Yes Portland: New York New York and other such things...

I realised the other day when I said, "yeah, we went to New York", and not a lot more, that we used to blog a lot more about our travel adventures, so on this balmy night in Portland, I am putting fingers to keyboard, so to say, and will talk about the last month, and the months to come.

It's been a warm day today, maybe a sort of start to summer... but don't count on it. I've just finished the 'April Challenge' with the Portland Hash House Harriers, where you had to do a run/walk/bike with all nine of the various Hash 'kennels' in town in April. So that took a fair bit of effort and organisation, and many of the trails were done in rather cool & wet conditions. The reward for all of this is a Hash badge you can stitch onto a jacket or blanket, but its all about the effort and not the prize... And to cap off April, I'm also haring (setting the trail) with a co-hare for the Stumptown Hash May Day trail. It's supposed to be really warm again, and we're doing various food and drinks out in the forest, so should be a good night. I also bought a bike rack for the back of the company car (bargain $45 off Craigs List), so now I can take my bike on trips anywhere round here. Gives you some more options anyway.
Clare is auditing up in Seattle this week while I do Hash stuff. I'm taking the bus up on Friday afternoon for the weekend, as we're going to Ben & Angeline's wedding on Saturday. No, not the Ben some of you know, this was a Ben in our company who came from Sydney back in 2008/2009 I think, but he resigned and left recently... more changes for the company, but I think he needed a change too and everything is still rolling on ok. The other sales guy in our company seems to have been somewhat re-invigorated by Ben leaving, so we will see.

So yes, we went to New York. Clare had been working in New Jersey during the week, so I flew across and joined her there, then on the Friday afternoon we took a shuttle into Manhattan. We used Clare's Hilton points and got a room on the 52nd floor of the Millenium Hilton in Lower Manhattan (nr. Wall St), right opposite the World Trade Center site. You could look right down into the footprints of the twin towers that have now been turned into flowing square waterfalls of sorts, and lots of people crowd around every day of course. It's still a huge construction site, but also a massive tourist attraction. We went out for Vietnamese food on the first night and stumbled onto a big tv filming set, as you do in New York. After a sleep-in on the Saturday, we met an old friend of Clare's for lunch. She is an artist here, straight from Brisbane to very humble beginnings at the start, living with an eccentric old lady artist with a huge loft who splattered paint all over the walls... Sounded like the sort of character you would quite imagine in New York. But now she has branched out and has her own little studio, and now commands multi-thousands for every piece, and has shown at the Australian Embassy and so forth. Then we rushed across to Les Miserables at the Imperial Theater, that Clare now seems to appreciate after seeing the movie with Russell & Hugh. Les Miserables has been 're-imagined' for the stage since the new movie came out a couple of years back, and is a different show (scenery and costume wise anyway), than the show I saw in London & at this same theater in NY back in the 80's/90's. And a lot more expensive too, of course. Then we got out of Times Square quickly, as that area is pretty horrible. You only have to see it once or twice and you're over it. Aussie tourists a plenty of course.
After some late afternoon relaxation back in the room, we went out to Greenwich Village on the subway and found a wine bar that did oysters, and meats/cheeses, and very nice vino of course - all set in a tiny little alley between 2 buildings. That's the sort of place you chance on in New York. Nice. Then we walked all over the area before heading back to the hotel. The city never sleeps, but we needed to!

On Sunday, Clare did a photography show while I walked the 'High Line', an abandoned elevated railway from the Meatpacking District to Midtown on the Westside of New York, that has been developed into a long walking path - with lots of installed art pieces, etc. Apartments and amazing new architecture are springing up next to the High Line, it almost seems like the whole city is under construction. Quite exciting really, but life here would be way too expensive, and a massive lack of personal space. This is a city for the young, or people with cultural flair or real money. Living here in a grind job would be a real grind. No doubt about that. Later on Sunday afternoon we headed for JFK Airport and had booked a non-stop flight back to Portland...
We were home by midnight, and Portland seemed pretty quiet, as it always does when you come in from LA or San Fran or NY... nice really!

So that's that for now... just a little update on us.