Cocktails anyone???

Well it's been a busy few weeks with visitors from home and slipping back into tourist mode. Highlights include....

Roller Derby - Manhattan Mayhem defeat Queens of Pain -thanks to a dubious call from the Ref that put Suzy Hotrod in the sinbin for the final jam.

Cocktails on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art......my kind of museum visit. Cheers!!

Bingay.....at Lips in the West Village. Drag queens have nothing on Mitzy and Naomi but was fun none the less. I did like the half-time shows but without the entertaining calls for each number it's really not the same.

Staten Island - sailed past Lady Liberty in all her glory for an afternoon at Staten Island. Most people just do the round trip and don't bother getting off on the island. Other than us, the only people that did get off were either on day release from the psychiatric ward or drug rehab centre or orthodox jews having a picnic with their 14 children. Mazel Tov!

Boston - small and quaint and full of history...and rude cab drivers. Did a brief city tour and boat cruise. Saw the USS Constitution (oldest navy ship aptly named 'Old Ironsides'). Conference was a waste of time but Tugs enjoyed a few days exploring including a trip to spooky (and not just because of the witches) Salem and the JFK Museum.

Yankees vs Indians - on the bleachers which is a little like Bay 13 at the SCG. On a scorcher of a day the Yankees thrashed the Indians 11-2 thanks to a Grand Slam by A-Rod - clearly Cameron Diaz is doing wonders for his game. The heat did nothing to dampen the horny housewives trying to flirt with the outfield players. The highlight was when the whole Bleachers section erupted into a chant of 'asshole, asshole, asshole' at some poor unfortunate patron who happened to be wearing an Indians cap.

Beat it, beat it. No one wants to be defeated...

Yes, I was at the home of the late Michael Jackson. We'll not his actual home....but possibly his spiritual home. Or at least the home of his musical career. Or birthplace...whatever!

Wednesday night at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem is Amateur Night, and there was nothing amateur about it. This is where the Jackson 5 and Alicia Keys amongst others were discovered.

The night kicks off with some kiddy talent which we missed most of due to the exceptionally slow service at the Southern Soul Food restaurant called Sylvias. Although when that mountain of ribs did come half an hour after our order, despite letting them know we were in a hurry, it was worth it.

Young hopefuls step up onto the stage in a packed theatre and give it everything they have. And if the crowd like it they cheer, if they don't they boo. If they get more boos than cheers they get kicked off.

And trust me....the folks up in Harlem sure like to make their opinion known! When a Chinese R'n'B singer came on if felt like we were suddenly transported to the set of a Jerry Springer show. The poor guy won't be pursuing a career in music after that! Ba bye!

Definitely a night worth having even if I did feel like the straight white geek in a crowd of cool, grooving black peeps!

Roll out the red carpet

The last few weeks have been the Tribeca Film Festival, originally founded by Robert De Niro and friends to revitalise the Tribeca area of Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 bombing of the World Trade Centre.

The festival is spread out over several areas of the city and there are hundreds of films to see - and if you go pensioner style to the matinees it's also an absolute bargain.

We got the grey-rinse 3-pack on which we could see three matinees of our choice. Since we are ladies of leisure, this suited us perfectly.

Our first film was a doco called 'The Other City' about the AIDS epidemic in Washington D.C. which due to archaic laws banning needle exchanges has the highest infected population in the U.S and the highest rate of new infections. It was a bit of a tear jerker.

Our second film, also a doco was called 'Monica and David' about two people with down syndrome who fall in love and get married. The movie chronicles their early married live together and was a bit of tear jerker....but this time it was happy tears.

Our third film was a screening of shorts, one of which was an Australian entry called 'The Wake'. The two highlights of this session were 1) a great lesbian short about a girl who fakes a suicide attempt to get the attention of her ex whom she's hasn't gotten over. Strangely this was a hilarious movie despite the subject matter and 2) hearing a hush come over the crowd and whispers that Robert De Niro himself had snuck in in the dark.

After all the films there was question time with the film maker and sometimes the actors too. I was completely amazed at how quickly some of the short films were made. I am almost inspired to pick up the handy-cam myself. Surely it can't be that hard!!!

The Addam's Family Dungeon

Today was my first day at work proper, well first day sitting at a desk in an office. I've been doing plenty of presentations about our work all round the city. I passed all my medical tests so I could actually get hooked up by IT. You'll all be pleased to know that I am infectious disease free but have very low resting blood pressure. The nurse seemed to think it might be because I am a highly tuned athlete. Riding my bike at nanna-pace a couple of times a week apparently puts you in the athlete category in this country!

