Curtains

It's time to go home. I'm ready now; Bruce has been ready (note tense change!) for some time.

Three days in San Francisco have given us a glimpse of life on the West coast. The hills, the bridges, the cable cars, the yachts and ferries on the bay...yes, it's beautiful, and so like Wellington, on a larger scale, of course. And my first view of the Pacific Ocean was surprisingly emotional after two months away from NZ. Not helped by the fact that my lungs were on fire after pedalling up a steep incline. But we've also seen more people living rough on the streets here than in any other large city on this trip. California Dreamin'? Not for these guys.

But we've had fun...

... On bikes: our Blazing Saddles (geddit?) rentals took us all over and up and down the streets and through the parks of San Francisco. Then we braved the wind gusts to cycle over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. Thankfully, we joined the dozens of other cyclists who made the evening return trip via ferry.

Houseboat letterboxes, Sausalito

... On cables cars and trams: What's not to like about a city where it's OK for intrepid commuters and sightseers to hang from the outside of vintage cable cars as they trundle up and down steep streets?

... And on ferries: The city is proud of its beautiful, bustling harbour. The ferries are an integral part of its transportation system as well as tourist magnets so we've made the most of the chance to get onto the water.

Cute couple

We lose a day travelling home...August 28 will disappear into a space-time continuum...er dateline thingy. Fortunately, August 27 survived the black hole. Otherwise, how else would we have celebrated 35 years of marriage? 

Thank you 
This blog has been an interesting experiment. It's allowed me to reflect on as well as record our travel experiences.  So, thank you, dear readers (I'm assuming it's OK to use the plural!), for participating. It has also made me realise how much the writer needs an audience. Not that I obsessively peruse the blog's stats  (... but there have been 10 page views from Russia, just so you know!)

And thanks to my ever-patient spouse, who now turns and smiles in a Pavlovian way whenever I produce the camera from my bag. And who has never complained at his appearance in short shorts and long shorts in this blog.

Looking forward to seeing you in NZ soon!

Peeps
xxx

New York Songbook

Ladies and gentlemen, I present a Magical Mystery Tour of the Big Apple...

Actually, the inspiration for this sprang from travelling on the subway to and from Manhattan, using the express - the A Train (see my previous post); credit, too, to Bruce who has been conducting his own personal musical pilgrimage around the city in recent days. Thank you, o muse!

The journey begins in Central Park. Beatles aficionados - and readers of a certain vintage -  will recognize the reference in the blog's intro. And, of course, John Lennon was murdered in 1985 outside his apartment right across the road from this gigantic patch of green in Manhattan. This area of the park is now a Lennon memorial - Strawberry Fields - and attracts huge numbers of fans.(Hear the song: Strawberry Fields). Mark Chapman was in the news just the other day: his request for parole was declined again...

Central Park was also the venue for Simon and Garfunkel's short-lived reunion, in front of 500,000 fans. This was a benefit concert in 1981, to raise funds to restore Central Park to its former splendour. The pair weren't ready to repair their relationship, though, so they continued their separate careers for many more years.

A rare photo of the author!

We hired bikes to circumnavigate Central Park, joining thousands of others on a warm Sunday afternoon. It is a fabulous green space, about twice the size of Hagley Park, and filled with all sorts of different ways to interact with nature and other humans.

After returning the bikes, we sat on bleachers to watch a scratch game of softball, played by blokes of a certain vintage.

The next song has a more tenuous link with New York. Van Morrison's 'Coney Island' is actually in County Down, Northern.Ireland. It's a shame to let truth stand in the way of a good story, though, so - thanks, Van. (Hear the song: Coney Island).

One of Coney Island's many 'attractions' ...

We took a rattling subway train out to the peninsula of Coney Island, to the south of Brooklyn. It's an area that has been in decline after the glory years of amusement parks. But New York City has been sympathetic to its history. Some of the classic rides, such as The Cyclone, have been preserved as non-working exhibits. And there's a long stretch of white sand beach, accessed by an equally long boardwalk.

Guess who wants this t-shirt?

The pier is where serious fishing takes place. Whole families were camped there as we whiled away time there..and some were even catching fish.

The signs warning pregnant women and young children NOT to eat fish caught from the wharf were somewhat off-putting though.

