'New York, New York so great they named it twice'

When ever I heard that quote I always thought “ye, ye sure it is”. But I have to admit it is true, I love New York, it has become one of my favourite cities. Within seconds of my feet hitting the sidewalk I felt I could live here. Of course that was before I realised how much it actually costs to live here, but still I can dream.



Another bonus of New York was catching up with family and friends. My mum and dad came to stay for a week and Willow moved into their hotel room, it was great to see them and we had a great time while they where here. We met up with friends who now live in New York (some I hadn't seen for about 10 years) and some who just came to visit.

Even Willow loved city life, though living in a built up area is always helped if you can find a small space to escape from it occasionally, though small space is not how you would describe Central Park. I could have visited every day we were here and still not explored it all or got bored. When my mum and dad visited we did the tourist thing and went on a horse drawn taxi ride and spent time at the play park, actually Willow spent a few days having fun there. While my mum and dad visited we tried to fit a few of the touristy type things in that do need to be done at some point, like a cruise down The Hudson River, floating right by Miss Liberty herself. Willow spent a lot of time with them doing the bus tours and I expect she saw lots of New York I didn't see.



Willow didn't have that much school while we where here, we had lots of other 'educational' things to do. She fitted in enough hours to fit her quota though and how many children can say they have been to a school inside Madison Square Gardens.

Hitting the shops is also a compulsory activity so had to fit quite a bit of that in also. The 5 floor M&M store seemed a hit with certain people as did the tallest Toys R Us Store that was big enough to have a full size ferris wheel in it. Times Square in general was a hit with Willow but was a nightmare if you needed to get from one side to the other. Another must is The Museum of Natural History and we left it till the last day but I'm so glad we managed to get there as it was loads of fun.



We also managed to get to the theater a few times without child and pretended to be real adults for the evening. The Family Dimitri was a really nice show and Tweedy was pleased to meet Dimitri, we met Dimitri and his son David again when we went to Waiting for Godot a few weeks later as well. Waiting for Godot is a brilliant show about nothing, with a brilliant cast that makes that nothing so important. Bill Erwin (Vladimir), Nathan Lane (Estragon), John Goodman and John Glover.

There where also quite a few parties while we were here, all good fun!





I was sad to leave New York and a little worried that the next stop would be really flat but at least the train ride out was interesting as we had a house guest in the shape of a little puppy named Magic.