My 'office' and I'm using that word liberally is a windowless, rarely used laboratory complete with fume cupboards, chemicals, freezers, test tubes and other assorted glassware that just happened to have an old desk dumped in it.

And just to make life even more interesting I share it with a guy named Ray who is a cross between Lurch (personality) and Uncle Fester (looks) from the Addam's family. Tall, bald, and the charisma of a zombie!!

We have a flash staff cafeteria with cheap eats including a soup and build your own salad bar, sushi, sandwiches, hot meals and of course the obligatory burger, fries and pizza. But seeing as I have no friends, other than dead Ray, it was only a quick visit for me - once I managed to find the place - in yet another dungeon somewhere. Aptly called the Garden Cafe!

Get some Kulcha into ya......

New York Culture on a Budget.

First Stop: The Chelsea Hotel is covered in art, mostly painted by past and present residents. It's free to wander around and there's some great art. See Sid Vicious (above) whose girlfriend Nancy was found dead on the bathroom floor of room 100 here at the hotel with a single stab wound to her abdomen. During a drug-fuelled night Sid stabbed Nancy during a fight but 'didn't mean to kill her'! Or she fell on the knife......Sid couldn't quite remember whihc one on account of all the drugs.

Second stop: The Guggenheim on Saturday's from 5.45pm to 7.45pm have 'pay what you can' nights so for a buck each we got to spend two very pleasant hours spiralling through 6 floors of great contemporary photographic art in the Haunted Exhibition.

Third stop: The Lincoln Centre to see the final performance of Madame Butterfly performed by the New York City Opera for the tidy sum of $18 bucks each!!! Fortunately they had subtitles so we knew what was going on but it didn't stop me from getting a little sleepy in sections. I think I might stick to musicals from now on zzzz.....................

It's up...it's long...it's going....home run!!!!

Full of excitement we boarded the subway to Yankee Stadium with the other 50,000+ ticket holders and by the time we got there we were packed into that carriage like sardines!

Game time 7:05pm. Grab your foot long hot dog and find your seat. Ours, the cheap nose bleeders unfortunately next to two of New York's most stupid and nerdy men and a row away from two of New York's most annoying 'like...you know...like...OMG....like....I like so love baseball....' bimbettes.

Batter up....Derek Jeter - Yankees Legend (short-stop) and Alex Rodriguez - Legend with the Ladies (3rd base (on the field, off field he always makes it home)) both in the starting line up.

Los Angeles Angels are the opposition and have lost 2 from 2 so far in this visit to Yankee Stadium so the Yankees are keen to make it 3.

A home run from LAA's ex-Yankee player Matsui wakes the Yankees up and from then on it's all one way traffic....balls flying over the outfiled fence for home runs courtesy of Yankee's Cano, Jeter and some other blokes.

Bloody cold we went adventuring to see whether we could score a better view and hello...here I am field level behind the catcher. If only the large security guard would bugger off!!

Highlight: when the cameras found Jerry Springer in the crowd and put him on the big screen with the 50,000+ strong crowd cheering 'Jerry...Jerry...Jerry' led by Tugs!

Ahhh...the serenity

Things are a little less frenetic following the departure of our house guest and we're settling into more of a rhythm. We’re feeling a little less like tourists and more like we're here to work.

We moved house today to the West Village which is leafy and quaint and a bit more posh than the grungy East Village. Hauling 11 pieces of luggage down five steep and narrow flights of stairs and into a cab was not fun but thankfully our new abode is on the ground floor so we basically just wheeled ourselves in. Too easy!

A few interesting things to note about our ‘nabe’ as the cool kids call it. Sarah Jessica Parker lives nearby. The stonewall bar where the gay rights movement started is just around the corner and most importantly so is Magnolia’s Bakery……but we’ve both raved about that place so I won’t bore you again.

We have been checking out some local watering holes and here are a few we recommend…….

East Village:
Immigrant – E9th St - is a cute little wine bar run but a guy called Jason. They have a nice win list and a chilled out atmosphere.

SOHO:
Mercbar – Mercer St. btw Houston and Prince. More of a bar than a wine bar but a cosy place where they make a good cocktail.

Interesting booze facts....
We are seeing very little Australian wine in restaurants or bars and Jason (see above) told us that because the Aussie dollar is so strong it makes our wine too expensive for bars. So much of the wines are Spanish, Argentinean, Portuguese and Chilean which means we are getting to try lots of wines from around the world and lots of grape varieties we are not used to. YUM.