Winter Wonderland!

Well, winter has not even officially started here yet, but over the past few weeks we have been experiencing some freezing weather conditions! Most days recently have not gotten past 0 degrees as the maximum. We have had a light dusting of snow on a few occasions but it pretty much melted straight away. But today we were treated to a real winter wonderland! It started snowing as we were walking to the metro and it very quickly became heavier and heavier. The snow continued for most of the day until there was a good 2-3 inches on the ground. It was so beautiful to see and Pia and Ella loved walking around in the snow and trying to make and throw snowballs.



It would have only been snowing for a bit over half and hour when this photo was taken. We were on our way to the National Gallery of Art to meet some friends.

A different view of the Capitol!

The National Mall - you can just make out the Washington Monument on the right.

On our way back home, we stopped at Lincoln Park, our usual playground. Pia and Ella were so excited to see it covered in snow.

Our street in the snow.

our house

our garden

Back at Lincoln Park later this afternoon, Pia and Ella get their snowballs ready


and here is a video of a snowball fight in action and James' great shot!

So this was our fun day in the snow. It has stopped snowing now but they are predicting more snow for the weekend so there may be more fun to come yet!

New York... the finale

You have probably read about New York Part 1 and New York Part 2, so here is our final day.

Wednesday, December 1

Today it absolutely poured rain all day. We were lucky that up until now we had had quite nice weather, cold but at least sunny. But today was wet and dark. So we headed of to MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art). I think about half of New York must have had the same idea because it was very crowded!

This museum was also huge and so we concentrated on just a few sections. They had a great kids highlights program again, so James and I took the girls to see some of the works of art on that. First we saw a painting by Jackson Pollock (Number 31, 1950) and then a metal sculpture by David Smith called Australia!

Another activity was centred around the Gallery of Works of American artist, Mark Rothco. First, the girls had to write down words that a painting made them think of onto little cards. Then they arranged them into a free-form poem. Very artistic!


Here is the painting Pia chose to describe and her poem is:
Desert sand
Fur free
Colourful happy
Hot fire
Dead grass blur
Bright

Ella chose the painting entitled No.10, 1950.

No. 10, 1950

Her poem is:
yellow
white
blue
beach

Pia then chose a much darker painting, also by Rothko.

Her poem for this one is:
Stormy rain
icy water
sad gloomy
cold mud
frozen winter
cloudy fog

Both Pia and Ella loved this poem making activity and it kept them entertained for much longer than I was expecting. So perhaps we have a few poets in the making!!

James and I also enjoyed seeing some of the panels from Monet's Water Lillies series and Van Gogh's Starry Night.

After all that creativity we headed home for a rest before the evening's activities. James, Sophie and Jeannie headed off to the Lincoln Centre again, this time to see the opera, La Boheme. They thought it was beautiful, despite there being some technical difficulties which meant it did not finish until close to midnight.

Pia, Ella and I went to see something a little more recent, but spectacular in its own way. We went to Radio City Hall at the Rockefeller Centre to see the Rockettes in the annual Christmas Spectaclar. The girls and I really enjoyed the lights, Christmas songs and nativity scene, as well as the Rockettes with their amazing legs! The girls also loved the appearance by Santa, who at one point transformed himself into a stage full of Santas! Here are some pictures from the show.













On our way home we walked past the Rockefeller Centre Christmas tree, which looked beautiful all lit up.


So that was our 6 days in New York. The next day we sadly packed our bags and headed back to Washington (even though we do love DC we were sad to leave the vibrancy of New York). Jeannie and Sophie had a few more days with us before they flew home.

New York...Part 2

Monday, November 29

We spent today discovering a few different New York neighbourhoods. We started off in Greenwich Village, where we stopped at Washington Square Park. This park houses a large arch, a little reminiscent of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, dedicated to George Washington. It was erected for the centenary of Washington's Presidency in 1889. The arch shows various images of Washington as statesman and military leader.








After our walk around Greenwich, we headed over to the Lower East Side, a much different neighbourhood. We visited the Tenement Museum here. The tenements were apartment buildings which housed poor, newly arrived immigrants to America from the 1860's to around the 1950's. Even today, this area is home to many immigrants and the neighbourhood seems much less well-off than many other parts of New York.



We did a tour of 2 apartments in this tenement building. One was kept as it was in the 1860's, when it was home to a lady from Prussia, her husband (who later ran off and disappeared) and her 4 children. They lived in a tiny 3 room apartment with no running water or electricity. Natalie (the mother) had a very tough time, especially once her husband left and then her youngest child died. However, her story ended well when she came into an inheritance and she was finally able to move her family out of the tenement.

