Kinder Scout

Me looking prepared at the start

As well as doing the lovely, relaxed, easy walk of the Great Ridge, we had to do something on Kinder Scout, this is an area that has such history in the UK. It was here that saw the mass trespassing that ensured we still have access to these great wild areas of the country. The UK is really a nation of ramblers and this trespass ensured we still have places to ramble. This walk was held in much more miserable conditions than the one on the great ridge, even taking into account the hail storms. It was meant to be only 14km, but through poor weather, poor paths and a lack of compass it ended up being a bit longer, about 4kms longer.

It was here that I actually got a bit nervous for the first time in the UK. If we were less fit, or less prepared, things could have gone a bit bad. It seems that the Mountain Rescue team do a lot of callouts for lost walkers on the plateau. And having been up there in really bad weather, I can certainly see how easy that would be. If you want tricky navigation, the Kinder Scout plateau is definitely a good challenge. And it's only 630m high or so, goes to show you that it's not necessarily elevation that causes issues. I would definitely go back to this place, but with a compass next time, it was so incredibly wild, and with a tinge of danger, and only 2 hours from London. That's pretty awesome!

The threatening skies - this was when we could still see.

If you like a good bog too, this is the place to go. It was quite incredible, pulling yourself up onto the peat blobs. I don't even know how to describe them, but these tussocks would be almost as high as me, and you would have to pull yourself onto them, there was no way around. And just so much mud. I was kind of expecting a path, across the plateau, but once you leave the edges there really is nothing, no people, no paths, no view. I don't really have many photos from the second part of the walk, since once we left the edge it became a bit more strenuous and I got a bit tired.

The sheep, safe in their fields

Our walk took us up Jacobs Ladder, so you start off wandering through fields with little lambs, and it's all quite pleasant. And then you get to the top and the cloud is super low, there is snow everywhere and the wind is really quite strong. On this first part of the walk there were quite a few people around, I guess because the paths were so good at this point. So we are still feeling pretty comfortable and relaxed. We were thinking we were going to be finished this walk in no time!

There are also all these great rock formations along the edge of the escarpment, they really look kind of mystical, as if giants had something to do with them. All around is just this boggy heather stuff, and then every now and again there are these massive rock piles. The route I had originally planned meant we would avoid most of the big rock piles, but luckily, with our lack of compass we got to do them as well. We carried on around the edge of the plateau until we got to Kinder Downfall, it's a waterfall, the names are really weird in this part. But the wind was so strong a lot of the water was actually blowing upwards. That was pretty cool.

Some of the weird rock formations in the distance

Kinder Downfall, with the water flowing up

This was when it then got a bit dodgy, the map I had suggested there was a path across the plateau to complete the loop where we started. We had also got a bit complacent with the great paths we have seen before in the UK, so hadn't bothered with a compass. Big mistake. The path was almost entirely non-existent, you were just searching for foot prints really. We were following a water course, so perhaps the water was higher than usual and had covered what path there normally is. Or perhaps it's so boggy up there, that paths just don't last. We were always going to be ok though, we had the map and knew so long as we veered more one direction than the other we would eventually hit the escarpment edge again. You didn't want to veer the other way, as you would have ended up parallel to the edge, and that would not have been good. The weather had really deteriorated at this point too, so we could barely see 50m ahead. All rather fun.

We managed to see some of the rocks in the distance eventually, then it was back along the edge on the other side of Edale. I definitely want to get back there, to explore more of this plateau. Hopefully in better weather.

Statue of Liberty

Classic view

 When you are in New York there is one thing you can't miss, and that's the Statue of Liberty (even though I did miss it last time I was there). This was probably the most touristy thing we did, I doubt you can get more touristy than that. If you are organised you could get tickets to visit either the pedestal or the crown, but it seemed like you needed to be 6 months organised to go up the crown. So we did neither of those things, you can still visit the island though and wander around, which is good in it's own right. Definitely go early, you want to be on one of the first boats, it does take a surprisingly long time to see everything.