Simon and Garfunkel are indelibly linked with another New York landmark, the 59th Street Bridge, which crosses the East River to link Manhattan with Queens. Though it would win no prizes for 'succinct song title of the year', the '59th St Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)'  must surely be the world's happiest song. (Here it is: Feeling Groovy)

It wasn't easy to make the pilgrimage over the 59th St Bridge. We made two attempts but both times the subway lines travelled UNDER the river. Hmmm. But we did think of the bridge and its song as we rumbled along underwater.

Our final destination was more of a stumble than a planned pilgrimage.The Hotel Chelsea, now a faded has-been that's no longer open for business, was once THE hotel of choice for your bohemian-type writers, actors and musicians.

Dylan Thomas died there, Leonard Cohen wrote a song about doing unmentionable things there with Janis Joplin, Arthur C Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while staying there ... Wikipedia has all the details but the hotel was certainly a place of significant influence in its time. Even Madonna has called the hotel home.

Speaking of Cohen, I'm a bit of a fan, something I've come to later in life. (I used to think him way too depressing.) And I'm married to a mega-fan who has always appreciated Lennie's limited vocal range and clever-clever lyrics. We've seen him perform live in NZ, twice. He's mesmerizing on stage, and I'd rate his performance as the best live concert I've seen. Especially given that he is now in his late 70s.

But what on earth is he going on about? In keeping with the musical motif in this NYC blog, here's an extract from Cohen's 'First We Take Manhattan':

And I thank you for those items that you sent me
The monkey and the plywood violin
I practiced every night, now I'm ready
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

CODA
The highlight of our stay in New York, and the reason for including the city on our travels, has been the opportunity to see three Broadway shows.

Porgy and Bess was an unforgettable experience. So many of the the show's songs are well-known and have been covered by a multitude of artists. But to hear them in the context of the show's storyline, and sung by talented artists with an enviable vocal range, was a truly special experience.

I didn't know what to expect from Jersey Boys. Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons have never graced our CD collection. It was a high-energy performance that told the story of the band effectively from different narrative points of view. And they certainly churned out catchy hit tunes. It was great fun.

Our final show, a matinee this afternoon, was different again. Newsies tells the story (loosely based on an actual event) of the boys who sold papers in New York City at the turn of last century. It has a young cast, mostly just graduated from performing arts schools and mostly male. No big names, no recognisable hit songs...yet. But a fabulous show.

That's it, folks. Showtime is over. The curtain has come down on NYC. We leave the city tomorrow morning in a rental car for a couple of days exploring upstate. Time for some big skies and wide open spaces.

A brave new world

Landing at JFK following our short time in rural Cornwall was quite a shock. And, after some days here, the city and its people continue to surprise us. It's almost a different planet.

The flight from Heathrow was a long and winding road...oops, a long and tedious journey - made so much worse by the two-plus sweltering hours we waited in line before reaching the immigration counter. That's what happens when more than 500 people are disgorged from just one airliner at one of the world's busiest airports. In the middle of summer. It was not pleasant.

Then the trek to our Brooklyn apartment began.  Not for us the sanitized, movie set Big Apple experience. Oh, no. No mid-town hotels with door-opening flunkies either. We are staying out east in a part of Brooklyn that must be close to gentrification. Not quite yet, though! We have the street level floor of a brownstone in a row of brownstones that stretches unbroken the length of the street. Small windows at front and rear, brick walls either side ...cosy.

Home - Macon St, Brooklyn

But it's home for the week. And with our $29 seven-day Metrocards, it's only a 20 minute A Train ride to Manhattan. This was a serendipitous discovery. This subway line was the inspiration for the classic jazz number 'Take the A Train', one we know and love from Simon's early piano playing years. (Hear it here: A Train)

Staying in the 'burbs is an education as well as good exercise. (Though to call Brooklyn a suburb is doing it a great injustice: 2.7 million people inhabit this corner of New York City.) The nearest subway station is about 15 minutes' walk through an urban landscape that's indeed light years away from Cambridge, NZ. 

In this summer heat, people are living outdoors, often perched on their front steps or heading to the grocery/deli stores, broom cupboard sized shops found on each corner. Rubbish piles up on street corners. Rubbish pickers work their recycling magic.  And there are churches on each block. 

I found this (right) to be a sobering message. There is hope, though. This year's homicide rate is down to under one murder a day, the lowest since crime stats were released in the 1960s.

There were 515 murders in the city last year. 

This is clearly not the New York of Woody Allen and Carrie Bradshaw...

