Super Sunday

Now that I've had time to recover from my close encounter of a Clive kind, I can concentrate on the rest of the day. I woke up at eight, not in the least bit jet lagged after nine hours' sleep. Today was the Five Boro Cycle Tour and so there were 30,000 cyclists racing along Sixth Avenue and along Central Park South, which was a great sight from the window. It wasn't really a race as there were so many people queuing up at various traffic lights along Sixth.

After a quick "cappuccino" (i.e. latte) and a bagel from a friendly, Mafioso Benny Hill fan on Sixth, I then went to Bloomie Nails to have my first ever manicure and now have pretty, pink nails. Maman and I had parallel manicures from some Japanese girls, while oh-so-metrosexual Papa had a pedicure, although his ticklish screams were enough to put me off ever wanting to undergo such torture.

It was then that Papa had the Grand Central brainwave, which led to Clive-fest, and I haven't quite got over the excitement just yet. Suffice to say, that it was probably the most awesome celebrity sighting of the year (yes, even more so than meeting Steve P., not least because I managed to restrain myself in front of Clive and didn't make a fool of myself). The notice I spotted on the way out also implied I might even be accidentally included in the background of the film. What a shame that would be — Clive and me on camera together!

After another "cappuccino" from the W on Lexington, it was shopping time. I did J. Crew again and then (naughty, naughty) went to Tiffany's for the first time. It might not be quite the same to buy yourself some Tiffany jewellery as to receive it for a gift, but it was still quite fun to go up to the silver jewellery floor and pick out a charm for my bracelet or to wear as a necklace (a B in a padlock). In the elevator, the operator said, "congratulations" to the girl who got out on the second floor (engagements and wedding rings). Sigh.

The sun then decided to shine, so I went to change into a skirt and shed my jacket. I then grabbed a choose-your-own-salad, which I ate in the park with the New York Times. Perfect. A bit more shopping still ensued, involving a trip to Bloomies.

Tonight we're going out for Italian and I will hopefully then head downtown for some bar action. What a great day!

Clive Alert!

I popped back to the hotel to get changed, as the sun has finally deigned to come out in Manhattan, so I had to get the excitement of spotting Clive Owen out of my system!

Papa suggested we go to Grand Central to grab a coffee and I thought why not? When we got there, it was obvious that the people milling around in the central concourse were doing so in a more organised fashion than usual and then I spotted the film crew. Being me, I asked the stage manager what they were filming. A movie called Duplicity, she said. I asked who was in it and she said Julia Roberts and...Clive!

Then I spotted him, looking gorgeous in a grey suit! They shot the scene, which consisted of him answering his cell phone in the middle of the concourse and then walking across to one of the grand staircases and walking up and out the door, about three times. There was a huge crowd of spectators who kept ruining it by using the flash on their cameras even though, as one of the crew kept saying, they had provided the perfect lighting for us. I took quite a few pictures but my camera isn't so good without the flash; luckily, Papa n0w has a big paparazzi camera and he took about 50 for me, so I'll be posting some of those later when I've got them downloaded onto my computer (oh, and there are some of Julia Roberts too but who cares about that?).

Maybe Clive is following me. Not only did he shoot Chancer in my village when I was a kid, but he also came to distract me from revision for finals by shooting Elizabeth: The Golden Age in my college in 2006. Wow: what a superb day!

May the Shopping Commence

As predicted, after a brief detour via Central Park, Maman and I were in J. Crew by 1.30. To be fair, I did only buy three things, which I thought was pretty restrained given the range of pretty bikinis, ‘60s shift dresses, and über-short shorts on offer. We hit a couple of other stores in the same mall, Columbus Circle, including Williams and Sonoma, which stocks obscenely-priced cookware and other kitchen kit and which has such cool stuff, even I wish that I cooked more so I could use it all.

Walking down Fifth Avenue to get to Dean and Deluca for coffee and a motivational cake, we bumped into Papa and the brother, who had branched off to Gant, and so we all went to D&D where I consumed a slice of Oreo cheesecake that probably contained about 5,000 calories per bite but was well worth it. Besides, shopping is hard work, with all the undressing and redressing, especially when one is wearing high heels.