It's really massive

There is a bit of history on the island, and it's quite large, so it never feels that crowded. At one point it looked likely that it might not even be erected on the island. The US was in charge of financing the pedestal, while the French would pay for the actual statue. The French were going great guns, with the statue being easily paid for, whilst the US was lagging far behind. The government was refusing to pay anything for it, other cities started to offer to pay in return for the statue being moved to their location. It wasn't until Joseph Pulitzer got involved and said he would publish the names of everyone who contributed in his newspaper that the donations started to flow.

The statue is quite interesting in itself. It was designed by a French sculptor, Bartholdi, but he didn't really know how to erect it. Gustave Eiffel got involved, so the statue is actually a massive tower, with the copper skin just wrapped around it. It was one of the first instances of a structure where the outer walls are not load bearing, which is how a lot of skyscrapers are built nowadays. He actually built the statue before he did the Eiffel Tower. He really got into the tower building.

Getting to and from the island is a real experience in tourist herding, and since everyone has such practise in it, it's pretty smooth. There is a bit of waiting around, and you may think, as you are standing in this massive crush of people, that there is no way you are all going to fit on the boat. But then you all fit, there are never people left behind waiting for the next boat. It's this massive empty shell of a boat, designed for maximum people carrying.

When you buy a ticket to the statue, you get a ticket to the Ellis Island Immigration museum at the same time. This was kind of interesting, I wouldn't spend too long here, but it did have some interesting stuff. It kind of got smashed in hurricane Sandy, and is still recovering, apparently the whole island was submerged. You could tell that a bit from the exhibits, there were a few that were closed and some of it still seemed a bit half-done.

It was here though that I learned that the US was getting on average 1 million immigrants between 1905 and 1914, which is a crazy amount of people arriving. I get why the statue is such a symbol now, there must have been so many people coming past it hoping for a better life. The immigrants arriving in New York would have to first be inspected on Ellis Island, the government wanted to make sure they could support themselves, though only 2% of people arriving were refused entry. Which sounds pretty low, it feels like we allow in many fewer than 98% of people who apply for visas to immigrate nowadays.

As well as the immigration stuff, which was pretty interesting, there was also a bit on the history of the US as a whole. This was about the only museum we found in the whole time we were in New York which actually dealt with the history of the country. There is one thing I remember about this part of the museum, perhaps because it was so harrowing. I had never heard about the Trail of Tears before visiting this place. There was a bit of hoopla in the US lately because they wanted to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 note, replacing Andrew Jackson, and there seemed to be some opposition to this.

Which is incredible when you learn about this Andrew Jackson guy. Apparently he owned 100s of slaves and was the main advocate of the forced relocation policy for the American Indians. It was this policy which led to the Trail of Tears, and we learned about the Cherokee removal in particular. This seemed especially sad, as they were actually using the institutions of the US to protect their land and rights. The supreme court had even agreed with them, saying the individual states couldn't infringe on their rights, but this Andrew Jackson refused to uphold the Supreme Court's ruling and allowed the Cherokee to be forcibly removed. This ended up being something of a death march, with thousands of people dying.

Once I learned this it was very weird to hear so many people defending his position on the note, especially since Harriet Tubman seemed such a hero in comparison.

Universities

Columbia - main square

We visited a few universities whilst in New York, there is Columbia, which I never realised was actually in New York. And we also went to Princeton, not technically in New York, but New Jersey. So ticked off another state, that must be seven by now. Columbia is an amazing university, it's a completely different style to the universities I am used to. The ones in Australia are characterised by massive amounts of space, and the ones in the UK have their age. Whereas Columbia was tightly packed, with these winding passageways between different buildings, crossing roads and surrounded by an impassable fence. You were kind of trapped on the campus, since all the gates were shut, perhaps it wasn't term time or something.

Now that's a library - Columbia University

Of course it's the Philosophy department

The buildings were amazing, par for the course I guess in New York. It definitely felt like a rich campus, but then at $65,000/year I guess that's to be expected. It's kind of weird, because the campus is almost in Harlem, but none of the people who live in Harlem go to this university. We only went to Columbia because we were taking a look at this massive church around the corner, the Cathedral of St John the Divine. Along the wall outside this church had a photography exhibition of poverty in America. So to see all that and then walk almost around the corner to Columbia was a bit of a juxtaposition.

