Let the Christmas knitting begin!
This is Kate Davies’ Owlet sweater, which I’m making for my niece. I’m using Cascade 220 Superwash yarn in a purple shade that’s a bit too dark to really be lavender.
The beginning’s gone pretty well – I’ve gotten halfway up the body in one night.
Since I was already on the far Uptown side of Manhattan, I took the subway back down to Central Park, and walked through on the 85th street cut through, which goes by Belvedere Castle. You can climb all the way up into the tower, and there are some great views from there. The castle is right next to the Shakespeare Garden, which was still in pretty decent bloom for this time of year. I took a little break near the garden and sat down on a bench and read a book for a little while. Really made me wish we had a similar kind of park here in Portland. We do have a fairly large central park, but it’s just not as people friendly.
On Wednesday, I started the day with the looong subway ride up to the Cloisters. If you take the A train to the 190th Street stop, it puts you out right at the entrance to Fort Tryon. It’s then a ten minute walk through the park to the museum. There’s also a bus, if you don’t want to walk, but the walk is totally worth it. There are great views of the Hudson River, and as you get closer to the museum, it seems to loom above you. Pretty neat walk. Sadly, it was pretty gray while I was there, so I didn’t have as many pictures turn out as I would have liked, but you canl see I was able to indulge in pictures for my staircase pictorial collection.
I checked my camera with my bag at the museum, which I shouldn’t have done, as the cloisters in the building are gardens, and they were lovely. My favorite was the Bonnefont Herb Garden – there are quince trees in the middle beds, which were full of fruit – absolutely lovely with all the other herbs and plants. Made me want to run back home and build my own cloister herb garden. (And I’m currently reading a Brother Cadfael book – which is not helping.)
Holy seething mass of humanity, Batman! Now, I really do live in a city. It’s the largest city in my state, even. Walking through Times Square made me feel like I’m from some village in the absolute middle of nowhere. I swear there were more people packed into that square than live in all of Greater Portland.
The only reason I went to Times Square is that I was seeing the Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic, so I was just a block away. At that point, you kind of have to go. I do have to say – the Times Square subway stop is way too big for its own good. I felt like I walked for a mile just trying to get out on a side that was relatively close to my final destination.
Phantom was great. I’d tried to go to some more recent shows, but every time I saw something interesting, I’d look it up, and it was closing some time earlier in September, before I would be there. After about round four of that, I gave up, and decided to channel my inner high school student, and see Phantom.
When I was in ninth and tenth grade, a group of us were obsessed with it – it was when the original cast recording came out, and we all had it memorized. I haven’t listened to it in years, and yet, I could have sung along to the whole thing. About half way through the show, I realized I was channeling my inner self from a good twenty years ago. I could have been depressed about that, but I’d already gotten the chills when the chandelier went flying off the stage at the beginning of the show, so I just went with it all, and had a ton of fun.
After the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, I took the subway over to DUMBO, grabbed some lunch at Almondine, and took that down to the Brooklyn Bridge Park. There are great views of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, as well as the Manhattan skyline. Really great place to have lunch on a warm day.
Once I was done there, I headed back into Manhattan on the Brooklyn Bridge. Which is an interesting experience. The promenade is split – one side for walkers, the other for bikers. The walkers are mostly tourists (at least around lunch time when I was there), but the bikers appear to be locals trying to get from point A to B, and they are going as quickly as possible, and do not appreciate all the yahoos sticking out into their lane, gawking at the sights. They all had bells, and were using them like horns – actually pretty hilarious.
The sky line views are even better from the bridge – you could easily see the new World Trade Center Tower, which does look a little odd since it’s unfinished on top. I’ll be interested to do this walk again once that’s completed.I’d also like to go back when the scaffolding is off the bridge. They’re doing some sort of repairs, and the view is blocked in places, so I’d like to be able to walk back through those areas and see how they look.I really enjoyed this walk. If you can go on a nice, clear day like this (it was a bit breezy, so be prepared for that), it’s a great way of getting a different view of Manhattan,and you really can’t beat walking under those stone arches yourself – being able to touch those is worth the walk right there.
Pattern: Rimefrost by Anne Hanson
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in the Goodluck Jade colorway
Needles: 1.5 DPNs
The Rimefrost socks for K are done!
It was nice making socks again. I’d forgotten how oddly satisfying it is turning a heel. This pattern was nice – the pattern repeat is long enough to not be boring, but not overly complex. I’d totally do it again.
The yarn was also nice to work with, and I did like the gradations in the colorway.
All in all, a pleasant way to pass some time before I embark on Christmas knitting.
On Tuesday morning, I hit the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. I was all excited because I was going to be able to use my Reciprocal membership from our Botanical Garden, and it turns out they’re free on Tuesday anyway.
The coolest thing in bloom at the moment was the water lily collection. That happened to be near the glass houses, which had some really neat tropical plants, as well as a nice bonsai collection.
