Orchids

Had a great day here today with Michelle. Headed to her place for morning tea, got there and all her Australian friends were there for scones and coffee!!! They were all really lovely. Two of the women live in the same building so we headed up and looked at all their views. We had big plans for the beautiful sunny day and it was already 12 so we left for the train and then caught a ferry across to Brooklyn to IKEA! It was an experience to say the least! Its a massive big Swedish home furnishing place. It is really good quality stuff but for really cheap. I bought a tiny little lamp for 5dollars. Michelle got a swag load of stuff. It was huge, so it took us about 3hours to get around the entire place, including a lunch stop at the cafateria restaurant (which was an adventure in itself). We caught the ferry back to Manhattan and then the subway to Michelle's. I was able to buy a cheap ticket to a show at 8. It was called Babel Tower - actually really good. On the way home I bought some flowers because I felt like it (Orchirds!) and now here I am.

Day at the Beach

Friday I got up early for a big day, it was overcast though, which was a shame, but still nice. I bussed to a park called the High Line, which is a new park that is built on a raised rail structure from the 1930's that hasn't been in use. All the plants that are there are types that were growing wild, so its pretty cool to walk along and admire the views of the Chelsea area. After exploring along the waterfront for a while I wandered through the Chelsea markets, which was full of bakeries, so I was surrounded by the sweet, sweet smell of muffins and fresh bread. I then caught the E train to the end of the line, which is the World Trade Centre stop. I got off and was instantly lost. All that is there is a huge construction site with mesh fences that are covered so you cant see through. I walked around the entire block then went shopping in Century 21. After that I headed to Wall St. It was pretty intimidating; tall buildings, tight streets, thin sidewalks. I walked around trying to find something interesting. I didn't. So hoped on a train to Chinatown! Yay! It was great, just walked along the streets that were full of people and stalls and shopfronts that had buckets of crazy looking dried plants and animal parts. I bought parsley rice noodles and a red bean steamed bun and ate in a park. Caught the subway to Grand Central - where I walked around in awe once again-then went home to Time Square. I left Michelle's with my backpack and met Chris for a museum date. We ended up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There were Samurai's and horses, and statues of Hercules. It was great. We probably should have gone a little earlier, because you could spend days in there and not see everything, so a couple of hours was nowhere near enough. After the museum closed we went to Lincoln Centre, which is the performing arts school. The huge buildings were all lit amazingly and there is a pond with sculptures and rows of trees. We had dinner at a Mexican place, along with mexican beers, then headed home in the cold.

On Saturday a promising forecast of 8degrees made Chris and I head to the Beach. Coney Island is about an hour away by train, so we left at midday and walked along the boardwalk of the once famous amusement park birthplace. It was freezing cold (definitely not 8degrees) and everything seemed abandoned and rundown. Im not sure if that's just because its winter, but its probably because it is past its heyday. In the late 1800's a guy thought, 'I'm going to build the world's biggest ferris wheel here', and so he did. That started a chain reaction of amusement parks built along the shore front. The first was called Steeplechase (1897); it burnt down once or twice, but ended up being the last to close down in 1965. The second was LUNA PARK (1903), which was famous for it's 'Trip to the Moon'. It closed after a series of fires and trouble with street gangs in 1944. And the third and final of the big parks of the era was Dreamland. Opened in 1904, it was bigger and better and designed to challenge the other parks. It apparently had everything; from a railway that rode through Swiss Alps to a dwarf village. They even had incubators for premature babies (the design had been presented to hospitals to no reaction and was considered a freak show at the park). Anyway, Dreamland closed down in 1911 after a huge fire. The war began and it was never rebuilt.
We had incredible pizza for lunch and went to the museum, which was full of original memorabilia from the parks and had a documentary playing about the history (which is where I learnt all the information above).
The pier provided nice views of the buildings and rides along the beach (and I took a moment to ponder 'should i choose her or the voice? "Hellllooooooooo"')
We walked along the street from the boardwalk to the subway line. There were old tents and broken rides. Coney Island in winter feels like my Dreamland got addicted to cocaine and sold all its belongings (and eventually soul) for drugs, to find itself fifty years later a burnt out husk. Not dead, but close.