We also went out to Princeton for a night, we weren't planning on spending the night, but then it was just so peaceful there, we thought why not. It was a really pleasant break from New York.

This is another insane campus, it's definitely levels above Columbia. What makes Princeton feel even more crazy, is the journey to get there. There is a train from Penn Station in New York, now that is a depressing train station. You come out of the pee-scented metro, into what really feels like a prison. The ceiling is really low, it's super dark, there's just hordes of homeless people wandering around. And the journey through New Jersey is another level of dystopian future. Imagine massive factories, industrial wasteland, polluted streams and lakes, massive parking lots full of cars, and you are probably still picturing something nicer than what New Jersey actually is. The next stop on from Princeton is Trenton, which is in the top ten of murder cities in America. So yeah, it's a nice train ride.

But then you get off at Princeton, and there is a little tiny train that takes you all the way into the campus. It's only 5 minutes, and the train will wait for everyone getting off the one from New York. Princeton university actually got the train station moved 200 metres so they could build a new arts centre, now that is power.

Don't even know what this department is - but that's an awesome door topper

Princeton is a lovely little town, totally a bubble, it's completely different from everything around it. It's got this little village square surrounded by cute little shops, it's got nice restaurants, it's really clean. And oh so quiet. A couple of illustrations as to how rich this place is, they have these alumni weeks, where the different years try to out-compete with how much money they donate. One year built a lake once, and not just a little lake, but a massive rowing lake. It's so they could be like Cambridge I think. They have an art gallery on campus, free entry, and it's full of Turner's and Monet's, Warhol. It's crazy, and there's hardly anyone in there, for such great art. And it's all been donated by various alumni. It really is a different place. I can't even imagine what it's like to go to undergraduate there.

The Peak District

Looking along the great ridge

We haven't been to the peak district in an awfully long time. It was one of the first national parks we visited when arriving in the UK, and it was probably time to return. Last time we tried for a walk around Edale, which ended early when I upended myself into a freezing stream. That wasn't going to happen this time.

I was keen to do some good walks here, it was too early for the Lake district, so I was hoping the Peaks delivered. This time we were firmly in the dark peak district, the region around Kinder Scout, we had done a bit in the white peaks, which is more rolling hills and farmland, so I was hoping it was going to be a bit wilder. It certainly didn't disappoint, I had my first slightly nervous moments in England during this weekend.

Weird sinkholes in the dark peaks

Looking across to Kinder Scout

I had forgotten how easy it is to get to the peaks from London, a 2 hour train trip on Friday, up to Manchester, then an hours drive to get to Edale, the heart of the peaks. We started the weekend with a nice easy ridge walk. This has to be a classic peak district walk, it's along the great ridge, over Mam Tor, with a view over Kinder Scout rising up on the other side of Edale. This is a really easy walk too, with easy exit points, and a great path the whole way. Definitely one of the first to do I think. You can always extend and make a loop if you want as well, there are so many paths and ways around that you could walk for as long as you like really.

A great view at any angle

Looking towards Back Tor

There was still a surprising amount of snow around. I was thinking since we were much further south, that most of it would have melted. But even walking we still had hail storms to contend with, luckily the stones weren't too big. This walk had a lot of people that looked completely unprepared, I'm talking jeans and no rain gear. There were even people in t-shirts, and it was freezing. They sure breed them tough up north.

I took an awful lot of photos, but the view was pretty stunning. Kinder Scout was covered in snow, and there kept being these breaks in the wind.

Kinder Scout - covered in snow

Last one of this view

The Buildings of New York

St Patrick's Cathedral

If there is one thing New York really has over every other city, it's awesome buildings. I always feel like I'm in a Batman movie when I'm there. The architecture is just so great, with this weird fascist undertone. We went up the Rockefeller centre, which is right in midtown, and has a great view over the Empire State building. That is definitely worth a trip, and it's so set up for tourists that it's a total breeze getting up there. Though you do have to sit through a cheesy photo shoot before they let you get into the elevator.

