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Hi all, Another exceptionally late episode of my travel diary has finally arrived. It’s crazy, the more time I have to write, the less I spend writing, and the later the email comes. After my few days visiting Niagara Falls in Canada, I travelled from Buffalo, New York State to New York City, New York State, by the only means available to me on my round the world ticket. That is flying out to Chicago, Illinois, and onto Newark, New Jersey, and then taking a train into NYC. It’s a long route to cover to travel such a short distance as the crow flies, but so be it. I spent a night in a New Jersey, and the following morning Auntie Evy picked me up from a Mineola train station on Long Island. Auntie Evy and Uncle Jack are my Mum’s Auntie and Uncle, who I’ve stayed with the previous 2 times I was in New York, and who come and visit us in Sydney every few years. They have moved house since I last visited, 10 years ago in 1992, both properties on Long Island. Auntie Evy drove me past their old piece of land one day, and showed me how their old house, which was huge, had been knocked down and replaced by an even more enormous house. The new place was a smaller house on the same sized property. The garden, both in the front and back, a large area of immaculately kept lawn rimmed with flower beds. At the front door is a patio on the same level with hanging baskets overflowing with flowers and a double seat on the front porch. As Auntie Evy explained, if she’s feeling sociable, and doesn’t mind her reading being interrupted, she sits out front, and talks to the neighbours and people that pass by, otherwise she sits out back. Both Auntie Evy and Uncle Jack go to exercise classes a few times a week and go on walks and other things. One night we were going for a walk around the block and I saw a man walking his dog and went over to ask if I could pat it, and Auntie Evy and Uncle Jack came over and hence met a new neighbour that they’d never met before in the 3 or so years they’d been living there. Another time, I was sitting at the breakfast table talking to Uncle Jack when he saw out the window one of his neighbours from across the street. The man and his wife, who wasn’t around at the time, are in their fifties, and Untie Evy and Uncle Jack are very good friends with them and call them “the young couple across the street”. Uncle Jack went over and got invited Arthur over to meet me and by the time Arthur had walked across the road and walked into the kitchen he said he felt like he knew me already because Uncle Jack had walked briskly across the road calling to Arthur… “Arthur, I want you to meet my grand niece from Australia, she’s just been travelling in Antarctica and South America, and working with monkeys in Bolivia, and she’s done a degree in information technology and she worked at Australia’s biggest investment bank, and she’s been bungee jumping, and jumped out of an aeroplane, and…” It was really funny, ‘cause this fellow, had been bombarded with, hmm, a bunch of random stuff I’d done over the years, and then introduced to this kid who’d just woken up who was sitting in her pyjamas, one minute previously was sitting chatting with her relatives and now was on show. The next couple of days I did nothing. I didn’t really come to New York to be a tourist, just to see the family as I was passing through. I did go to a minor league baseball game with my Mum’s cousin David and his family. David and Daryl and the twins Harlen and Rachel were in Australia a couple of years and David told me a story about that trip. Daryl had packed 17 pairs of shoes for the two week trip. When he complained long enough, she obligingly reduced her luggage by only bringing 13 pairs, or some crazy number like that. I had to laugh at that, having only been wearing 2 pairs of shoes the last eight months. The twins are 11 going on 27. Occasionally I see photos of the kids that get sent to Australia and they look so grown up and mature and dress so handsomely and elegantly. I got a shock when I first got in the car and said hello to the kids sitting in the back with their Mum and got two really shy, barely audiable responses in tiny kid voices. We went to the Long Island Ducks game, but hardly saw any of it. Harlen, a huge baseball fan, and Rach, really into her Softball, commentated the game for me and explained the rules intricately for the first little while. But then our attention turned to the atmosphere of the evening, and we strolled around to the opposite side of the stadium to see how fast we could pitch in one of those cages which records the speed of the thrown ball. I was about as good a pitcher as that of a 6 year old, pitching at about 18 miles an hour, but Harlen was disappointed with his own 55 miles an hour, because he’s been known to pitch in the low 70s. This is an amazing speed for an 11 year old! We slowly, slowly returned to our seats via the hot dog outlet, and the pizza stall, and the roasted nut stand and watched a tiny bit more baseball before heading off back to their house where I met their new and highly energised dog Candy. The next day I went and did the only touristy thing that I really wanted to see. I went to Ground Zero, the sight where the two World Trade Centres (WTC) used to stand pre-September 11th. It was all hidden away behind fences and a mesh covering, and inside there were many people at work, excavating and, I guess, preparing for whatever they finally decide to build there. I was amazed at how crowded the viewing area was, almost a year later, on that day, of no particular significance to the tragic event. Most people were just passing buy trying to look in, some were climbing on the fence to get a photo or a better view, others were crying a flood of tears. I approached one man that looked like he was by himself and who was crying uncontrollably to see if