Pics!

Ok went up the Empire State Building yesterday. Timed it well so I was there for dusk so I saw the city light up as the sky got darker. Quite pretty :-) It also started SNOWING when I was up there, unfortunately it never reached the ground as snow...only as rain/drizzle.

Went to get my hair cut cos I saw a special '$23 shampoo and cut' so I thought SCORE and went in and it turns out the blow dry isn't included and the blow dry costs $40! But stupid me didn't ask that before they started. I figured if I'm paying so much for a blowdry I'll ask them to do something complicated with it so I get my moneys worth. So yeah now I have slightly shorter, squeaky clean hair that looks like it's been set with rollers haha. Bouncy bouncy!

Upper East Side is pretty nice. It's quiet but there is still a bit around. I'm getting a bit lost up here but that will sort itself out once I get more accustomed to where I am in relation to N/E/S/W. I saw some dog walkers yesterday, three of them (one on each corner of the block) and no joke they had a bundle of like 8 dogs each! It was so funny! I tried to get a picture but it didn't turn out too well.

I think that's all that's happened lately. OH I went to the Irish Consulate place and despite it being beautiful inside and everything the people were about as helpful as an ice cube in a furnace so all I got was a stupid pamphlet and I'm still none-the-wiser about getting the VISA. I might get a calling card and ring the Irish Consulate back home to see if they can give any advice. Some sales are still on so I bought some 'respectable' clothes for when I go job hunting...all that is missing is the boots/shoes!

This stupid computer is taking forever so I haven't got all my ESB pics but here are a few:









That's Times Sq down in between those buildings!


Ok stay cool :-)
xx lisha

Oh Canada!

Here are some pics from our day trip to Ontario to see Niagara Falls. Much better on the Canadian side!! It was like a theme park there with crazy buildings and themed restaurants and museums and tourist traps. The falls were spectacular-so much water and noise and mist everywhere.





















Back in New York City. It's raining but you know what-I like this chilly wet weather better than the 65F it was last time I was here. I'm hoping the forecast is correct and it dumps snow down tonight and tomorrow. If that happens I am so on a train to Montauk on Tuesday. I miss the home-town feeling of Rochester and the pretty houses, and the wide open spaces. Also miss the animals at the Atzrotts-if I could take Quasi home with me I could...such an affectionate cat :-)
I have so much to see still and it feels like I won't get the time to see it all! Wanted to get a trip to Washington in too but I don't think there will be time. I need to start getting up earlier so I don't waste any time that I could be sightseeing/touristing in.

Ok getting kicked out of the room now cos it's after 2am! Oops!
Take care
xxx leash

What?

What is a chitterling and why do people need 10 pounds of them?

Stephen Colbert I love you even though you sell your image to an ice-cream company.

But it's damn good ice-cream...Damn good.

This is what USA eats

Seriously...

Shout outs

I want to say thanks to everyone who has or still reads this and puts up with my bitching and moaning and long-winded posts! Thanks especially for the comments, too-I love comments!
Big hellos to Dad (who I know reads this and tries to comment but they don't show up-even though they are still sent to me!), the guys from work (DES crew)-especially Tony who put in a marathon 3 days into reading this from start to finish. I'm surprised he didn't get bored of my whinging halfway through! Mum and Mark and Shane and Squishy-thanks for all the comments. The Atzrotts for not only reading but remembering what I've said and surprising me later on with things like a bottle of Disaronno (because I said how much I liked it) or a trip to Niagara! Thanks to Melly for your advice and being a kind of aus-merican go between, thanks to Meg and Matt and James and Bob also for your comments.
If there is anybody I missed I'm sorry I forgot you-you should probably comment more ;-)

Rochester!

yayayayaya!!

I'm in Rochester now and it's great! The Atzrotts are so nice and welcoming, and they *totally* spoiled me by giving me lots of gifts. I feel a bit bad though because I only really had what I could carry and had bought over with me from Aus.

Saw the RIT campus (very nice-kind of like UTS Kuringai but nicer), and this supermarket called Wegmans. Far out if there were Wegmans in Sydney I would be blowing all my money on food let me tell you! First Whole Foods, now Wegmans...Coles and Woolies will seem very inferior to me when I go back!