We also went across the Brooklyn bridge, this is another must-do on the tourist list. It is a great view back to the city, but they don't tell you that the speeding cars are only a metre or so away, and since everyone else has the same idea, it is completely packed. I wonder if you lived in New York, whether you would ever use this bridge to commute as a cyclist, it looks like an exercise in frustration. We didn't go all the way along, it is surprisingly long, but you can get to halfway pretty easily. The construction is pretty cool, with the big pillars and suspension wires.

View from Brooklyn bridge

Inside Grand Central

You also can't miss central station, this is another great building, it was actually surprisingly empty for the main train station. There is a lot of room to wander around and at night, it really does look good. We did a lot of wandering around New York in the evenings, I was getting a bit smashed at work whilst I was there, so we didn't have a lot of time during the week. But just wandering around for 40 minutes or so after work was a really nice way to destress.

I was surprised the Chrysler building wasn't open for visits, it has to be my favourite building, and has got to be super iconic. You could take a look in the lobby, which was different from what I expected, but that was it. There were no trips to the top or anything like that. I think I was expecting chrome and maybe a soaring atrium, instead it was super low ceilinged with this dark red marble everywhere. It made it feel a bit claustrophic inside, which is not the feeling I get from the outside.

The unexpected lobby of the Chrysler

The 70s stylings in the UN

We also got along to the UN, this was a bit of an adventure to get inside. First you have to go across the road to get visitor badges, they take a photocopy of your id before you get the badge. But the guards doing it are super nice, very friendly and joking, which I wasn't expecting. I was thinking this was going to be high security, very suspicious, and if you weren't the "right" nationality they would give you the third degree.  I suppose that isn't really the feeling the UN is going for, so they must really train these guards well, to do their job without slipping into the authoritarian role that happens to so many of them.

The UN wasn't sitting, so there were no flags flying, and it was actually really quiet. I'm not sure what it's like when all the delegates are hanging around. It must be pandemonium. It's a very 70's building, what with the decor inside, there wasn't a lot to see inside. There was some exhibition around what the UN is doing around sustainable farming and the like, but that was kind of it.

Unusual statue

There are a bunch of cool churches in New York as well, mainly full of homeless people, I guess it's somewhere free, out of the weather. The main St Patrick's Cathedral was quite impressive, but I actually preferred the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine, weird name I know. It's close to Columbia University, and is massive. But it's got this different vibe to it as well. There was this super weird statue in the gardens next to it, and some unusual art exhibition going on inside at the same time. It felt like this church was trying hard to remain relevant to the community. It's not often that there are weird bird statues on the altar, it was almost pagan.

Pagan altar

Appalachian Trail

Wildflowers in the Smokys

We visited a new state when we were in the US, North Carolina. It was my first truly southern state (Arizona didn't feel as south as this one). Not sure I'll be back, there were still confederacy flags flying, not sure I can handle that. We were there for the Great Smoky mountains. Staying in Asheville, which was actually a much nicer town than I thought it would be. Apparently it is the beer capital of the US, though perhaps they were the only entrant. But there were something like 15 breweries actually in the city centre with maybe another 40 in the surrounding area. Which is a lot of breweries. It definitely had quite a hippy, youthful vibe. Not the decaying town that I imagined it would be. The reason we went to the Smokys is that they are apparently the most visited of all the US national parks. I was really surprised at that, but it gets the most visitors by far, more than the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone. So it was kind of like, well we have to go there.

The trees starting to blossom

We went incredibly early in the season, though it was still lovely and warm. It just meant that the trees weren't completely covered in leaves yet. We were there for 7 days, which was such a great time to be out in the wild for. And this was actually pretty remote, we saw other people on maybe 3 of those days. We shared the campsite for one night. It was pretty amazing. And given there were no pit toilets anywhere, I was pretty glad to not be sharing. Only downside was that we didn't see any bears. We did see 2 deer twice, I think they were the same deer hoping for us to give them scraps. The campsites every night were amazing, on the banks of rushing creeks. It was such a change from New York, and I think I slept so much better in the bush than I ever did in the 4 weeks in New York.

