CELEBRITY!!!!! SIT ON ME ... SIT ON ME

On Tuesday we decided to get out of Manhattan, at least for a while. In the 2 or 3 weeks we have been here we have been focused on Manhattan Island but today we changed all that. We braved the subway and headed for ... Brooklyn.

Brooklyn is across the East River from Manhattan. It is on the B-Line which is the same subway line we catch into the city, all we had to do was get on the other platform. When you get on the subways in New York you need to look to make sure you are on the 'Uptown' or 'Downtown' platform as that tells you which way you are going - into or out of the city. The subways are all underground and the trains travel on the right not the left like Sydney so it is easy to get disorientated.

The station we use is the Grand Street station and it is the last stop on the B line before it goes over the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn - and the only section of subway I have been on that is above ground. I was reading the guide book and it talked about a trendy section of Brooklyn called Dumbo ... another one of those acronyms it means Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Anyway we didn't go to Dumbo (too trendy for us) we went up to Prospect Park which is sort of like the Central Park of Brooklyn.

New Yorkers love their acronyms for place names Soho, Noho (North or South of Houston (street)), Nolita (North of Little Italy).

Anyway we got off at the 7th Avenue station and I have to admit I really didn't know what to expect when we got up to street level, no idea what type of neighbourhood we were going to end up in - but there were no problems. Brooklyn is a lovely place. The first thing I noticed was the quiet. There wasn't so much traffic and we weren't hemmed in by tall buildings. We headed up towards Prospect Park and through the big Civil War Memorial Arch, really impressive. There was a bust of JFK in front of it.

Prospect Park is huge, we wandered around playing fields, picnic areas, playgrounds, ponds - most of the locals have no back yard so parks like this one are where their kids get to run around and play. This part is where you see the classic New York terrace houses (called Brownstones) like what you see in the movies - see the pictures to see what I mean. We wandered down a few streets and then headed back towards the subway station. Dave summed it up when he said that if he had to live in New York he would like to live in Brooklyn.

We caught the B-Line to Noho where it started to rain so we dropped into Kmart and bought an umbrella. We stopped into a burger joint and we spotted a celebrity!!!!! In the shop eating a burger was Chris Noth who plays Big in Sex and the City, is currently in the The Good Wife, and used to be a cop in Law and Order. Tracey is also sure she saw Hillary Swank walking her dog on the Lower East Side (at least we think it was her) a few weeks ago.

The boys headed back to the apartment while Trace and I headed up Broadway to the Max Brenner Chocolate shop and it was HUGE! It's a full-on restaurant with crowds of people and they served all kinds of food not just chocolate. We then wandered through Union Square to the unusual elephant sculpture (see the picture for that one) and over to Barnes & Noble. By this time it was pouring rain and the tops of the buildings were shrouded in fog.

Trace and I kept going up towards 34th Street getting rather wet on the way but there were some interesting places we dropped into look at. The doorman out the front of the Empire State Building was telling people there was zero visibility at the top but people were going anyway. We dropped into Victorias Secret for some important shopping ...

Then it was back to the apartment in the bucketing rain.

Important blog note - Wednesday (today) is our last day in Manhattan before we leave Linda's wonderful apartment and fly out to San Francisco. My frequency of blog updates will depend on access to the internet but rest assured we will endeavour to keep it going! I actually have to do today's entry but given today isn't over I can't do it yet!!Read more