Whenever I travel, I always carry a ‘little black book’ (well, that’s a lie because it’s not remotely black, but hey ho). In that book I write down many of the places we visit and what I think of them, in case I ever want to go back or a friend goes and I can pass on. As I visit new places (or old) I’ll try to keep this updated so that if you ever want/need any places or tips, I might be able to help you out.
We recently spent 3 days in Washington and 4 in NYC for R’s 50th birthday treat. We flew into Kennedy and then travelled to DC by train which, although easy, wasn’t as much of a dreamy experience as I’d hoped. It certainly beat flying down and all the hanging around in airports. However, I’d not really thought through the fact that, yes, we were passing through the different states, most railroads these days run through the industrial part of town, the bit that time forgot. Passing over the Chesapeake was pretty and pulling into some of the city stations we could see the skylines, but for the most part it was quite long and pretty darned expensive.
Washington:
We tried out two restaurants for dinner whilst we were in DC; Matchbox, which we soon discovered was actually a chain and whilst served average style diner grub with a friendly smile, they did stock one of the most amazing red wines I think I’ve ever had. Sadly all I can remember (and that is not because I was inebriated, purely I lack the memory), is that it had the word, turtle, in the title. Oh well, a lost gem.
The second evening we decided to try out a Balkan restaurant that Trip advisor had many fantastic reviews for. We were quite excited for this having never tasted Balkan cuisine before and had little idea what to expect. Well…the fireworks and bells didn’t really go off for us. It was rather flavourless and there was a lot of cabbage and sprouts. It did make me spend the next hour boring R to death as to whether or not we (generically) have desensitised our palates with all the overly spiced, overly salted foods that modern day gives us…but that’s for another day, he’s married to me and had to listen, you can just click that little cross in the top right-hand corner and not come back!
Georgetown is well worth an afternoon mooching around. You’ll need to take a bus up there, but we used the Hop on Hop off buses. We went to Washington back in about 2008. I remember it well, it was March and it was FREEZING. I have a picture somewhere of a small 4 year old daughter under a hat and a blanket asleep atop one of these buses. Georgetown is the one of the university districts. It seems to ooze an olde worlde type charm that central Washington doesn’t have due to the fact that there aren’t many people that actually live centrally. There are some cute shops and we stopped for noodles at one of the restaurants on the main street.
Prior to this, we’d jumped off the bus at Adams Morgan which, according to my guidebook was going to be right up my alley…coffee shops, eclectic shops, antiques etc. Sadly it did not live up to expectations. Much of it was shut down or run down, there was a perpetual whiff of weed in the air everywhere, however, we did find one gem of a coffee shop called Tryst that served a rather lovely spiced chai masala.
New York:
Yunno, everyone sees New York differently. I am not really a city girl, however, for me, New York is the one city that, in small doses, I can’t get tired of. I went earlier this year, in March, by myself to see some girlfriends up in CT and was a little wary that I may have ‘done’ it when I went this time.
Oh no Jose!
We had splashed out a little and I would highly recommend the ArloNomad next to the Empire state building. Compact micro rooms, but views so big that you just don’t care. Attached to ArloNomad was an amazing Italian, Massoni. They don’t have a huge range, but this, for me, was a highlight. In all my years in the US, I had NEVER, let me repeat that for ya, never, experienced a proper pizza pie. We had to go back for a second evening spent there eating the same again. Oh and btw, Laurie Berkner, my pizza pie is not round like the moon, it was square!
We grabbed breakfast each morning from Bread and Butter on 31st and 5th. It’s an organic food market worth going to just for the experience alone. The precinct cops certainly appreciated their breakfasts before they went out each morning. Prices were great too. I had a mushroom and avocado wrap with cheese for $3.95 cooked from scratch and a green detox juice $5.95. We gave that an internal 9/10. It’s like an old warehouse, busy, fantastic range of food but it does lack a bit of atmosphere in the seating area, so if you’re looking for something a little bit more upmarket, or hip, perhaps this won’t be for you.
One of the things we’d never done was walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Stunning! Although, be warned, the best times to go are early in the morning, by that, think just dawn and then early dusk. By around 9am it’s heaving with tourists and workers trying not to kill them as they scoot over on their bikes.
Take a day to walk along the High Line and finish at Chelsea Market. The High Line is only around a couple of miles long but weaves around the back of buildings from a disused railway line that has been beautifully turned into a park. You get some great views to the Hudson and the piers as well as seeing into areas you may not normally see. Chelsea Market has a wealth of foodie delights including one of the most amazing fish markets where you can buy sushi or lobster to eat out of the container on the day. It also has some boutique style shops. From there head East towards Union Square where there is often a market. Hidden behind Union Square is an amazing vegan restaurant that I discovered in March called Peacefood on 41E 11th St.
Of course, not everything is always rosy and on our last day it poured with rain. This was the day we’d allocated to go to MOMA (My husband’s choice…I have no idea, seriously guys, he’s normally the kind of person who would make facetious comments, so I really have No.Idea what came over him…perhaps it’s a 50 thing?). Well, what a farce! We bought tickets online beforehand hoping we’d be able to skip the queues, only when we got in, there were queues everywhere, all across the foyer both latidudinal and longditudinal, diagonal and even up the stairs (and down). We joined the queue for the people who’d bought their tickets and were wanting to go up the escalator to the museum start. Only we happend to come across a super officious jobsworth who told me that my very small backpack wasn’t allowed to be with me and we’d have to check it into the cloakroom. This is a small, handbag-eque backpack, not a flipping 30litre. Of course, last day, it contained all our flight info, my tablet, our passports, my wallet, my phone…you get the picture and we had nothing else to put these into. So I asked what I was supposed to do, to be told I would be issued with a plastic bag…awesome!
Well, you can guess where this is going can’t you. No bags are issued, of course they’re not. So after queuing across another queue to hand in our only small bag for the small bit of shit we had on us, we then had to carry all this stuff in our pockets and loose around the rest of the museum. Not good! My rant was ON baby I was not going to take kindly to whatever this place had to throw at me. I was wet, fed up and lugging important stuff in my hands because of the security guard who seemed just fine at letting a whole load of other backpack wearing tourists into the museum later on. Gah! On the plus side though (and you have to find one) I was pretty impressed that some really famous paintings were not under glass and you could get close to really admire them. I suppose no one manages to steal them or damage them in MOMA because they can’t be arsed to tackle the bloody jobsworthies on the way in.