We got some views

I was also surprised at how unmaintained the trails were, I was used to trails being as close to footpaths as you could get whilst still being in the bush. The US national park trails were normally clear of obstacles and fairly smooth. Well the Smokys certainly blew that assumption out of the water. The first day we had to walk along a river, so crossing inlets, and jumping from slippery rock to slippery rock. Then when we weren't bouncing around like that, we were having to dodge massive fallen trees. Some of them were huge, with no way over or under. The first day probably had the worst trail conditions, what with the river navigation and the fallen trees. The first day is always the hardest anyway, since your packs are the heaviest and you are getting re-conditioned to the walking.

Navigating the river rocks

It was particularly bad for one of the group's participants, the trip we had chosen was the hardest you could do, averaging 13kms a day, with a bit of up and down. And this quite old guy had signed up to do it. He really struggled that first day, just couldn't keep his balance on the rocks, and really went down quite hard. Coming into camp we were averaging something like half a mile per hour, which was pretty slow. The guide had to pull the pin on him, another guide had to trek in 8 miles to pick him up early the next morning and walk out with him. I was really wondering what were going to do if he was insistent on staying. We would have had to take all his stuff as well really, since there was no way he could have done the walk and still carried what he was meant to. I've never seen that before on these walks, generally people know what they can do, he had an impressive level of confidence to think that he could do it. I wish I had that level of confidence, the ability to just go out there and think you can do something which you are so unprepared for. The guide had also probably not packed enough food, so it was a bit of a blessing that this dude had to abandon the walk. It would have been a bit of a hungry 7 days if he had kept coming.

Our path was on the other side of this

More flowers

We had another young lady with us too, who I don't think had ever really done these long walks before. I think she actually suffered a lot more than she let on, it seemed her achilles started to really hurt. I've been there, I've had ITB problems on walks, and it really sucks, these weird tendon pains. You don't really know if you are doing more damage, and each step is just painful. She was probably worried that the guide would ask her to leave if she let on too much. But then I also think that youth really helps in these situations, there's nothing like youth for not needing to train and still being able to keep up. She was quite impressive, never having really camped before, and her first introduction is a 7 day hiking trip, with no toilets. I'm not sure that I would have carried on camping if that was my first introduction to the outdoors. But she seemed to really love it, and had already planned her next trip to Utah (that is definitely going to be one of my next parks).

Visiting the park when we did was, I think, a really good time to go, the trees weren't yet covered in leaves, they were just starting to come through on the last half of the walk. It was kind of cool to be out there at that time, you could watch the leaves budding on the trees. The first day there was no hint of leaves, and yet on the last day, all the trees were starting to show some green, and even red. I think if you went in summer if would be quite a different experience, for a start you wouldn't actually be able to see anything. The forest is really thick, and the trees all having leaves would be quite claustrophobic, you really wouldn't get any views. It would also be unbelievably hot. It was already quite warm when we did it, and that was barely spring. Summer must be unbearable. I think autumn would be another good time to visit, the autumn leaves would be spectacular in this park, and it would be a bit cooler. I think either early spring or autumn are the peak times to visit this place. We had all these little wildflowers out, which added something as well. I don't think you would get them at a different time.

It felt pretty wild

I was also kind of hopeful for bears, since they should have been waking up around this time, and with cubs to feed too. But no such luck. They were a bit more blase about the bears here, I guess because they were only black bears, no grizzlies. We had someone from Montana hiking with us, they have grizzlies there, and he was always a bit more nervous around the campsites. The sites were quite different from Glacier, where you had the food storage, cooking and eating areas that were completely separate, and a long way from where you camped. Whereas here, whilst you still didn't have food in your tents, it wasn't like you were a long way from the cooking area when you slept. I think if you grew up with grizzlies that sort of behaviour would make you a bit nervous.

Dave chilling at a campsite

The Appalachian trail goes through this national park, we didn't end up walking any of the trail, partly because of the achilles problem. There were two choices on the last day, 3000ft up and down, or a flatish walk along the lake. And I don't think the achilles would have survived that sort of elevation change. I can't say I was too disappointed, it would have been a freaking tough last day. We ended up finishing around lunchtime, and totally demolishing the food available.