Shopping and Networking

OK where did i leave off..
Tuesday, I blogged (obviously), put photos on Facebook and researched sights. I cooked up a big lunch then left Chris and headed downtown to Christopher Street. Not specifically for any reason, but it does connect with Broadway and follow to Washington Park, a great monument. It was under construction so there were a lot of dirt mounds and orange tape around, kinda killed the spirit of the place, but still nice. I then kept walking to Lafayette where, again, it intersects with Broadway in a spectacular shopping experience. So, Broadway runs the length of Manhattan, and is interesting the entire stretch. On it is Tom's Restaurant, The Late Show With David Letterman, Time Square ...all sorts of things. And Lafayette is another big exciting street, which has knockoff brands and thrift stores. so when the two meet! Well, I can tell you. I did spend a whooping $8.98 at the Salvation Army store! I then caught the subway to Grand Central Station. I cant even really describe how amazing it is. You have to see it. White marble, big stairs, chandeliers, the lot.
Went home to Michelle's in Time Square, and watched....SEINFELD!!! Wooo.

Wednesday morning I awoke and watched a cruise ship arrive at Pier 18 on the Hudson from here on the 19th floor. I met Chris down at the dock because his dad and partner were arriving on the ship and leaving on a plane. Had a great Mexican breakfast, fruit salad for me...so not too Mexican, but it did of course include cafe con leche.
Ha a funny story is that Chris was running from his place north of the Pier, and was running late (in true Shephard style), so he caught a taxi. He arrived and didn't have any money to pay, so came over and ran back but the driver had to leave because there was no place to wait. Then while walking to the cafe a taxi pulls up and starts yelling. Chris yells back that we don't need a cab etc etc. then the guy says 'This Guy!!! I drive him all the way and he doesn't pay me!!!'. We all burst out laughing while Chris grabs his money. Cant get away with much in this town.

Anyway, after breakfast Chris and I walked to Columbus circle, which is the south west corner of central park. there is a huge mall type thing around the roundabout. Then I left Chris and walked to 5th ave and 51st to shops and had a look. H & M is a good one, I get the impression it is like Glassons but different enough to be slightly cooler. Walked past The Ed Sullivan Theatre and Hello Deli (The Late Show with David Letterman) and headed to 46th and 10th to the Salvation Army MEGA STORE!!! twas great! I spent a good hour and a half wandering around trying things on (there's no changing rooms so just have to try things in front of a mirror). Bought a swag load of stuff for $15 and made my way home via a couple of antique stores. Wednesday night I accompanied Michelle to Kiwi Night and meet a few people from home. So funny to see New Zealander's out of New Zealand...everyone somehow instantly becomes Kiwi stereotypes. One girl talked for about 45minutes about how her family's shop was in Goodbye Pork Pie for a few seconds. Gave me hope though, that I could one day live here too :P
The big news here at the moment is of course the Haiti earthquake. But second to biggest, is that Conan O'Brien is getting shoved out of NBC. So i sat down at 11.30 and watched one of his last shows. The great Ricky Gervais swore a few times then I went to bed.

Thursday (or today, if your in the same timezone as me), I arose early and subwayed my way to the Brooklyn Bridge. Wandered the length and watched the sun on Manhattan and the silhouette of Brooklyn. Such a beautiful spot, I saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time, in the far distance and then explored a little of Brooklyn. After about 10minutes I began to feel out of my element amongst the building projects and lottery stands so began my way back to town. I met Chris for a lunch break at Tom's Restaurant (from Seinfeld). We had a great vanilla milkshake and mozzarella sticks. yum. Not far from there is an incredible area called Children's Sculpture Garden which is full of small animals sculpted by children of all ages and in the centre is a huge, big, complex battle between the Archangel Michael and Satan. I will post photos shortly because it was spectacular, I cant even talk about it.
After I had explored in the garden for a while i headed to Toys'R'Us. Huge. There's a Ferris wheel in the store and a big TRex and all sorts of crazy things. I bought some headphones and went home.
I accompanied Michelle to yet another Kiwi thing tonight. This time it was a little different. It was a practise for a show that is organised through, and for, the KEA group which is a networking company for New Zealand business people outside of New Zealand. So we arrive at the 9th floor penthouse apartment to be greeted by several men in suits, drinking wine, standing around a grand piano. Because neither of us really knew what we were going to, we were taken aback by the confrontation that we were now in a room full of adults. I don't know about Michelle, but I knew I shouldn't be there. We gathered and begun, each person given a role in the short musical written for a conference type gathering of New Zealander's. It was hysterical.
And now, here I am, back at Michelle's for one more night. I am very likely to carry on my nightly routine; turn electric blanket on (its 2* out), watch some late night TV and then hit the hay.

