Taking care of Disness

We managed to get up and out the door by 4.20am for our car pick up at 4.30. The flight was uneventful although we did carry on McDonalds pancakes which we ate before take off. We caught the Disneyland express to our hotel and were checked in and ready to hit the parks before lunch time. It was strange to be in Disneyland instead of Disneyworld - like and yet not alike. The haunted mansion was all tizzed up for Halloween but other than that the rides were pretty similar to WDW with only subtle differences. We had fun comparing and contrasting the two. We met up the the Martinelli crowd in the late afternoon in California Adventure Park. After that the whole Disney experience is a bit of a blur. The weather was extremely hot and the crowds were big. Highlights include: 1) Jason passing out Flynn's birthday cake to strangers in the pool area 2) Krista, Michelle and I having a cousins car at Radiator Springs Racers 3) Campbell, Flynn and Lucca having a cousin's tyre at Luigi's Tyres 4) me making the boys go on the "lame" Mr Toads wild ride 5) the boys making me go on Space Mountain (twice) 6) huge sundaes at ghiradelli paid for by Gramps 7) Flynn wearing his birthday badge the whole time and getting happy birthday comments every 10 minutes for three days. It was a wild few days and it was great to see everyone. We are now sitting at the airport with a few hours to kill before our flight home. Sadly, the flight was too full for us to get our upgrade. We are looking forward to getting home to our own beds and home cooked food.

Last day in NYC

Last day today and we woke up to heavy rain. Flynn wanted to see the Statue of Liberty so we caught the subway down to the south end and caught a glimpse of her through the rain. Apparently that was enough, so we bundled back on the subway and went up to little Italy. There is not much there except for restaurants although Flynn managed to buy yet another t shirt- making 5 in total. The trains are full of buskers with a wide range of style and talent. We have seen a lone drummer, an acapella duo, a Latino guitar player and an accordion group.  The boys have an ambition to go to every Hard Rock in the world so we went up to Yankee Stadium to tick off number 10. The Bronx was pretty seedy although I imagine when there is a game on it is fine. After a spin through Nintendo World and the Lego store, we went to The Museum of Modern Art for the free Friday afternoon entry. The boys quite liked seeing the recognizable works - starry night, waterlillies and Andy Warhol's Marilyn.i managed to fit in a quick Macy's visit on the way back to the hotel. Shopping overall n New York has been disappointing. I thought there would be more small interesting shops like Melbourne. We had dinner in the room- pizza and cheesecake and started packing. 

The Big Apple

We have walked a LOT, to the point that all the boys have complained at various times about having sore feet and sore legs - and that usually doesn't happen. This Big Apple place is definitely a bit bigger than its Australian cousin, The Big Banana. That's another surprising thing about New York too... fruit. There is good quality fruit in stalls on the sidewalks everywhere and people are walking around eating their 25c bananas, etc. That seems un-stereotypical-American for some reason. I haven't seen a single person eating a pretzel. That seemed to be what everyone did in the classic documentaries about New York that I used to watch in the eighties (shows like Diff'rent Strokes). Jason

Is that who I think it is?

Anna said that there must be celebrities just walking around Manhattan, doing their shopping, etc. because lots of 'stars' lives in the city (Katie Holmes was selected example). I said it was unlikely to see anyone, but then the next day Usher walked past me, texting. Anna was a bit miffed that she missed out on the celebrity spotting moment - it was the only time all day we'd split up (I think I may have stopped to take photos and everybody else crossed the road & continued walking). Since then, Anna has been keen to spot a celebrity. Yesterday, Anna decided to go into a shop and have a look at a jacket that was hanging up in the window. It was the first thing Anna has stopped to look at so far. As she was inside with Campbell, Josh said to me, "A whole bus load of people waved to a person just then and he waved back, do you think he's a celebrity?" I got him to point out who it was & there was a guy walking away from us with shoulder-length grey hair and a bouncy walk. I said that it could be Billy Connolly, so Josh, Flynn and I chased this old bloke until he got to his apartment... we caught up with just in time. Yep, it was Billy Connolly.Anna wasn't impressed. Not because she doesn't think much of Billy Connolly (although she did fall asleep during the show when we saw him perform live), she was unimpressed that she still hasn't spotted a celebrity. We've got one day left here, so hopefully Katie Holmes will be hanging out the same places we do today. Oh yeah, there was also a lady in a red and white outfit that at first glance, Josh, Anna and myself all thought it was someone dressed as Santa Claus... but sadly, it wasn't. Jason

