i planned to explore downtown Manhattan by walking down broadway and exploring all the neighborhoods while going back up. But i actually found it a bit hard to recognize where which neighborhood started and another ended, so i just walked and walked and walked. Some parts were nice, others a little less interesting, but it was good. 

After hours of walking i went for a coffee in the Roasting Plant Coffee Company, a place where you can experience the making of your coffee from start till end. You choose one of the many flavors in the tubes. They press a button and the beans fly over your head to then be grinded, blended and brewed into your special coffee while you're waiting. It's a system called Roasting Plant Javabot. I think the system is very cool! But the place wasn't that interesting and the staff wasn't that friendly... I was really looking forward to it (being a coffee lover) and was a bit disappointed...

After the coffee I went to the High Line. The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan's largest industrial district. No trains have run on the High Line since 1980. Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, formed in 1999 when the historic structure was under threat of demolition. Friends of the High Line works in partnership with the City of New York to preserve and maintain the structure as an elevated public park. 

It was nice to see, but it will definitely be nicer in summer!

    On Wednesday i rented a bicycle to explore Central Park.

A guy ' pimped'  the Imagine memorial of John Lennon. Let's say that I wasn't very convinced whether it really improved the memorial, but he did put a lot of effort in it, so let's give the man some credits for it...

I liked to see the inscriptions in the benches. I hope someone will remember me on a bench one day :)

Lunch from Wholefoods (love it!) in the sun. It was supposed to be snowy and very cold, but look at me sitting there in only my sweater. So lucky :)

Chalk in the Park!

I like the fact that you're in a park in the middle of one the busiest city's in the world, it's nice and quit (less in summer probably) and you're surrounded by all these incredibly tall buildings. Love the contrast!

Walked through Times Square with Jenique at night, it was nice to see, but one time was enough for me.

Thursday I went on the roof of Top of the Rock. Chaotic as I can be I managed to lose my entrance ticket somewhere in the 5 minutes that I was waiting in line. Luckily someone found it. And the view was great! I especially loved the view of Central Park.

After Top of the Rock I took the Circle Line, a boat that goes around Manhattan. There was some running involved to even make it in time, because I lost my unlimited metro card in Top of the Rock (like I said.. a little chaotic, maybe that was the effect NYC had on me) so I went back to look for it. Because of this i did get to go on the roof twice, but my very tight planning got messed up. And i didn't find me metro card....

The Circle Line is touristy and 3 hours was too long, but it does give you a good view of all parts of Manhattan and they tell you all about the history and the city. And the guide (an older man) had the best voice in the world! 

It was nice to see the statue of Liberty up close. I met 2 great Canadians, so we ended up drinking beers and talking. And again, we were SO LUCKY with the weather!

Andy Warhol statue on Union Square. 

I liked the following sentence from Rob Pruitt, maker of the statue:

"Like so many other artist and performers and people who don't fit in because they're gay or otherwise different, Andy moved here to become who he was, to fulfill his dreams and make it big. He still represents that courage and that possibility. That's why I came to New York and that's what my Andy Monument is about."

Thursday evening I met my other cousin, Gerrit, who works in the firehouse next to Ground Zero. I was great to catch up with him. The next day he showed me the firehouse, and from the rooftop I could see Ground Zero, which was special, because there isn't really a place where you can see it from above. The squares with the water falling inside are the footprints of of the two towers. 

The building you see in the mist is the new building built on Ground Zero. They first called it the Freedom Tower. Now it's called '1 World Trade Center' and it's going to be even higher than the other two. We were supposed to go on the Empire State Building, but it was closed because of the weather.

Nijboer, my mom's family name. Nice to see it on Gerrit's fire jacket.

I spend the weekend in Williamsburg in Brooklyn at Hilal's place, a friend of Eric. Williamsburg is a small and cosy neighborhood compared to Manhattan. I liked it a lot!

Brooklyn Brewery! Beer beer beer! With Hunter and Eliza, the Canadians i met on the boat.

 Things I liked...

 

 

WOOP WOOP!

 

Sunday I walked from Brooklyn to Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge.

Luckily I wasn't alone!!

Last dinner at the Geeraerts-Nijboer place :)

I started and ended my stay with a very Dutch breakfast: brood met HAGELSLAG :)