The next apartment was set up as it was in the 1930's when an Italian family lived in it. It still had no electricity (many tenements were very late in getting electricity) but it did have running water and a requirement that each room in the house had a window! - so at least they had access to more natural light. It was interesting to see how people managed to live in those times, under such difficult conditions, but they tried to make the best of their situation.



Later that afternoon, we took a walk around Bryant Park, which is just behind the New York Public Library. It is a very impressive park, being surrounded by some pretty impressive looking skyscrapers. It was also set up for Christmas, with Christmas markets and ice-skating.


We loved the decorations on the Christmas tree inside the New York Public Library, where we stopped to read the girls some stories and to see the beautiful reading rooms. We especially loved the cardinals and blue-jays on the tree, which have become some of our favourite American birds.

On our walk back home we passed Grand Central station...




and got a great view of the Chrysler Building just as the lights turned on at dusk.


Tuesday, November 30

James made a special outing this morning to see the tomb of Ulysses S. Grant, former president of the United States, who is buried in an enormous mausoleum near Harlem. The rest of us headed off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an enormous structure of its own. James met us there soon after.

Sophie, Ella and Jeannie contemplate the enormity of the Met!

It would probably take years to properly view the entire collection at the Met but the small amount we saw was amazing.




In the Egyptian room, we saw a temple built by the Roman Emperor Augustus about 2000 years ago that has been transported here piece by piece, from the banks of the Nile. The temple honours the Egyptian goddess Isis and 2 sons of a local chieftan. When it sat by the Nile it was often flooded and began falling into disrepair. It was transported to New York where it was restored.

One of the beautiful Tiffany windows in the museum's collection.

At night we went to the Lincoln Centre to see the New York Ballet's production of The Nutcracker. It was a beautiful performance and the dancers were amazing and so light on their feet. Ella, a huge ballet fan, loved it of course, but even Pia, who had previously declared that she was 'not keen on ballet' was impressed and really enjoyed the show. Both girls especially enjoyed the second act where all the sweets and treats come to life and dance for Marie and the prince. Pia's favourite was coffee and Ella's was hot chocolate. It was a lovely way to end the day.



I will finish up with New York - Part 3 soon. This post is just getting too long!

New York, New York.....Part 1

We visited New York with Jeannie and Sophie and really loved the buzz that the city has. Non-stop people, non-stop activity and non-stop noise! Even our little townhouse creaked and groaned non-stop at night thanks to its steam heating system. It took us a day to work out how to tame it so that we could finally get some peace!

I will let our photos tell the story of the days we had there.

Friday, November 26
Our townhouse was on West 48th Street, which was only a few blocks away from Times Square. So this is where we headed on our first afternoon in New York. The lights, noise and crowds were huge. The girls loved looking in the huge Toys R Us store, which even had its own ferris wheel inside the shop!





Saturday, November 27
The next morning we headed out to see the Statue of Liberty. Little did we realise, being the Thanksgiving weekend, we had chosen one of the busiest weekends to visit. So after waiting in a (freezing cold!) queue for over 2 hours (!!) we finally passed security and made it onto the ferry to take us over to Liberty Island.

The view of the financial district taken from the ferry.

The Statue of Liberty is actually made of copper. She started off the colour of a shiny nickel, or US one cent coin. Over the course of about 30 years, the copper slowly turned to the green colour that it is today. This patina now protects the metal.


While James braved a 30 minute outdoor tour with a park ranger in the freezing and windy conditions, the girls and I and Jeannie did a quick walk around the base of the statue and admired the view of Manhattan (before rushing back inside!).

Sunday, November 28

Jeannie and Sophie had a shopping day today, so James and I and the girls started the day with a walk around the nearby area. We saw the Rockefeller Center, complete with huge Christmas tree and ice skating rink.




Then we walked along 5th Avenue, which is the main fashion and shopping area. Many of the major stores already had their Christmas windows up and we enjoyed looking at these. We also went to the beautiful St. Patrick's Cathedral.



Next we headed into Central Park. Although it was cold, it was a beautiful place to walk around and we had lunch there.


Pia and Ella loved the huge kids playground and especially this tyre swing, which reminded them of Wollombi and(grandad)Bernie's tyre swing. They made sure they left enough room for Eva and Matilda (their cousins back in Australia) to fit on the swing as well. So they enjoyed a swing with them, in spirit!
Below are some other views of Central Park.









We finished off the day at the Natural History Museum, site of the first Night at the Museum movie, which the girls loved. Among many other things we saw...

the dinosaur in the foyer, which comes to life in the movie


the Easter island 'talking' statue...


and the museum's Christmas tree. The decorations are all origami animals.

That completes our first 3 days in New York. In my next blog I'll cover the next 3 days.