But even so there was still quite some food left. And we were sitting in the car park, with the food just out on a table, and we were obviously all walkers. I can't say I have ever been too keen to do any of these super long-distance walks. I like a bit of variety in my life. But after seeing the walkers we did, I am even less keen. They were like starving dogs. They would see the food from afar, and come over to ask some pointless question, just so they could get closer to the food. They weren't even looking at us, they were totally focused on the food. Then once we had answered and they were walking on, their eyes remained on the food. It was quite freaky to watch. Dinner time must be a very strange experience on the trail, everyone keeping track of everyone else's food.

A lovely bridge - still maintained in parts

The guide we had was pretty good, still pretty new to the guiding thing. But very upbeat, and super good at lighting fires. He used to be a firefighter, I'm not sure if that automatically means you will know how to light fires, but I was super impressed. There was only one night we didn't have a fire, the first one. The rest of the nights had a fire every time. Even the night where it rained for 2 hours once we had put up the tents, he managed to get a fire going then. He told us exactly which tree to gather from, and I was all like, well I'm only going to get a little bit, because there's no way anyone could get this burning, it was pretty sodden, and yet he did, we had this great fire. 

New York Museums

El Greco - new favourite

New York really does have a lot of museums, and we were there long enough to visit quite a few. The other cool thing is that a lot of them have pay-what-you-wish times. They are really expensive otherwise, the Met is $25/person. But actually that is meant to be a suggested payment, since it doesn't pay rent, and is taking up a significant amount of Central Park. Just before we arrived the museum had settled one of the lawsuits against it, around these ticket prices. So we felt a lot more comfortable not paying the "suggested" ticket price.

The trick with this museum is definitely to get there early, and choose what you want to see, it is massive. To see everything in a day would be incredibly tiring. We focused on a few things, like the American and more contemporary art, and I quite enjoyed that. Though even in the older paintings I discovered a new favourite, El Greco, I had never heard of this guy before, but he was painting at the end of the 1500's and yet his art looked incredibly modern. It was so different from everything else of the same time, if you are looking for evidence of time travel, this definitely has to be included.

Performance art at MoMa

We also went to MoMa as well, that is another great museum. I'd been there before, but it's definitely one you can go back to. They always seem to be in the process of installing art in their rooms, I've never seen it completely full. Perhaps it never is. But it is always a good day, for what is open, and the sculpture garden is always great.

The waterfall at the 9/11 memorial

The new World Trade Centre

There is a new museum, or rather a memorial, where the World Trade centre towers used to be. They have built massive fountains where the towers used to stand, or rather waterfalls, in that the water is just flowing down into deep holes, with the names of everyone who died inscribed around it. It's quite effective. The museum is interesting, it's a massive area, which is quite empty. There are some of the original metal foundations, and twisted fire trucks that were damaged when the towers collapsed. Then there is a separate section going through the day of the attack, and the response immediately afterwards, as well as a little bit about aftermath. It feels this section could be a bit larger, since it's completely rammed, and there is nobody else in the area outside it.

It's definitely worth a visit, it was quite moving and such a pivotal moment in recent history. It has a different feel to Hiroshima, which is very sorrowful and more about never letting this happen again. The 9/11 memorial has a different feel at the moment, perhaps that will change over the decades to come. It also costs an awful lot to visit, $24 versus about a pound to visit the Peace museum in Hiroshima. It does give the place a strange feeling, apparently they don't get any federal funds to run the place, so I suppose they have to charge a lot. There was a bit of an out-cry over the gift shop too. So yeah, definitely a different feel.

Sculpture at MoMa

On a lighter note, we also went to the Frick Collection, which had another of those pay-as-you-wish times, I love those museums. This place was really great, it's this old house that was turned into a museum. It was owned by one of those American robber barons, who loved art, and spent a fortune collecting, but he collected things that he liked, rather than a fully curated collection. The house is pretty cool too, right on 5th avenue opposite Central Park. It's not often that you get to go inside one of these grand, old American houses. It may not be on most tourists radars, since it was a lot quieter than the Met or MoMa. It meant that you could really get close to the art works.