Lazy days in the city.

So, we have been quite slow and layed back with our lifestyle here for the last few days. On Friday we went to Dino Bar for a drink, when we got there we found that it was actually called Dino Bar-B-Que so was full of buffolo wings and steak. But we had a great portobello mushroom burger then headed to the supermarket. We loaded up on provisions then ran to the movies to catch AVATAR 3D in time. It was amazing.

Saturday I slept in again (not helping my jet lag), then Chris and I went for a walk along the Hudson. The water was freezing over and there was snow and trees and evening sunlight. We ended up walking about 80 blocks then headed east into the city to find some food. Had yet another portobello mushroom burger and then walking to the subway station we passed Brazil Brazil Bar!!! Yay!! Stopped in for a casaca coffee (i know, its weird, but thats what we felt like). Then we made our way home on the subway.

Sunday we had bagels for breakfast, only $2. I made lists while Chris organised his things and then we went for a run along the Hudson River. I have quickly adjusted to the 'keep right' scheme here in America so i didn't run into anyone. Twas -3*celsius but running warmed me up fast. The Hudson was more frozen than the day before.

Monday morning the guy came to fix the broken radiator, so there was at last peace and quiet. I ditched Chris so he could get some work done, and went for a big walk along Morningside Park, one of my favourite places so far. The pathway follows along a steep wall that leads down into the main part of the park. But walking along the wall there are amazing views of Harlem, not to mention loads of squirrels. I carried walking east and wandered through the Northen Woods of Central Park, then walked home along Broadway, North to Amsterdam - where Chris lives. Chris and I then caught various subway trains to Brooklyn for a meeting he had. I wandered along the waterfront to the Brooklyn Bridge. Such a beautiful, yet still cold, night. Will have to go back during the day to walk along the bridge itself. When I could stand the cold night air no longer, I had a coffee in a great cafe called Boca, that was furnished with antique tables and chairs and had walls covered in books. Chris came and met me after his meeting and we wandered around exploring a little, then caught the subway to the heart of Manhatten to visit a good family friend, Michelle. She lives just above Time Square, with spectacular views of the city. Had a great dinner with her. She hooked me up with a cell phone so i can stay in touch with both her and Chris when im out exploring the city.

Today I am going to buckle down and do some extreme sight seeing. Tourism here I come.

New York, New York

NEW YORK IS AMAZING!!!! Its cold , but yesterday was really nice, the sun was out and so it want too bad. Its so nice to be here and to see chris. ..big relief. Although the flights were all quite horrible, didn't get much sleep but watched a few good movies.

Yesterday we went for an incredible breakfast then walked the entire length of central park! 50 or so blocks. There were huge icicles on all the waterfalls and fountains, leafless winter trees (i found it strange that there isn't many evergreens). Theres lots of different areas, theres the great hill, the highest part of the park, that has stunning cityscapes, theres tennis courts, bridges, beautiful old tunnels, and even a castle that you can climb up through and look out over a turtle pond. Theres even a little labyrinth of pathways called The Ramble! One of my favourite parts though would have to be the Jacqui kennedy lagoon. its huge! and theres a walkway all the way around. We got there just at dusk and the light on all the buildings on the opposite side was the best it could have been :D