Too much food

We started the morning with a trip to the Sony Wonder Technology Lab. Parts of it were pretty fun (lucky I am not a surgeon as I was very bad at open heart surgery with a robotic tool).We then hiked uptown to Dylan's candy bar. It was two stories of different lollies and chocolates along with a soundtrack of every inane song they could think of with a link to candy. There we fulfilled the boys' greatest fantasy, buying the ten scoop ten topping sundae. I never want to see ice cream again but we managed to get through it. We had the pleasure of sitting n a giant cupcake to eat the monstrosity. Having stupefied the boys with food, we did a bookshop crawl to a few huge bookstores. I ducked into a clothing shop for about 2 seconds and missed seeing Billy Connely go into his apartment. I missed Usher as well a few nights ago so the celebrity score for me is Zero. Weighted down with purchases we struggled back to the hotel for a rest. Dinner was in times square at Chevys. Flynn made quite sure that the waitress thought it was his birthday and accordingly received a sombrero. The meals were enormous and two would have fed the five of us. On the way back we were accosted by a times square comedian. The boys abandoned me and I finally had to pay him a dollar to get rid of him. We are now back at the hotel doing washing.

Birthday dinner

We finished off the day with a subway ride to the East Village. We caught up with a friend I have not seen since year 7. It is amazing how people stay the same, even after 27 years. After the catch up we walked about ten blocks to our dinner destination, an Italian restaurant that Flynn chose before we left home. The food was good with Campbell's veal scallopini taking the prize and my artichoke ravioli a close second. We were about to go looking for an icecream shop when Cambo spotted 16 handles - a frozen yoghurt shop where you picked different flavors of yoghurt and different toppings. The combinations the boys ended up with were pretty elaborate - no restraint shown. We rolled off to the subway stop and headed home.  Things I have noticed in New York: 1. People speak very loudly on their mobiles about inappropriate topics (eg abortion, cheating boyfriends and fights) 2. Very few women wear makeup. 3. Lots of people talk to themselves. 4. Everyone likes to honk their car horns.

All walked out

Day three of walking and we are a little sorry and sore. Depending on who you ask, we have sore feet, ankles, knees or hips. No one wants to sit about though so we are pushing through. Today we breakfasted in our room with cereal and milk that we had purchased. Since it was Flynn's birthday we had a little present session and gave him various pouches from our trip so far. His favourite was a glass jellyfish from the Museum of Natural History. We walked down to Chelsea markets where everyone found something to their liking- a cookie shop, a kitchen shop and a bookstore. We then wandered our way east to Flynn's restaurant of choice, Peanut Butter and Co. We all had various peanut butter sandwiches, ranging from Cambo's peanut butter, maple syrup and bacon, to the chicken, chilli peanut butter and pineapple relish one shared by Jason and I. Flynn bought a t-shirt which is one of his standard purchases when we go somewhere. The are was lovely with narrow stree lined streets and cute shos but we pressed on for an aborted trip to Chinatown before going back to the hotel for a recharge.

