timblesworldtour

When in New York, eat like the locals and check out your nearest deli. It’s a fantastic place to get tasty, cheap food at just about anytime of the night or day (as Frank said, it never sleeps!).

It’s also a great place to be completely confused by the local lingo – ask for a double egg, sunny side-up, on rye with a skinny, decaff latte – and see what happens! Many have help yourself counters with hot and cold food, sold by weight and deceptively large containers to put it in. For a full pot it’s maybe $5 – $7 – a cheap night out!

I can bore the pants off most people when talking photography, so I’ll keep this brief. All the pictures I’ve included were taken with one of my two cameras. My main kit is an Olympus E-500 digital SLR (a truly great digital SLR), with a new Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 lens. My backup camera is a Fuji Finepix F10, which is one of the best compact cameras for low light photography

Finding a good hotel is not easy, as even so-called 4 star hotels can be really really bad (recalling personal experience, here!). I have a personal favourite (favorit – if you are american), but I’m not going to name it here, as it’s pretty small, and If everyone goes to it, I’ll never get to stay there again. It’s in a cool part of Manhatten, just between Chelsea and Greenwich Village, and claims to have ‘more stars than there are in heaven’ – and rightly so, as every room is themed according to a movie legend. What makes a good hotel great, is the people, and the staff at this hotel are among the best.

Hotel rates in NY are really high all year round, and often the best option is a combined package of flight and hotel, if you have never been before. My advice is to book early, and ask anyone you know who has ever been before, otherwise you can make a very very expensive mistake – and in the bad hotels (including some of the big chains), you may find your complaint will be greeted with shrugged shoulders, and a sarcastic quip like ‘what did you expect? welcome to New York’

Anyway, I’ve found a really good hotel…but I’m not tellin’

A Helluva town, a phrase coined in the Bernstein musical ‘On The Town’. The general story is three sailors who have 24 hour shore leave in NY, and get into all kinds of scrapes. It is rarely preformed in it’s full form (the MGM movie is a lame compromise. missing many of the songs) with full chorus and orchestra.

Strangely, it was most recently ‘revived’ in it’s full form by English National Opera last year in London, England, and was their most successful production ever. The good news is, they are re-running the same production in early 2007, so my advice is, get you tickets now, as it’ll probably sell out again. For those wanting a good quote, well here it is;

New York, New York, a helluva town.
The Bronx is up, but the Battery’s down.
The people ride in a hole in the groun’.
New York, New York, it’s a helluva town

and so on…

Yip, New York. I’ve been to NY a few times previously, and first came here around 1990. NY today is much better I think than it was back then, as many people have forgotten quite what times square and port authority bus terminal were like before the laws which forced out the strip joints. Many people hanker back to those times, but personally, as a visitor, I think it’s better now. Interestingly, I first visited San Francisco around 1990, just after the ‘89 earthquake, where the double layer freeway collapsed, and I have to say, I didn’t feel worried by nutters back then. Maybe as a visitor to NY I only see the ‘best bits’, but I still feel safer in NY than SF.

So, as you will have noticed, I haven’t adopted ‘best practise’ regarding updates to my blog. So, I’m going to do some updates today (christmas eve). Merry Christmas, to everyone.