 

The Richards' sightseeing checklist is progressing nicely:

• Empire State Building - check.
• Statue of Liberty - check
• Times Square - check
• Broadway show - check (it was 'Porgy and Bess' - fabulous!) but we ain't finished yet
• Wall St - check
• Coney Island - check
• Central Park - check

...but more of this next blog.  

I came across these words of wisdom today. The presentation is a little rough around the edges but the sentiment is pure "Sex and the City", don't you think?

London, you beauty!

Even I thought that going to London for the Olympics this year was a brave move (read 'silly idea'). It would be crowded. The transport system wouldn't cope. The city would be a terrorist target. Too  expensive...weather too awful...the Games organisation too little, too late...

London 2012 was none of these things, I'm happy and relieved to report.  In the post-Olympics euphoria, the British press are waxing lyrical about Mayor Boris, about Team GB and about the haul of medals, its best since London 1908. The nation's new heroes are Mo Farah, (5000m/10,000m double) Jess Ennis (heptathlon), Victoria Pendleton (golden cyclist) - and many, many more.

And well-deserved waxing it is. We enjoyed our Olympic experience immensely.

There has been a vast improvement in transport since our last visit: more Underground lines, a new Overground service, the Docklands Light Rail (look, Mum, no drivers!) expanded, the fast Javelin trains, the sleek new St Pancras International station that services these fast trains...

There were a couple of very crowded train trips. The one to Eton Dorney rowing venue, beating even our experience of Tokyo commuter trains, was a very 'up close and personal' 30 minutes. Squashed we may have been, but the conversation was good.

 I've been thinking about what made our experience so enjoyable. These are some of the ingredients:

Team GB spirit

I've already mentioned this but as the Olympics progressed, particularly the athletics events in the stadium, British support for their own was like nothing we had seen before. But in a good way, let me stress. We could not begrudge them their joy and it certainly made for ready conversations on trains and in queues.

One point that the national press picked up on, and hard to disagree with, was the contrast between these sporting role models - Victoria Pendleton, Chris Hoy, 'Wiggo', Mo, Jess and  so many others - and the premier league football stars, whose antics and multi-million pound paychecks have provided so much media fodder over the years.

The volunteers

Dressed in their distinctive pink, red and purple uniforms, armed with loudhailers and big foam hands, they guided, they smiled, they joked, they demanded smiles from us ... and generally helped to make the experience of moving slowly in huge crowds a pleasurable one. Many had come from other parts of Britain to 'do their bit', providing their time and finding their own accommodation.

I have read that the volunteers get to keep their uniforms. Lucky people...that's quite a souvenir.


Home comforts
'Home' was 35 High Mount, Station Rd, Hendon NW4 3SS. It was a five minute walk from the mainline train station, and a little further to an Underground line. Sainsbury's was also within walking distance.

The flat was roomy - there were three of them, in fact - and had everything we needed to live comfortably. On a long trip, the difference between hotel/B & B accommodation and self-catering can't be underestimated.

People

After a month grappling with a foreign language, we were pretty keen to talk to anyone who smiled in our direction when we first stepped off the Eurostar at St Pancras.

So it was a great pleasure to spend time with family and friends.

Bruce's cousin and her husband have lived in London for most of their married lives. They are always welcoming hosts and we have enjoyed seeing them again. They seem to have had a steady stream of Kiwis on their living room floor over the years and take it all in their stride. Thanks, Julie and Richard!

It was so good to spend an evening with Emma Carpenter - dinner and show - and, as an added bonus, to have a drink with Nathan Roa who turned up at the theatre after hitching his way down from Scotland.

And then, we managed to catch up for coffee with another face from the St Peter's archives. Kate Holmes was in London before her bridesmaid duties at Crystal Whitcombe's wedding.

Cornwall postscript

A few fleeting impressions of this definitely different corner of England:

Port Isaac, 'Doc Martin' country

• Yes, real Cornish pasties melt in the mouth, leaving one gasping for more... Did you know (I hope this is true but it's a good story) that this local delicacy was originally made to feed hungry miners? The main course (meat and extras) was wrapped in the pastry and the edges were crimped so that said miners could grasp their meal in their grimy paws to devour the contents. When they were done, the blackened pastry edge was thrown away.
• Cornwall is actually a series of Pay and Display carparks above beautiful, steep, rocky coves with pocket-handkerchief sized beaches. To which people flock in droves (what's a drove? I wonder) to set up base camp for the day. Exhausting to watch!