he was okay, and he replied that he didn’t even know anyone that died, but he had a really good view of the WTCs from his office and he can’t believe that the whole area has just gone. He knew it sounded funny the way he expressed himself, sounding like he was crying because he’s lost his fantastic office view, but he said he just felt sick and scared that something like this could happen so close to home. Many of the surrounding buildings still have windows covered with tarpaulins and scaffolding around the lower areas. A couple of the nearer building had entire walls that were just black, whether burned or covered with soot, I couldn’t tell. There was a huge banner spanning one side of the site stating the thanks to all the emergency workers who helped, and are still helping. There was also a cross constructed of metal, I’m not sure, but I believe it was constructed from parts found in the wreckage. And of course across the roads and in the locality, there were street vendors selling t-shirts with pictures of the towers, with statements of remembrance and quests for world peace. I saw many ties for sale with the US flag in the background and the Twin Towers in the foreground. Whether these actually get bought and/or worn, I can’t imagine, but it’s all there for sale. I wandered up Wall Street, and the entire block where the Stock Exchange is located is all blocked off and guarded. At first I thought they had closed the area for filming, because there were some temporary buildings, which I thought might have been trailers, but I guess were offices for the security guards. In Soho, which stands for “South of Houston” street, I visited a few galleries, nothing overly exciting. I remember when I was in the city with my folks we saw some funky galleries with 3D art, but I didn’t see anything original in the galleries I visited this time. The other thing I did that day was got tickets to a Broadway show. You can get discounted tickets on the day for seats available that night. On my way I met an Aussie boy who was tending a jewellery stand, and used to do the same on Manly Beach, where I used to play beach volleyball on Sunday mornings. There were so many different shows I could chose to go to, but I chose 42nd Street, because I haven’t seen it before and because it was showing on the real 42nd Street, on which the musical is based, so it was kind of like the prime place to see it. Before I went to the show, just near Times Square I was walking up through the Manhattan streets and saw a couple of girls surrounded by people. The girls were both wearing sashes, one said Miss Wisconsin, and the other Miss some-other-state. Further down in Times Square, and totally unrelated to the two girls, there was a man dressed up as a women, wearing very little clothes and excessive makeup, (s)he was also wearing a white sash, but this one was Miss Saigon.  I went to have a bite to eat at a nearby Italian type restaurant, and was so disgusted by whatever it was that they put in my lasagne, and how different it looked in the picture on the menu, that I took it back and got my money back. Unable to find anything at a reasonable price nearby, I ended up having McDonalds for dinner. I changed into my nice clothes which were suitable to going to the theatre in in the McDonald’s bathroom, and then took myself out to the show. The tap dancing was absolutely excellent, but the musical itself was pretty unmemorable. On Friday, I went to see the daughter of my Mum’s other cousin, Adam, in her choir concert. I’m not sure that I’d ever met young Sarah before, ‘cause when I was in New York last time, her Mum, Maria was pregnant with her and now she’s 9. Sarah and her older sister Emily were both in Band Camp together. Sarah majoring in Choir and minoring in Archery, or something that incorporates archery and other activities. Emily, 11, majoring in Orchestra and minoring in Art. The site for the camp was amazing. It’s a day camp so the kids all go home in the afternoons, but the campus where they spend the day is gorgeous, and very much reminded me of the Macquarie Uni campus back home. Lots of bush and gardens, and a huge area, everything was quiet considering there were so many kids attending, but they were all busy in their respective areas. When Auntie Evy and I got out of the car we could hear the kids in the outdoor auditorium practicing for their choir concert. The sound was very full and strong, but when you walk and see the kids on stage, they’re all so young and small, and the sound doesn’t appear to match the bodies which contain the little vocal chords. It was an amazing concert. The kids in camp are all encouraged to see their peer’s performances, there is one a day, either by the kids, or by a famous group or artist that the camp organisers have managed to secure. Emily came from the swimming facilities to watch her sister sing. Briefly after the concert, Emi took us to see the art she’d done which was also very good, and she showed us one of the rooms they use for the cartooning course, where a Disney cartoonist is the teacher. After leaving the camp, Auntie Evy and I went to her friend Zara’s house. Zara and her husband Max are also friends of my Grandma and Zeyde back home. I have been to their house before, as Zara is an artist, and both this day, and many years before I was invited over to see her paintings. There’s hardly any wall space left in the two story house for any more paintings. Over the years she’s experimented with many different styles, but the subject matter is predominantly people. Both David and Darryl and Adam and Maria have pictures of their kids that Zara has painted. There are paintings of people she’s done from photographs, Irishmen in a barn yard, Hungarian women in a kitchen, Russians sitting on a park bench, and it’s amazing how accurately she depicts the facial characteristics of the different cultures. I say