One of the last museums we visited was the museum of American finance. I surprisingly enjoyed this, perhaps it's because of my job. But they went over the history of the stock market and the commodities markets. Basically finance has been a constant series of bubbles and crashes. Over and over, and after each one they brought in all these regulations to address that one flaw, and then something else went bust next time. It was quite a cool building to visit, right next to Wall street, and they had some interesting stuff in it; gold bars, commodities, jewellery, any thing you could attach value to.

Gold-plated monopoly at the Finance museum - of course

We also went to the Whitney museum, this is just for American art, it was originally the collection of another rich American, one of the Vanderbilt's. It's in this fantastic new building, on the Hudson river and the start of the Highline park. It is a massive collection, with a couple of rotating exhibitions. I would definitely recommend the audio guide, and they also had almost constant tours in some of the rooms. That was a great idea, it was only short, maybe 30 mins, but quite frequently, a guide would start talking about some of the works, and you could just follow if you wanted. I'm surprised more museums don't do this, it makes the art so much more accessible.

We then finished with a stroll along the Highline, I can see why people rave about it, this is a great park. I wasn't expecting much, but they have done it really well, it's not particularly wide, being the old railway line. But in New York, where there is hardly any greenery to speak of, it's a nice break. And being able to cruise for kilometres without waiting at traffic lights is a real pleasure. I imagine in summer it is completely jammed, there are sculptures all along, and lots of seats, and a few lawn areas. I can see why people are keen for something similar in London.

An exhausting beginning

View from the Top of the Rock

The first couple of months of this year have been fairly insane. In the first four months of this year we have only been at home for six weekends. I think it's time for an extensive home consolidation period. This was partly due to me having the chance to work from New York for a month. I couldn't say no to that after all! New York was an interesting experience. I know it's one of the great cities of the world, I just really don't think I could live there long-term. It was a bit overwhelming. Sooo many homeless people, and so much trash, it's a crazy city. You would think living in London would prepare you for living in New York, but I don't think anything can really prepare you. There are just so many people and very few green spaces. I mean sure you have Central Park, but that's really kind of it, if you were further south on the island, there really wasn't much else in the way of greenery. Not even just random sidewalk trees. That I think was one of the big differences for me, not having green spaces to escape to. And don't get me started on their public transport.

Very tall

Grand Central at night

You would think Manhattan would be made for public transport, and sure it's cheap on a per-ride basis, but you can easily spend $10 a day if you go out to 2 places. I know New Yorkers go on about how great their metro is, but it's really not. I feel a bit sorry for them, not realising how much better it could be. Do they realise there are metros in other cities where there aren't rats frolicking in the disgusting, stagnant tunnel water, that it is possible to convey information to travellers at the stations and on the trains. I thought subway design was a solved problem, but in New York it's this weird dystopian joke. They are providing this service to you, but kicking you at the same time. I suppose public transport is bordering on socialism, that must make them very uncomfortable. And when there are lines down over the weekend it very quickly degenerates into chaos, with tourists wandering the stations trying to find any sort of information as to how to get where they want to go. I feel the way the MTA staff treats you is symptomatic of the US society as a whole, where if everything is working it's great, nothing to worry about. But as soon as you fall, forget it, you are on your own. You want to get uptown, figure it out yourself loser. It's your fault for not working it out.

Central Park - most weekends the weather was wonderful

But the food was amazing, there is no comparison there. London really has to pull up its socks in that regard. We really got into Yelp, it's so good in New York, if you chose any place with at least 4 stars and a few hundred reviews, you knew it was going to be good. And there were so many of those places around. I have to say, I did eat a lot of burgers whilst I was there.

The buildings are a little fascist

We were staying right in midtown, just a few blocks from Time Square, which I think certainly coloured our view of the city. Most people do not live mid-town, but then I did get to walk to work, and we were only 9 blocks from Central Park, which was awesome. But the noise really got to me, before going to New York I thought I lived on a bit of a noisy street, we'll get one or two cars going past in the evening. But oh man, mid-town is a different level. We were on the 15th floor, and it was still sirens all night long and the traffic never stopped. It was quite incredible. When I got back to London I thought my ears had stopped working, it was so quiet, you almost had this ringing in my ears because they were so used to noise. After New York we spent 6 nights in the bush, with nobody else around, and even camping I had a better night sleep. I think people actually buy noise machines, to try and cancel out the sirens. I just can't imagine that.