After walking from the northwest corner all the way through to the southwest corner we stopped for a coffee break and then headed into the main part of manhattan. 5th avenue has all the expensive label shops, with eccentric window displays. Rockefeller centre still had the huge christmas tree up, with tons of people ice-skating around in front of it (good thing we went there coz it was the last day for the christmas display). Bryant park is another ice-skating rink and then we made our way to Time Square. There was massive big tv screens bigger than buildings and if it wasn't neon then it wasn't interesting. Even the NYPD sign was flashing neon. :P there were glowing red steps that we climbed to look out over all the people to the brainwashing advertisements.
After we walked the length of time square we went to Macy's, apparently the biggest shopping centre in the world. It was like ten stories and packed full of people even at 8pm. Theres a sale on there today and tomorrow so i hate to imagine the crowd that would draw in. My mission was the find a coat. we got to the eight floor and felt nauseous from the elevator ride so sat for a while. i looked on the sale racks and was beginning to doubt id find one i liked that was warm and within my budget. then, there on the rack, the only one, and happened to be an xs, brown with coloured lining and green cuffs, was my dream jacket. I bought it and then we had pizza and took the subway home.
In total we calculated we walked at least one hundred blocks!!

Catchup: Bolivia Salar

ok, so i know im super far behind... like... two weeks at least.. but ive been so busy...and blogging takes lots of time and energy. Of which i usually have neither.

i might just go through and bulletpoint things to keep it short .

Salar tour.
Started Friday, packed up the jeep and headed off at around 11am. First stop was the train graveyard - wrecked trains that Bolivia cant aford to do anything with. Climbed all of them.

Stopped to get the meals for the tour... there was a little boy in the yard who seemed like he had just learned to stand up... he was knocked over by two dogs fighting over a ball.

Salt mounds… the local people are aloud as much salt as they want from the salt flats.. these mounds are where they pile the salt up to leave it to dry.
Climbed all over them, took some photos with dinosaur toys. Had a group hug on one mound.

Salt hotel – its illegal to have salt hotels on the actual salar, this one is just to the side of it. There were various salt sculptures inside, including a big condor and a naked woman.

Cactus Island - the main event… an island in the middle of nowhere, covered in cactus. Walked the path through the island, at the top there are great views of white salt and cactus. There is a shrine to PachaMama (Mother Earth), where people can place an offering to keep everyone safe. I put two colored pencils.
We took a whole load of photos, Claire and Nicky took a series of ninja photos, then we headed back down to the jeep for lunch.
Lunch consisted of a variety of veggies, and then once we were finished we headed out on the salt to take clever, no-horizon photos …which the salar is famous for.
Our clever was lacking, and the guide was useless at setting the photos up properly, so quite a few of them on my camera just look silly. I gave up early on these photos while the others powered on, determined to get one good one. I sat and looked on as I played guitar, and Chris played with the dinosaur toys we bought with us. We then played a round of Frisbee… Chris was in the Ultimate Frisbee team in Afghanistan when he was there…so he has some wild tricks that he cracked out on the salar. It was tiring though, due to the high altitude. We walked back to the jeep as the sun was setting.

The hotel we stayed at was full of other jeep loads of tourists… and we settled in and had a round of cards. We laughed lots about various bad jokes that usually came from either Chris or Natalie. We opened a bottle of wine and had a tiny glass each (our tour guide could only find us shot galsses, so that was classy). We eventually got dinner, after all the other dinners had left the dinning hall. I wanted to complain to our guide for being so useless, but I was too tired.
Went to bed instead of having dinner (the vegetarian option that night wasn’t that appetizing) and fell asleep as fast as I can ever remember.


That night Chris had a bad onset of altitude sickness and in the morning I packed up our things and got him some cocoa matte.

We had a small breakfast then left for the salar to see the sunrise.
Parked in a good spot, with a great view of the horizon. It was super cold, and to warm up, Nicky just ran around in circles for about 10minutes. I don’t know how well it worked.
The sun rose, slowly but surely. And anyone who wasn’t wearing their sunglasses was blinded (except Chris, who is from Florida, where the sun is the brightest in the world!).
Claire taught us all a little tie chi, so we stood and welcomed the sun with that. Nicky did her yoga position, saluting the sun. It looked impressive.