And, speaking as one with a distinctive accent, it's a real pleasure to hear the Cornish lilt.
 
That's nearly it for GB. One more night in our country hotel outside of Bodmin.We return the car to Heathrow tomorrow. And then a longish flight to New York, via Frankfurt.

Broadway, here we come!

Listen up

'Tis the season for lists, tallies and tips.

There's the big one, of course: the Olympic medal table, impossible to ignore in the Land of Team GB. Little ole NZ is still ahead of Australia on the medal list (tee hee), and leads the world, apparently, on a per capita medal calculation. Team Oceania? I don't think so!

And everyone from Mayor Boris to Transport for London is offering helpful tips to visitors here for the Games.

Under the cafe name, the signpost says Community Toilet Scheme...

After much reflection (and with not a lot else to fill my mind)  I present my own travel must-have list:

I Wouldn't Be Without My...

1. Kindle

We Kindle readers are still a minority on the Underground, but my little black e-reader and I have formed an inseparable bond (which, I guess, means that I haven't managed to lose it yet). It lives in my bag, along with camera and passport, so is always just THERE when I need it. Which means train journeys - Underground, Overground, National Rail, or any combination of ...

2. Free wi-fi

It's such a bonus to be able to travel with immediate internet access. Train times, supermarket opening times, maps, coffee shop locations, following up interesting events seen on billboards, stuff you want to know about places you've just visited ... And - the big one - contact with the rest of the world.

To be honest, all of the aforementioned is a great big smokescreen to cover my internet Scrabble addiction...

3. Teabags
What can I say? We drink an awful lot of tea. And hotel rooms cannot meet our needs. I left home with 100 Dilmah teabags stuffed amongst the socks. In France, we drank yellow Liptons, now we're onto Sainsbury's Fairtrade.

4. Shopping bag

A sturdy hessian model, it lies unassumingly and inoffensively at the bottom of my travel bag until we arrive and unpack at each destination.

It has been to bustling Parisian markets and languid country affairs. It has been inspected at supermarket check-outs on both sides of the Channel.

And, every time it goes on such an outing, I think of the lovely lady who gave it to me ... and of everyone in the English Department/Languages Faculty at St Peter's.

I miss you all! 

Showtime!

I won't be boring you with blow-by-blow accounts of shows we've seen...I've read blogs like that.


But there's a couple worth mentioning. We saw Chicago at the Garrick Theatre this week with the delightful young Emma Carpenter, St Peter's alumnus. She's doing her Gap year at a Croyden school, and comes to the West End whenever she can.  Emma is a talented actor, singer and dancer herself. One day, she will be famous, mark my words!


After the show, Nathan Roa (another ex-StP) turned up at the theatre, backpack and all, having just arrived from Scotland and Newcastle.

I took this at interval, hence the lack of actors on stage!

It was just great to catch up with them both, all so grown up.


The show itself was fabulous. It was a high energy production,  with the story conveyed by dance. Awesome staging, with the orchestra centre stage and an integral part of the show. Go, musos!

When it comes to Shakespearean plays, Richard III is a particular favourite of mine. (I TRY to convey this enthusiasm to my senior classes.) So this performance at the Globe Theatre on the South Bank was a highly anticipated highlight of our stay in London. And we weren't disappointed.

There were some interesting aspects to this performance. Firstly,it was an Original Practices production. That is, it was cast as if in the Elizabethan era, the women's roles played by men. Here on the left, Queen Elizabeth (played by Samuel Barnett) comforts her husband, the King.


And it took me a while to realise that the role of Queen Margaret had been completely cut from the production. If you know the play, you'll agree that this edit cuts down considerably on cursing, wailing and lamentating. Not necessarily a bad thing....


Richard himself was played by the Globe's original artistic director, Mark Rylance. I was somewhat bemused by his manner when he opened the play with Richard's famous soliloquy:


"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York..."


I'm used to Ian McKellen's snarling, vindictive portrayal of the Machiavellian duke in Richard Loncraine's 1995 film. What Mark Rylance gave us was a diffident old man who played his opening speech for laughs. As he did with his manipulative proposal of marriage to Anne in scene 2.

Musicians playing on the balcony

He really played to the audience, especially the 'groundlings' who had paid five pounds to stand.


The Globe's programme notes talk about Shakespeare revealing "the gleeful comedian within the wilful dictator" and Rylance portrayed this perfectly.