Museum mania

We started off a little later today, getting out the door at 8am. There was a diner a block uptown that had an $8 all you can eat deal so we loaded up on breakfast food. We braved the subway and found it to be relatively easy, although we got off a few stops too early. Central park was lovely in the fresh morning air and we walked through the park to get the Museum of Natural History. What a dud - nothing interactive, nothing hat looked like it had been updated for 20 years and a very old fashioned look and feel. Picture a diorama with a stuffed tiger in front of a painted background....Josh decided that it was his life's greatest desire to see all the Night at the Museum characters so we trailed around for a few hours. The Easter Island statue was there but Ghengis Khan was nowhere to be found. A little weary, we trudged through the ramble in Central Park to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. this was excellent but by this time we had walked for 5 hours and were struggling. We did a whistle stop tour of the Greek/roman section, the Egypt rooms and the modern art part (Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol). The museum was fabulous but we were done. We sat out on the front steps to listen to an acapella group and then dragged our feet over two blocks to Lexington Candy Shp- a diner that looks like it has not been updated for 50 years. We revived ourselves with ice cream treats and continued on to catch the subway home. After an hour rest we trooped out for dinner at Carmine's. It was worth venturing out again- huge family style plates of great food. We are feeling quite confident now with the layout and the crowds.

Oh, these posts are supposed to be put in order. Oops.

Food is usually one of the top focus areas on a Starrett holiday,  so I'm hoping that there's an improvement in quality from here on. The best food we could find at the airport was McDonalds & then on the plane I had tortellini. The pasta was warm and soft, but I personally wouldn't have minded some pepper and parmesan; the caterers instead chose to season the dish with a 20cm blonde hair. Complaining about airline food.... Who'd have 'thunk' it?

McDonalds... Number 1

I was walking home from Times Square at around Midnight on Sunday and needed a toilet. I found a McDonalds & therefore I had found a toilet (insert joke here) but the security guy told me the bathroom was only for McDonalds customers. Firstly, I didn't need a bath, just a toilet.... secondly, I think about 95% of the American population are McDonalds' customers, so it's not a very exclusive group... and thirdly, I would have thought customer safety was his priority - not making sure that the only foodstuffs to be flushed down the toilets had recently been purchased at McDonalds. The Security Head of Internal Toilets (S.h.i.t.) was pretty adamant that I wasn't a McDonalds customer (surely my physique told him otherwise) & the following little scene played itself out: SHIT: You have to buy something before you use the bathroom. ME: Really? What about if I buy something afterwards? SHIT: You have to buy something before you use the bathroom. ME: Do I have to eat it or can I buy it and give it to a bum? Could I still use the bathroom then? SHIT: Sure. (I walked to the counter and placed my order) McGUY: What can I get you? ME: The guy in the tie said I have to buy something in order to be allowed to use the bathroom, so what's the cheapest thing on the menu? McGUY (looking confused): Sorry? ME: What's the cheapest thing on the menu? McGUY (still confused): Coffee. ME: OK, could I have a coffee please? McGUY (back in his comfort zone): How do you like your coffee sir? ME: I don't like coffee at all, I'm just buying something because the guy in the tie told me I had to. McGUY (with confused look back on his face): Would you like sugar in the coffee? ME: Sure. Put in as many as you can. (I paid for the coffee ($1.09) and gave it to the SHIT (who missed the point that I was giving him my coffee when I asked if it was OK to give it to a bum) who  was very excited and appreciative. SHIT: Thanks man! ME: No worries. (I did what I had to do and on the way out of McDonalds I saw the SHIT gulping down his coffee. I asked him how it was, expecting him to say, "Sweet," but he didn't.) ME: How's the coffee? SHIT: Great, man. Thank you. Take care of yourself. Be safe. So it turned out that I was wrong about him; he WAS concerned about customer safety.

The city that never sleeps

Walking home at 12:30ish on Sunday night/ Monday morning and heard massive noises coming from a building site. Power saws, drills , hammers, grinders and all sorts of other tools I don't know how to use were screaming away. I thought, "Man, this really is The City That Never Sleeps," especially if you're living across the road from a building that's under construction.  I know that the above statement doesn't make sense, because it's about a person not getting sleep, not a city that doesn't sleep... but when you scrutinize the premise of this entire entry, it doesn't make sense: New York is not the only city that doesn't sleep, there is no city in the world that literally sleeps, so cut me some slack! (The last statement was supposed to sound New Yorkerish, but I think it's come off as unnecessarily rude. Oh, hang on....)