The whole thing is a really lovely park to walk through, though I’d love to go in the Spring – there’s a cherry esplanade that must be gorgeous when it’s in full bloom.
My first night there, I wanted to be back to my room by 10:00 (because I’m officially a little too much of a Castle fan-girl, and needed to see the season premiere). So, after reading recommendations that the Empire State Building was really neat after dark because you had great views of all the lights, and multiple people saying that had gone around 8:00, and there was no line, I decided this would be the thing to do to get me back to my hotel in time.
I was able to walk there, up Broadway and 5th Ave (have I mentioned how nice it is to be able to walk around a place at night, and feel safe?) And guess what. There was a queue. A fairly long one. But, we have a DVR at home, and I was there, so I waited.
The queue snakes through the second floor room before you get anywhere near the elevators. I’m pretty sure they do that so that anyone with a fear of heights is already completely motion sick by the time they anywhere near the elevators, and therefore won’t care about the heights. And I’m really not sure why the line took so freaking long to get through. But, we finally found ourselves at the 80th floor, with six more floors to go, and a half hour wait for those elevators. Fortunately, they opened the emergency stairs, and you could climb the six floors if you wished. So much faster than waiting for the elevator, and it was kind of cool to see the guts of the building.
The views were indeed amazing, but the crowd was a little irritating. I really don’t feel like I stayed up there long enough for the $25 I paid, but it was a really neat view, and a very NYC tourist experience. (And I got back to my room with four minutes to spare, so that worked out well in the end.)
I’m back from a three night, way too quick trip to New York City. I’ve never been before, other than a couple of drive throughs on the way to family trips to DC. (I remember driving by Macy’s when I was twelve, and I remember my father pointing out the World Trade Center towers on a trip down in the late 90’s. That’s about it.)
So, I had another one of the weeks off I have over and above BF’s pitiful (in comparison to mine) time off schedule, and I decided I was going to actually do something this time. I found an inexpensive (for Manhattan) hotel – Hotel 17 – with shared bathrooms. Which turns out is the hotel my father and C use when they go down. And it was great. My room (a single) was tiny, but completely adequate for sleeping (which was all I really wanted to do in the room). I only ever once had to wait for a bathroom, and that was maybe ten minutes. It was also really conveniently located – about three blocks from Union Square. The metro station there connects into seven different lines – I only once had to do a connection to a line I couldn’t reach from there.
I ended up walking about 34 miles over the three days (and pretty much killing a pair of sneakers that were on their last legs anyway). I’m actually a little sore from it all, but in a good way. The funny thing is as much as I saw, I really only saw a very little bit of the city. It’s the kind of place where you could keep going back yearly for your entire life, and you wouldn’t see everything.
Since I was by myself, I decided to take it pretty easy on the food front – I didn’t really want to do fine dining by myself (it’s more fun if you have a person there to compare notes with), and it actually turned out I did a fair amount of convenience eating (a la – I’m doing a shopping crawl of Broadway between Soho and Union Square and realize I’m starving. Look – there’s a Pret a Manger. Let’s have a sandwich! Dinner is served!)
I did have the best Belgian waffles ever at Petite Abeille on 17th Street (the iced coffee was really good too), and the glass noodles at Republic were really good, as was the Elderberry Tonic I treated myself too. And, on my day in Brooklyn, I stopped at Almondine and had lunch, which I brought down to the Brooklyn Bridge Park. The location was fabulous, and the macaroons were to die for.
So it was a really good trip. I’ll probably have to do it again sometime, but I’m going to give my legs a bit of a rest first. I’ll post pictures of some of the places I went over the next couple of days.
Read for the Once Upon a Time VII Reading Challenge.
Marius is a professional battlefield looter. He and his apprentice, Gerd, happen upon the aftermath of the battle that has killed the king of Scorby. Unable to pass up such a rich battlefield prize, they’re looting the body when the Dead come to claim the King as their new king. Since Marius happens to have his hands on the crown, they take him back to the kingdom of the dead.
Quickly realizing their mistake, the Dead banish Marius back up to the land of the living with the single task of finding the real king, and bringing him back to the Land of the Dead. If Marius can do that, he’ll get his life back. Marius, however, is having none of that, and decides to run. What follows is a journey through a really interesting imaginary land, and since Marius is technically dead, he sees it from some very interesting angles. (I particularly enjoyed the section that took place at the bottom of the ocean.)
I grabbed the book on the strength of Juliet Marillier’s blurb on the back cover, which included: “With its madcap story, unforgettable characters and fine balance between humour and pathos…” And I think I was expecting a little more humor because of that. There are a few glimmers in the book, but it’s mainly the story of Marius’s personal growth when he sees the world from a completely different angle. So, I have to admit, I was a little disappointed. Which is a shame, because it’s actually a good story, and I did enjoy it. But I spent about the first half of the book looking for the funny before I finally gave into the story. That’ll teach me to always trust blurbs, I guess.
The North Wind and the Sea 