I popped briefly into Anthropologie, which would probably be Betty Draper’s favourite store were she not fictional and also about 75 in 2008. It has lots of pretty, girlie clothes and houseware kit. In fact, the kitchenware and the other decorative items for the rest of the house are so pretty that I really wish potential London flat was more definite so I could purchase them all. I satisfied myself with some flowery knickers and a wooden “W” to go with the “B” I already have on my wall.

Tonight, we’re going out for an early burger at P.J. Clarke’s and then I may head out to Brooklyn with the brother where California Girl is having a party. I’ll evaluate my level of consciousness once I’ve been burgered though.

Writing this from the window seat of the 17^th floor, looking out on Sixth Avenue, Central Park and the smart apartment blocks of the Upper West Side, listening to The National on the awesome, Bose speakers certainly makes a change from my cold house in Nowheresville, even if I suspect the barrage of overly smiley, overly “helpful” employees guarding the doors of the hotel and lurking in the lifts will start to drive me nuts before too long. The only problem is the lack of internets - the parents don't want to pay $15 per day for the hotel's wifi so I'm connecting to another network with a very low signal strength, which required me moving along the window seats in the room, inch by inch.

Guess Who's Back

As transatlantic flights go, today’s was pretty damn tolerable. Window seat in Economy-plus, watched a good film (No Country for Old Men), read some of Empire of the Sun, caught some zs, arrived 30 minutes early. We got through immigration quickly and – thankfully – our baggage came too. Papa had arranged a car to take us to the hotel. Maman was very unimpressed when she discovered (after a few false starts in the car park) that it was a stretch limo. How embarrassing, she sez.

Ah well. We ended up at the hotel just before midday, which was pretty damn fast. The staff at the hotel were overly friendly and attentive, even by American standards, even though they missed the irony in my brother’s requesting of the Daily Mail along with the NYT that comes as standard. I had the impression that the brother and I were sleeping on a sofa bed in the parents’ room. The suite actually turned out to be ginormous, especially given that this is NYC, where hotel rooms tend to be of the mini variety. The brother and I have a huge living room with 17^th floor views over Central Park. We walk into the large, marble bathroom and gape at its size. “This is the second bathroom,” sez the hotel lady. The master bathroom is even bigger. We have a fantastic shower, which I just tested out, and now feel energised and raring to go. The day is but young!

It’s definitely good to be back. It almost feels like returning home.

One Shop to Rule Them All

Of course, there are many, many shops I love in New York, but if I had to pick just one, it would have to be J. Crew. Maybe its clothes aren't the most exciting in the world but it has jeans that actually fit me perfectly and it has gorgeous summer dresses and pretty tops. I imagine I will probably empty the contents of four or five of its Manhattan branches within the space of about three days (although my bank account may be emptied before the shops themselves are). This time tomorrow, it's quite conceivable I will be in the J. Crew at Columbus Circle, being flattered by the incredibly camp sales assistant. The flight gets in 1t 11.15 local time, so I will probably be shopping by lunchtime, NYC time.

Honourable mention: Kate's Paperie. I do love my stationery and Kate's store practically brings me to a stationery-fuelled orgasm. Pretty cards, beautiful writing paper, great notebooks... It's just a shame that I didn't manage to achieve my goal of writing a proper letter for Letter Writing Month, which was last month. There is something special about a beautifully-penned belle lettre on fancy stationery. Maybe next year.

Time to go prep my NYC Moleskine.

Two Seasons of Central Park

I quite like the Jardins de Luxembourg and Hyde Park and St James's Park are both pretty good, as parks go, but they can't really compare to Central Park, somehow. Maybe it's the sheer size of Central Park (more than twice the size of Hyde Park), which makes it such a great oasis amid the skyscrapers. I had never really strayed much into the northern reaches of the park before last September, when I was staying in the relative ghetto of 103rd Street, which made it a pleasant, 45-block stroll from Midtown and which allowed me to take an almost infinite number of routes, following the overly curving paths and roads within CP. Watching pick-up games of volleyball, laughing at the couples who paid for the cheesy carriage rides, admiring the view of the skyscrapers from the reservoir and not feeding the ducks or squirrels (as per the strict, hyperbolic signs) are just a few fun things to in CP. My favourites, though, would have to be:

2. Picknicking on the grass near the southern extremes on a glorious sunny afternoon in the summertime. Whole Foods has made this a whole lot easier now that they have a branch at the Columbus Circle shops on 59th Street, which contains all you could ever want for a gourmet picnic and more. Last June, when it was the brother's 21st, we filled a whole basket full of treats, which was way too much for five people, but it was so nice to just sit back, drink some champagne, eat some cake and read the wonderful publication that is the New York Times -

And I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime

- and all that. The most amazing thing of all is that less than two blocks away, the frenetic buzz of the ubiquitous traffic jams is still humming away; somehow, the noise is soaked up by the trees and all you can hear in the park is laughter and lovers whispering sweet nothings, floating along in the breeze.

1. Much as I like CP in summer, my favourite CP moment would have to be on the Wollman Rink on a freezing cold December night, preferably with a little light snow in the air. The rink is often crowded and you frequently have to queue to get in but it's so worth it just to feel the buzz from skating with such an amazing view of the city's skyscrapers, edged in a starry sky. Holding someone's hand as the current '80s power ballad plays, "Take my hand and we'll make it - I swear, Whoa, livin' on a prayer" or similar (Giant's I'll See You in My Dreams and 3 Doors Down's Here Without You are also qual songs I've discovered at the rink). And then, of course, your feet hurt like hell because you have forgotten to wear a second pair of socks and so you go to sit down on one of the benches and sip a shockingly rich hot chocolate while looking up at the skyline. I haven't skated in New York for ages; the last time I went when the rink was open was last October but as they were in the middle of a 25-degree heatwave, it didn't feel quite right to go skating, somehow. Oh well; I'll have to schedule another New York trip for later in the year.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to pack but I'm not excited yet because I know tomorrow is going to be a long day and I need to get through it and the subsequent road trip back to the Shire first (which reminds me - road trip playlist to get me in a New York state of mind!) but this time tomorrow, if I'm not completely brain dead, I will probably be very excited.

Three Burgerless Restaurants

I may have mentioned that I quite like a really good burger and that while England in general and Cambridge in particular aren't t so hot at purveying me one, New York is heaven for the burger connoisseur. However, there are New York restaurants I like that don't serve burgers, so I suppose I ought to list some of those for once:

3. Rosa Mexicana - 61 Columbus Avenue, Upper West Side. So, it's a chain and as a former vegetarian and formerly very fussy eater (now partly vegetarian and partly fussy), I am probably not the best person to judge a Mexican restaurant but Rosa Mexicana does do very nice pomegranate margs, which are so delicious that it doesn't matter what the rest of the meal tastes like because I will be too drunk to know any better. The food is, apparently, good and the atmosphere is really fun. They say that it's over-rated and over-priced, but I find that they are often idiots.

2. Angelo's Pizza - West 57th Street, Midtown. A list of New York restaurants wouldn't be complete without a pizzeria and I find that John's doesn't live up to the hype with big queues and not so thin and crispy pizzas. Angelo's is great, though, not least because it's opposite a hotel I often stay in. The pizzas are coal-fired (of course) and very thin, very crispy and very delicious, which makes it a shame that eating more than half of a small pizza is never more than a crazy, distant dream for me. It certainly ain't fancy but for a good pizza without the fuss, you could do a lot worse than Angelo's.

1. Café Condesa - 183 West 10th Street, the West Village. I only discovered this tiny, eight(-ish) seat restaurant on a busy intersection in the heart of the West Village, quite recently. It really is very small with just a handful of tables and then the bar, behind which lies the mini-kitchen. This doesn't seem to limit the chefs as the food, which is often French or Spanish inspired, is really good and I seem to remember being suitably impressed by whichever wine it was that whichever man I was with ordered for me. They also do breakfast, brunch and lunch and it really is a cool, little place with lots of character and great food.

Having completed this top three, I'm not convinced these are my three all-time favourite non-burger restaurants in NYC, not least because I've never really pondered the question that much and because I have been to so many great New York restaurants that it's hard to keep track of them and to play them off, one against the other; it's like comparing oranges and apples. At the very least, though, these are three very different restaurants, each of which I like an awful lot and each for its own reasons. I could name another ten places that could just have easily made it into my shortlist had I been in a slightly different frame of mind. They will do, though.