Talking heads

Walking down the streets near Time Square I kept reminding myself how out of touch with technology I am. When I see individuals talking loudly to themselves as they walk down the street, I instinctively think I'm walking past a crazy person... I don't remember that people have mobile phone microphone things attached to their heads. I saw dozens and dozens of people talking to themselves and at least 4 of them had mobile phone microphone things attached to their heads.

Day one part one

Everyone except Flynn woke up at about 6am. I went across the road to use the WiFi at Starbucks. It really is the city that never sleeps- the streets were teaming with cars and people and shops were open. We got ready fairly quickly and went looking for a diner for breakfast. As we later found out, we were one street over from a whole street of diners. As it was, we found none, so we trooped up to Central Park to go the a fancier restaurant that was in our food guide. The 'special item' was chicken apple sausages. I found them a little salty but everyone else liked them. We wandered about till the shops opened and then went on a small boy shopping bonanza - toys r us, fao schwarz, m&m shop, Hershey world etc etc. We dragged them out eventually and used our new York pass to get into Madame Tussauds and Ripley's Believe it or Not.

New York state of mind

We got off to an early start this morning, getting to the airport at about 7am. The premier status helped again, with a nice short line instead of the chaos in the main section. We also were able to use the "family " line for security, bypassing about 200 people in the normal line.  There seems to be an issue the seating on planes for us. We were all in separate areas on the plane although they managed to move us to a single and two twos. The flight was uneventful and we jagged a plane with in seat screens and on demand movies. Campbell, unsupervised,  did not take the opportunity to watch the Hunger Games and I was quite proud of him. The air train to the city was reasonably easy, although at the transfer stop Jason thought we were at the hotel and was horrified at the distance from the city. Our hotel is right across the road from Penn station so by 6pm we were settled in the room. There are TVs in both rooms which the boys were quite excited about.  We ventured out to dinner and ended up at Jimmy's BBQ - a restaurant that looked like the Hog's Breath but real instead of manufactured. There was quite a bit of food......Everything came with two sides. We rolled home, although the boys were not too full to share a Reece's cupcake. After another wander around everyone but Jason went to bed. Jason went for his usual night stroll and came back with a heap of photos. I will try and upload them today.   

San Francisco fly by

The flight was jam packed - Jason and I ended up in a three seat section with a young girl in the middle of us. The boys were next to us in three of the four centre section seats. Flynn slept most of the way but the other two stayed awake for most of the flight. For the third time now I opened up the butter packet, discovered it was melted and managed to spill it all over myself. Some people never learn. The movie selection was ordinary but the captive Starrett audience watched anyway: first a Dianne Keaton / Kevin Kline movie about a dog, then Battleship, the Lucky One and the Three Stooges. We arrived on time, tired and dehydrated but in good spirits and glad to get off the plane. Our bags had priority tags on them so they dropped out of the chute right away.  We had to wait a while for Lindy and Mike to pick us up from the airport but the boys used the time to get a little wi-fi work done. With the Starrett clan, the Martinellis, Noni and Gramps and the Martinelliots, the car situation was chaos. Luca added to the mix by throwing up in his hat once we finally got going. The planned trip out to Tony's school was immediately cancelled. After a great lunch ( mmm San Francisco bread) we had a quick run to the shops for the usual bargains- shirts, fake mustaches and Halloween decorations. We had a great dinner - ravioli, salad and an awesome terriaki skirt steak cooked on the webber. It was so nice to eat real food after the rubbish at the airport and on he plane. After dinner everyone crashed.

Transit time

We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. We have premier status, courtesy of last year's big trip so we skipped the lines for check in and security. The boys all filled out their own passenger departure cards which was very exciting for me! Flynn signed his with a giant FLYNN in printing. We are now contemplating spending a week's wages on the rubbish food they have on offer here. Should have packed a picnic....

Next stop San Francisco

It is 4 am and I am sitting on the lounge surrounded by suitcases, laundry and all the bits and pieces still to be packed. I have my usual pre trip anxiety and can't sleep. The house is silent except for the clock ticking but I know that in about an hour the boys will be up, super excited and a little feral as a result. I am enjoying the calm before rhe storm. We aim to head off to the airport at about 8.30.