We drove for a while then stopped for a food stop… went to the bathroom, which was guarded by two young children. The youngest, a boy hugged everyone that went through, and then talked me into playing soccer. He showed off how high he could kick the tiny ball, and then Chris joined.
The food shop was amazing, we got crackers, and chips and chocolate, and string, and then a box with a woman in a red bikini caught our eyes. Turns out it was a box of Brazilian fireworks and so we bought one and asked if we could keep the box too. We could. We did.

Once the mechanics appeared to have the jeep working we left for some lagoons. On the way we stopped at an area full of strange rock formations. The lava had ‘fossilized’…our tour guide was a moron.
But Chris and I found a spot in the sun and lay down. The others climbed up various things for some comical shots. …most of their photos have Chris and I in them laying at the bottom of the biggest rock. Suckers!

We came to the first lagoon, and as soon as I saw it I yelled FLAMINGOES!!! Horay. And yes, they were pink.
We were able to walk right up to the water edge and watch them feeding. There were quite a few and beautiful to watch. I stayed there for a while.

We had lunch and then headed onwards to more lagoons.
The next that we came to was called Laguna Hidionda, which means smelly. And that it was. Still beautiful though. We took some photos, and walked as far as we could before the water edge just became sludge.

Drove for another while and came to Laguna Colirado… where we saw the sunset and a lot of flamigoes in the distance. There was a little hut and we walked around for a buit tghen headed to the hotel.
The hotel was a lot more empty that the one the night before and so we settled in then had some tea and played a variety of camp games. They were fun and passed the time until dinner. Dinner appeared and it was a big bowl of spaghetti. We ate our fill then nicky tried to get Natalie to finish the leftovers by just ploughing them into natalies face. That technique didn’t really work.
Chris and I then brought out our new Brazilian firework, and he lit it in the carpark…it was three stots and apparently theyr used a lot at university protests to get peoples attention.
Admired the stars for a short time before heading inside to get away from the cold.
Had a great nights sleep and awoke for our last day on the salar tour. We first visited gysers. Its was before the sun had risen so the lack of light made all the steam more impressive. We jumped over one then went and walked around al the big ones. It smelt like sulfur but the steam was warm so I basked in it a little.

Next up was hot springs on the edge of another lagoon. Nice to be warmed to the core and we sat and soaked it up for quite some time.
When it was time to get out everyone was reluctant but we all managed to get changed and make it to breakfast .
Breakfast was the biggest meal yet, with pancakes and fruit salad, granola, and yogurt.

Laguna Verde (Green Lagoon) was the next stop with its big mountains surrounding, and the best reflections of all the lagoons so far. The water level was low for that time of year though, so there was a lot of salt sludge surrounding the lagoon.
Stayed for a while…I built a little rock tower. It fell shortly after.

The Bolivia/Chile border just consisted of lining up. The bus ride down to San Pedro de Atacama was nice though - desert that Chile had stolen off Bolivia in their various wars. The road descended fast so Chris and Natalie cheered at the altitude dropping. They were the ones affected the most.

Arrived in San Pedro and made our way through customs.
We were dropped at the money exchange place and then we found our hostal –Hostal Florida. Nice place- the bed had an orange duvet.
Chris and I went for a pizza date for lunch, and it was great. Huge pizza and a melon dakari.
Ran errands and then took chris for a easy on the stomach meal for dinner as he had managed to get sick again.

The entire Of Bolivia in 7Days: Chris´s Bolivian Adventure.

so much to tell , but ill try my best.

chris arrived last monday in la paz, i meet him at the airport, and he had his guitar and a bottle of whisky. we got on a bus to cochabamba , a small city about 8hours away. from there he organised a private tour to a national park that has dinosaur footprints. it was my birthday present. it was so fun coz there were no other tourists there because its too hard to get to, no companies run tours there and theres only spanish tour guides. anyway , we drove there, took 5hours. but the scenery was amazing, there are big rock formations from the fault lines that made all the mountains and a huge valley. ill try to send you some photos.

