Back this week from a 5 day trip to New York to take in some sights, snap a few photos, and take advantage of the insanely good dollar exchange rate!

Had a great time and managed a good mix of shoppng, tourist stuff and more off the beaten track wandering. We went to a few bars, saw some bands in the East Village (Kelly Buchanan was good), ate cupcakes in Greenwich and walked in Central Park. We crossed over to Brooklyn to look back at the Manhattan skyline and then walked back along the bridge for some more fantastic views (and a little vertigo – I’m not keen on bridges!) We saw art at MoMA, being amazed that they let everyone photograph all the exhibits and ate many, many bagels. Breakfast at the Cheyenne Diner was great, eggs sunny side up and seemingly endless refills of tea…

One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum where we were shown around a genuinely restored immigrant tenement and told about the stories of 2 immigrant families to the USA. The place was really atmospheric and we learned a lot from the guided tour – I’d definitely recommend a visit:

One last comment about our hotel. We stayed at The Pod Hotel, which was great. The rooms were small but smart and clean, and the whole place was very stylish. Apparently it’s New York Style on a shoestring, so if you need somewhere to stay in NYC, give it a look. This, for instance was the roof terrace where we ate our lunch:

If you’re curious, click here for the Flickr set.

Definitely back in the UK now though, same old desk, same old drizzle…

I got my hands on the iPhone!

I couldn’t resist a little to trip to the Apple Store while in New York, to goggle at the iPhone. It was crazy, they had stacks and stacks of them with huge queues of sales people selling them with handheld card machines. Seriously, they must have been selling one a second.

Due to the difficulties in unlocking the iPhone reliably, I didn’t buy one to take back to the UK (You have NO idea how hard that was!) but I did have a play with it and it WAS fantastic… Read the rest of this entry…

Just booked a few nights in New York for later this month, so I thought I’d post this old illustration of the New York skyline from September 2001…