Brrrr..

Well, we've been wondering when winter would hit and I'd say last night it finally did. It went from a top of 21°C to about 3°C overnight. There were freak snow storms in Buffalo, NY, which is up north. Guess it's going to be a cold winter.

Plane crash

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are OK as we've had a few calls from people in London and Oz... the plane crash was in the Upper East Side and we're a lot further down on the Lower East Side. Still, pretty scary and it's had a lot of people talking and re-living 9/11.

A walk in the park

Luvena and James on a bridge in Central Park

It was the Columbus Day long weekend and the weather was gorgeous. We decided to go for a walk in Central Park on Monday it ws just so lovely. We caught the subway about half way up the park and then walked down to the bottom which took about 1.5-2 hours.

Here are some pictures:

The view across the resevoir in the middle of Central Park

James enjoys the weather in Central Park

The turtle pond

Lu outside the Swedish Cottage

Pics from our flat

Here are a few pics of our new flatand our view. We're on the 5th floor of a walk-up building (ie. no lift) so be warned, if you're coming to visit us you WILL get fit walking up and down all the stairs!

But it is worth it as we have a great view of the Empire State Building from our bedroom windows and can see the buildings in downtown from our loungeroom and one of the bedroom windows. Had the World Trade Centre still been standing we would have had a brilliant view.

The Empire State Building as seen from the bedroom window

View of the street from our bedroom

Food, food and more.....food

We are having a brilliant time exploring all the zillions of bars and restaurants near us!

Some highlights:

Paquitos - 1st Ave between St Marks and 9th st
Cute little Mexican place. They give you free homemade corn chips and salsa when you arrive and the food was v tasty - I had the vela cruz enhiladas and Jame had his first chimmichanga (sort of like a deep fried burrito)

Prosperity Dumpling - Chinatown
Fabulous and so cheap! We had 5 panfried pork and chive dumplings for $1, 10 boiled pork and chinese vegtable dumplings for $2 and a sesame pancake (like foccacia with sesame seeds on top) stuffed with sliced beef and vegetables.

Caracas - 7th st between 1st Ave and Ave A
Great Venezuelan food which we'd never head before. It's an arepas bar so that's what we ate. Arepas are like small pockets of pastry, kind of like a pita but a bit more doughy, filled with an amzing variety of meat, cheese and vegtables.

No sleep 'till Brooklyn

The view from our loungeroom window

"Well, we've been very busy recently preparing to move to the big apple. That's right, we're moving to New York!"

I started writing this entry back in July when Luvena and I were getting ready to move to NYC. Since then, we've had very little time to scratch ourselves.

But, we're here now and moved into our new apartment and loving it! We spent 6 weeks in corporate accomodation which was very nice, but there isn't much nightlife around the area we were living in. We've now found a place in the East Village, which is just north of the Lower East Side in Manhattan. It's a 4 story walk-up building and we're on the top floor, so be ready for some exercise when you come visiting!

We hope to get some pictures up soon - just as soon as we sort out our power problems. Most of our appliances have either Australian or UK power supplies, including the battery charger for our camera.

We're gradually exploring the area, which is hip and vibrant. New York University (NYU) has several campuses dotted around this area so it's mostly populated with students. As a result there is lots of nightlife, but it has also become very popular with young workers like us who love to be close to everything. The only downside is it gets very noisy at night, but it isn't much louder than the rest of Manhattan.

Work-wise I'm really enjoying it. I get to work on bigger, more diverse projects and the team I work in is great. Luvena is working from home and is loving that too. She's online for half a day and gets the afternoon to do all her writing, so it works out well.

I promise to write more often and post up some photos as soon as we have some!