accurate, only basing my own visions on movies, as I have never been to these countries myself, but there were distinct differences between the Europeans from the different countries. That evening I went to watch Harlen in one of his baseball matches. He and Rach were both in Sports Camp during the holidays, and outside of that, Harlen plays in about five different Baseball tournaments, which means he has training or games virtually every night of the week, and sometimes 2 or 3 on weekends. Harlen’s team was in the lead for the most part of the game, but it was always close. He didn’t score a home run, but he did get home, scoring a run for his team and bringing the score to 5-5, and then in the closing minutes of the game, one of his team mates also made it home, making it a win for the East Meadows team! It was really great watching him play. After the game we went to a Mexican place for dinner, and then to Ralph’s Ice Shop. Ralph’s sells, not ice creams, or sorbets, or gelatos or any other name I can think of, but what they call ices. There are creamy ices and water ices, so I’m not sure exactly what they are, but they taste like ice cream and sorbets to me. My flavours were delicious; I had Raspberry Coconut Tart, and Banana something-or-other. Yummm! The next day I met Maria, Sarah and Emily at the Met, which is kind of like the Opera House in Sydney, not as architecturally stunning, but performs the same function. We walked to Central Park and Sarah was so inquisitive and so dramatic, she was really funny. She wanted to know all my stories about the volunteer work in Bolivia, and all about the monkeys, and how I got the bites that are still very much visible, on my arms and legs. We were strolling through a forested part of the park, you’d hardly know you were in the middle of Manhattan, and she found a huge rock and suggested that we all sit down on the rock and listen to my stories, and we did just that for a while. Then we ambled to the place where you can hire canoes, and we went for a paddle for an hour, which was great fun, and very wet, especially when Sarah paddled. We had a lovely day and talked and laughed a lot. As the sunshine drew dimmer, we went and had Mexican for dinner, and then got an ice cream as we meandered back through the city streets back to the Lincon Centre. Here there was a dancing evening, with hundreds of people dancing in the huge court yard. Some knew what they were doing, some didn’t. but it was fun to watch for a little while before going home. David and Daryl and the kids had specifically booked Sunday in their diaries for me, because their schedule gets filled up so quickly, that they saved this day far in advance. We didn’t know what we were going to do, and from the first day I arrived in New York, David had been sending me suggestions of museums, fun parks, gardens, and all sorts of stuff we could do. The thing was that the kids and I weren’t overly keen to go to a museum, and the fun parks were far away, and we just couldn’t agree on anything. But, after going to Ralph’s Ice Shop the other night, I thought it’d be fun if we could go back, and try every single flavour. We didn’t know if it’d be possible or how we could do it, but we all liked the idea. David, having a reputation as an outstanding negotiator, was nominated to do the asking, and he explained to the lady on duty how I was his cousin from Australia and it was my fantasy to try all the flavours and yadah, yadah, yadah (I can’t believe Microsoft doesn’t have the word “yadah” in it’s dictionary). The lady responded that this was the first time something like this has ever been requested, but she’d let us do it. So once we’d got that far, David asked if she’d let his two kids do it to, and so the test began. There were 75 flavours on the menu, and she for each flavour she got out 3 little plastic spatulas and gave us each a little bit. On several occasions other customers came into the store, so we had to step back and wait until they had been served. Harlen couldn’t believe we were actually doing what we were doing. We got through 35 flavours before too many other customers kept arriving and interrupting our challenge. But 35 tests is a pretty good number. Unfortunately we didn’t do them in the alphabetical order on the menu, so it’s not so easy to go back and finish where we left off. So next time I’ll just have to start from the beginning. Here are some of our favourite flavours… Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, Watermelon, Strawberry Cheesecake, Lemon Meringue Pie, Candy Floss, Coconut, Raspberry Coconut Tart, Blue Hawaiian, Pina Colada, Marzipan, and Root Beer (Rach only). After that delectable experience, we went to the batting cages at a nearby park. You can select to have a baseball pitch, which is straight, or a softball pitch, which is arced, at fast, medium or slow speed pitched at you from a machine. Harlen and Rach had brought all their gear, bats, gloves, helmets, rubber things to minimise hand-hurting, all in these gynormous kit bags. In both the slow baseball and softball I hit most of the balls, but when I had a go at the medium speed, I don’t think I hit any. And although I could hit them, in the air and all, it really hurt my hands from the vibration against the metal bat, apparently I wasn’t hitting at the right spot on the narrow bat. I still have no idea how anyone can hit the ball the distances they do, at the speed they do, from a ball coming at them at the speed it does, on a bat as narrow as it is. After the batting cages we played a little bit of Frisbee, but we didn’t have much time because apparently I had to be taken to Crispy Crème Donuts before we went home, and we had to be home before in order to be on time for going out for dinner. At Crispy Crèmes, the fluorescent sign was on. This is a good thing, because when the sign is on it means that their cooking fresh