Once there we got the best guide in town , he also has the best name of anyone ive ever met, Felix Gonzalez. He was really sweet and always ran instead of walking when he had somewhere else to be. so we would finish talking to him then hed run away.
after we arrived we went caving.. we walked along a path through crop fields, and around cool rocks and then we saw dinosaur footprints !! there was a velociraptor and other three toed carnivores...and one looked like 5toes but it was actually two three toed dinosaurs crossing paths .
Then we got to the cave and it was starting to get dark...twas about 4.30pm and a pair of parrots flew past!
The river runs down into the cave so we had to climb on rocks and try not to fall in coz the river becomes a load of waterfalls once in the cave. It was kinda scary and i almost fell in a few times...so did chris.
Then eventually we turned down a little crevace and climbed a ladder to a level where the roof was only about 3feet from the floor. I started felling claustrophobic... but that was nothing compared to the end of it. Anyway we climbed down walls using a rope.. and we crawled through tiny spaces and got covered in dirt. Chris slid down a lot of the places on his butt but i tried to keep my cords clean.
we saw stalagtites and stalagmites and there was a part near the end that was a really open space full of sand and we knelt down and turned off our torches. Our guide told us about a couple who went in the cave ages ago and their torches ran out and they just waited at that sandy part until people found them.

We then started making our way back to the surface , from 70metres underground. The way back was up along the water and the ground was quite slippery. So that was a little bit stressful, but not too bad.
We found the opening of the cave and climbed out. it was barely light out.

the next day we went for a dinosaur footprint adventure. Theres a big area near the road into town that is fenced off, and in this is all the most exciting fossils you could ever see. There were huge quadraped footprints that walked away up the hill. there were tons of three toed footprints...there were hadrosaurs, and baby trex, more velociraptor prints, which were really distinguishable from the other three toed prints because their third claw doesnt hit the ground... just like on jurassic park...Retractable claw.
There was a path of big prints and carnavore prints, and Felix told us that it may have been that the predator was running at the large dinosaur and jumped and attacked the big one...because both paths of prints stop abruptly. There was also Pterosaur prints that are possibly the pterosaur landing because the first set are deep and then it hops forward. Incrediblé.
Theres to many to tell about all of them. it was probably one of the best days ever.
After we had seen all the print in that area we went for a walk to a canyon.. we walked along the dry riverbed.. and saw all sorts of different rock types and then the ground dropped away and there is an area that is called the Natural Theatre.
We carried on for a while in awe of all the great views and then we came to a huge canyon. There are Macaws that are endemic to Bolivia and are now endangered , Red Fronted Macaw. We heard a few then they flew out from the side of the cliff where they nest. They have red blue yellow green and red on them.

We sat and watched for a while before making our way back to the hotel. The driver wanted to leave early enough to ensure we wernt driving at night but he made us stressed out by rushing. We had a quick game of frisby with Felix then packed up our things and hit the road... the way back was bumpy bumpy. The driver hit a chicken and then i didnt like him anymore. His name was Mario.

we got straight on a night bus to Sucre. we were two minutes late and the bus was pulling out onto the road...we ran with all our things and the bus driver was yelling all sorts of things in spanish. slept a little woke up in Sucre, went for breakfast/lunch at a vegetarian resturant. really good food.. we had quinua and veggies, and potato spinach mix, and cake and rice puff slice and it was all deliscous. Birthdays are fun. We explored the plaza for a while and then got on our bus to Uyuni. We stopped 4hours later in Potosí for two hours which gave us time to walk up the hill to the plaza, and find some more great food..chris also had time to get really altitude sick because Potosí is one of the highest cities in the world, and he , is Sealevel boy. We got back to the busstation just in time and made ourselves as comphy as we could for our long nighttrip to uyuni. the seats were all broken and i got frustrated. we stopped at a horrible busstop that had no Baño (toilet). So that was good. The bus broke down at 2 in the morning. we sat for a while , while they sorted that out then we arrived in Üyuni at 5am. It was cold. It was freezing cold. We found our hotel and slept for 3hours , got up and met the girls, went to organise the Salar tour and then left at 11am in a jeep cramped full of all our gear and 9people.

i might stop my update here because there is still the entire salar tour to describe and i dont think im up for it.