Pretty street in Harlem

The first weekend we were there we did a walking tour in Harlem, this I think was our only really organised tour the whole time we were there. It was quite interesting, I'd never been to Harlem before, and it's completely different from mid-town. It's a bit strange, you get on the subway in mid-town and it's all white people, then you go a few stops north and come out, and there are no white people around, and the buildings are all much shorter. I needed to go to the bathroom, but there didn't seem to be a place to go, but there was a hospital across the road, and hospitals normally have bathrooms somewhere. So we go in, and for a moment I thought I was in a prison, it was all weird dirty green tiles, no reception, just a security guard, and bars everywhere. No bathroom, one of the strangest hospitals I've ever been in.

The walking tour was pretty good, the buildings in Harlem are surprisingly decorative, and you get whole streets of the same houses, with the same decorative facade. I wonder how long Harlem will remain as it is, and whether it is in the process of gentrification. It is quite close to the city after all, and it seems still quite medium density.

Norway - Round Two

A beautiful spot to ski

The call of Norway and more cross-country skiing could not be ignored for long. This is an activity I think I really want to keep doing. And since a lot of the people you see participating are at least 60 years old, it does bode well for the future. We wanted to go to Lillehammer for our second Norway trip, it seems to have unbelievable cross-country trails, and is quite easy to get to from Oslo. It turns out that the weekend we wanted to go was also when the youth Winter Olympics where on, so rather than be shown up on the trails, we decided to go somewhere else.

We ended up in Geilo which is a little ski resort half-way between Oslo and Bergen. The train trip to get there is an event in it's own right, since you are travelling through some amazing scenery, and so much snow!!!

I think we really started to cement our cross-country skills on this trip, we were still sticking with classic skiing. This is the super dorky looking style where you kick your leg back to get propulsion. The first day was a bit of a struggle, just trying to get the technique perfected a bit more. There was this awesome loop around this frozen lake, including a world-class biathlon course at the end, which we could walk to from the hotel. It ended up being 15km around, which was quite a ways given our technique is not that great.

A church by the lake

Great weather for a ski

The scenery was beautiful, but I was spending most of my time trying to get a good glide happening. You really want a nice glide, otherwise it's just an exhausting shuffle. Luckily the weather was beautiful for it, we ended up going around this lake quite a few times on our stay there. It was a good place to practise without anything too scary, plus it was also a nice place to be.

We got to see a biathlon in progress too, that was pretty cool, but man that looks like a high-intensity spot. They are full on sprinting around the course, and they are going faster than you could run, it really is incredible their speed. Then they have to come in, still on their skis, lie down, and shoot three targets. It looks insane. And yet school kids would come out to this course and that seemed to be their PE for the day. No wonder these people all look so healthy. Their national sport is something almost equivalent to marathon running.

The hut in the middle of nowhere

As well as this awesome lake route, we also went up into the mountains for a wilder experience. This was really great, you were really out in the country-side, no roads or houses, just skiing through forests and fields. Then halfway round the loop there is this hut selling hot chocolates, tea, coffee, soup and chocolate. With this super old lady in there who didn't speak any English (our first instance of this happening). I'm not sure how she got out there, I assume she skied, which is really quite incredible.

Where are we?

On the way back it was a bit of a white-out, heaps of snow falling. Luckily the trail was well-groomed, and there were heaps of people about. So it wasn't like we were about to ski off the trail. It was definitely the best day we had skiing, and I feel a lot more confident about trying more of this style next time, getting out into the country-side a bit more.

We also had a long discussion about skis with the hire person. I think we definitely have to at least try skate-skiing, which is kind of like inline skating, but with skis. And they also have mountain skis, which are a bit thicker and heavier than classic cross-country skis, but you have more control with the snow plowing. They look a bit more like alpine skis. So many options, and winters are so short! I'm almost looking forward to next winter to get back out there!

The frozen lake - was a bit freaky crossing this - you could hear grinding