donuts at that exact time, and when their cooking donuts, you each get a free one, hot off the conveyer belt, just for coming in the door. We selected a dozen different types of donuts, with lemon jam in the middle, with raspberry jam in the middle, chocolate donuts with chocolate chips and chocolate icing, I can’t remember all the different sorts. And then, on top of that, plus the free donut you get when they’re cooking, you also get a free dozen plain ones with icing when the sign is on. So all in all we came out with 29 donuts. Oh god. We got back home just as Uncle Jack and Auntie Evy turned up, and the kids, David and I played table tennis in the basement whilst Auntie Evy chatted with Daryl and Uncle Jack watched us and played with the dog. Oh, and we polished off a few of the donuts, just in case I wasn’t coming back after dinner, I had to at least taste some of them. We called my home in Australia and everyone said hello to my folks. Then, we all went out to a nice restaurant to meet Adam and Maria and the girls for Auntie Evy’s 29th birthday. Apparently quite a number of years ago she started counting her birthdays backwards. The evening was lovely, and it was the first time I’d seen the whole family together. I’d never even seen the four kids together, so that was really great, and we took a few photos for me to take home (except my camera is now broken, and I opened the film cartridge area, ‘cause I forgot I had film in there, and now maybe the photos will be a bit damaged, even though they get rolled into the canister after each shot has been taken). I didn’t do anything on Monday other than make a zillion phone calls and internet enquiries trying to get hold of a specific whiz bang camera a friend had asked me to try and get duty free, and getting some stuff for my Dad duty free. It’s weird because New York, possibly all of America, I’m not sure, don’t have duty free stores, other than in the airport, like we do in Australia.  That afternoon I went to visit my friend Carine, who has been living and working in Manhattan for the past 10 months in the media industry. She’s not overly thrilled with her job right now, she’s working with a TV show sort of like Judge Judy, but she goes home soon. I met her at her office and we walked back to her studio apartment and then went out for a Thai meal down the road from her place. It was great to see Carinie again, because our whole families are friends, usually we only see each other when our families get together, but it was nice with just the two of us, gossiping and catching up and all. But the next day I went to Adam and Maria’s house, and met there dog Bianca, and saw their house and Adam’s studio. Adam is a producer, he records CDs for orchestras and classical groups, and soloists and the like and gets the sound exactly perfect. He won a Grammy for best Producer a couple of years back. He showed me all his recording equipment, and it’s all computerised, and has millions of little buttons and slide adjustors and several screens and other things. It’s amazing what he can do, and what he can hear. He played me a piece he’d just finished recording with an 11 piece orchestra, St Lukes, I think it was called, and there was one chord that he wanted to change the sound of, so he cuts the sound of a chord from another part of the music, and pastes it over where he wants it and joins it back together. I couldn’t hear the difference, it was way too subtle a change for my obtuse hearing, but it was incredible to watch him do it. And I watched all the lines, like a cardiac machine, raise and lower and bounce and get all excited on the screen. And he had this device where you could feed the music into it, and it would adjust the sound to sound like it was being played in different auditoriums around the world. So the same piece fed through this machine could sound like it would sound in the Sydney Opera House Hall 1, or the New York Metropolitan, or the Berlin what’s-it-called. And all of this is just in one room. And can be controlled by a few switches. Incredible. I also saw, in Adam’s old studio, a piano which has a bit of history in our family. Adam did tell me the story, but I can’t quite remember it. It was built in America in the early 1900s I think, and shipped to Australia, where it’s been living with my Mum’s other Uncle, Arnold, for many, many years. A few years ago, he shipped it back to America, and now it lives with Adam and his family. I know that Dan Abeshouse, who I went to uni with, and am also distantly related to, through this side of the family is very close to Adam, as he is very musically inclined too. I just missed Dan by a week, as he stopped in to visit the family in New York before heading to Boston to do his MBA at Harvard. After heading home from Adam and Maria’s and saying my last farewell to the girls, we went to Zara and Max’s home for dinner with their daughter. It was a lovely evening. So as this episode of my travel diary draws to an end, I’d like to express my greatest thanks to all the New York side of the family. Uncle Jack and Auntie Evy for letting me stay at your place. In fact it was interesting to see in your little guest book the family that I do know who have stayed at your place over the past 50 or so years, and what everyone writes in the comments column. And thanks also for schlepping (for non-Jewish people, that means driving) me to the station all the time and picking me up too. And thanks to David and Daryl, Harlen and Rach, and Adam and Maria, Emi and Sarah for accommodating me into your busy, busy schedules. I had a great time with all of you, and it was wonderful to talk and play with you kids, who seem to be growing up way faster than I ever did, or am, not sure which tense is more appropriate. And also thanks to Carinie, and Zara and Max for inviting me over and spending time with me. That’s all folks, until next time, Nique