And, on reflection, the horrific scene where Richard brings Hastings' head to the Lord Mayor of London (below) was given added impact by Rylance's transformation from bumbling comedian to cruel psychopath.

In the final scene, the director had the ghosts of Richard's victims come back onto the stage as he fought Richmond. They were there to hold Richard back from battle; essentially, he was fighting the ghosts - his conscience? - rather than the enemy.


And, in the  end, he was brought down by those ghosts from his past. A brilliant interpretation.


The play was certainly the thing.

Cool Britannia

It's taken me a good week to decide what to write about next. After inspiration-overload in France, our first week in the UK has been filled with such mundane matters as SIM cards, Sainsbury's and train timetables.

We spent a weekend with old friends (well, late 70s, perhaps not sooo old) who live near Ely. They showed us the countryside they love: the flat fields and wide skies of the Fens. Turning marsh into arable land in the 17th century was an engineering feat which advanced agriculture and increased the wealth of the wealthy while also destroying the homes and livelihoods of its not-so-wealthy inhabitants. Quick history lesson

Ely Cathedral, 'The Ship of the Fens', floats on the horizon

Returning to London this week was something of a contrast. It's a city we have lived in before (once again, one does not like to think of oneself as a tourist) but ... this is London 2012, a city revitalised for the Olympic Games. And run by the ubiquitous Boris, Mayor of London, whose voice can be heard even in the Underground.


The transport system has had an upgrade, there's a cable car across the Thames (the Emirates Air-Line, it's called)...and of course the Olympic complex is a brand new build. Following on from the Royal Jubilee and the rise in popularity of their royal hotnesses Will and Kate, it's pretty cool to be on Team GB right now.


We've been to three Olympic events so far. Eton Dorney, near Windsor racecourse, is the venue for rowing. After an epic train trip (think sardines standing on their tails in the tin), double decker bus ride and long walk, we found our seats in the stands close to the finish line.

It was a session of repechages and semis but good fun nonetheless. Seeing Mahe Drysdale win his single sculls quarter-final capped the morning. What became clear very quickly was the extent to which Britons have embraced Team GB at these Games. We were surrounded by a sea of Union Jacks and a cacophony of noise whenever a home crew was on the water. It was quite a morning.

They did look more enthusiastic than this, honestly!

An Olympic badminton session is a different kettle of fish. Or a shebang of shuttlecocks...Does this count as a neologism, Becs? 

The Wembley Arena was electric with audience enthusiasm, supporting teams such as Denmark, Thailand and China. The highlight for us was a gruelling mixed doubles match won by the eventual bronze medallists, Denmark. Both sides had fervent supporters in the crowd, providing us all with instant entertainment.


Last night was our only session in the Olympic Arena. These were the tickets which would have paid for a small overseas holiday. OK, hyperbole again. Picton, anyhow.


Again, it was an evening of mainly qualification rounds (men's long jump) as well as women's heptathlon and 10,000 metres. But we soaked up the atmosphere of course ("ooh look, the Olympic flame!"). And we were there to see a black singlet cross the finish line first in a men's 1500m heat. Nick Willis looked fantastic...can't wait to see his next race.

Prime Olympic viewing? Not Wembley, not Eton Dorney, nor even the Olympic stadium. Our comfy apartment in Hendon has a living room with his-and-her couches and a huge TV. The BBC provides the rest: 24 channels of wall-to-wall, advert and promo-free Olympic coverage. Some days, it's hard to get outdoors!

The other good thing about the BBC coverage is its unintentional humour. The commentators are totally focussed on Team GB. At times, it seems there are two different races: the one on the screen and the other in their dreams. 


New Zealand's two gold medals within an hour the other day  were almost swamped by the Team GB travelling circus.The commentary on the men's pairs race, dominated by Eric Murray and Hamish Bond, centred on the race for 2nd and 3rd (France/UK). Fair enough, I guess.  The Kiwis were in a different class to the rest of the field but there was little drama in their win.

But the classic example had to be after the single scullers had crossed the line. The race had been a bit of a battle between Mahe and his Czech opponent. Not much of a battle really because the NZ boat steadily pulled away from the halfway mark. Third home, down the track a bit, was GB's Alan Thompson. As the camera showed the medal winners coming onto the pontoon, the commentator announced that we would now be crossing to Alan Campbell's medal ceremony. Say what?