Speaking of going home...change of plans I have actually booked a plane ticket to Dublin on the 20th of Jan, with a tentative return date of the 4th of Feb. Will sort out funds and visas next week and then be on my way. With a bit of luck I will pick up a job when I'm over there and then I can stay for a bit longer. We'll see though. Either way, I'm going to Ireland!

Whilst on the subject of international travel, whilst not as far away (although from NYC it is further than Dublin!) we are going across the border to Niagara Falls (Ontario) tomorrow. That's so sweet/thoughtful of the Atzrotts because I had to cancel my original trip there earlier this week because of timing and funds clashes. So that'll be fun :D Maybe I'll get the VISA waiver slip to put in my passport. It's looking a bit bare at the moment. Also looking a bit beat up because I have been keeping it on me at all times so it's a little bent looking.

So-plan of attack when I get back to New York City is to go sort out a Visa for the EU/Ireland, go to Montauk on the Long Island Railroad, check out Coney Island and the aquarium, go up to the Botanic Gardens in the Bronx, and check out the Central Park Zoo. Hopefully there will be nicer/friendlier travellers at the next hostel I stay at so I can drag one of them along to go ice skating in Central Park with me. OH and also I need to go up the Empire State Building and also walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. The other day I was in Central Park and they were filming what looked to be a commercial for pads/adult diapers on the ice skating rink. Too strange-people in costumes looking like packs of poise/depends/kotex skating around on the ice.

Gotta go-we're going out for mexican. Yum!

Take care and stay cool-
leash

Just a quickie...

Went to the Museum of Natural History today....WOW it was the most fantastic museum I've ever been to! I could have spent days in there! I haven't seen 'Night at the Museum' but I'll have to now to see what he gets up to in there. They had actual dinosaur fossils on display and the best collection of stuffed and mounted animals from all over the world I had ever seen. I would love to be a curator in a place like that.
The history of humans and human evolution was also great-they had exhibits on world religions and a good section on the history of the african people. I never really learnt about that stuff before so it was all very interesting for me.

I'm going to Rochester tomorrow which will be good :-) Then I have to sort myself out for what I'm doing when I get back to NY. I've started applying for jobs online but without a work visa they probably will bin them straightaway. Fingers crossed though!

Oh one weird thing that happened today-I met the guy who designed the t-shirt I was wearing! I'm wearing the one with the cupcake saying 'AH MUNNA EAT CHOO!' and he called out to me 'I designed your t-shirt!' and I thought he said 'who?' so I was like 'umm...I got it from threadless.com' and then he's like 'No I mean ME, I did!' so I talked to him for a little while...that was pretty cool. He seemed happy to see one out and about being worn :-P

Took a long walk through Central Park yesterday. I know I said before it wasn't very beautiful but that's being too superficial to say that. Inside it really is quite pretty even though all the trees have dropped their leaves. Bethesda (sp?) fountain and terrace was especially beautiful. Of course my camera decided not to work so I don't have pictures of it. I'll have to go back. The Mall was very beautiful-it's one of those 'New York Scenes'. Reminded me a little of the walkway up to Archibald Fountain in Hyde Park (Sydney).

I would have gone up the Empire State building this afternoon for dusk but it was already too dark by the time I left the museum (I was there for over 5 hours). Oh well. Another thing to do when I get back.

Went to Madam Tussauds yesterday night. That was creepy. Some of the figures looked very wrong but some of them were so lifelike and just standing around you weren't sure if the people around you were real or not without specifically looking at them.

Sorry my thoughts are all over the place...I have a lot on my mind at the moment.

Without getting too far into my inner workings, it feels like I'm out of place here. I'm not living here or part of the city, just sort of resting on it's surface. I don't belong here and it isn't a very welcoming city...in one way it's nice to slip back into obscurity but I have this want/need to feel *part* of something and this city can't do that for me. I'm not part of anything here-I'm just another face in the crowd and all they want from me is my money. Only one person has actually talked to me as if they were interested in what I was saying and that was a stranger on the subway. It's incredibly lonely here, despite beind surrounded by millions of people. I wish I didn't always look like I was pissed off or whatever but THAT'S JUST HOW MY FACE LOOKS!!! Especially when I'm not thinking about anything or making an effort to look 'happy'. I'm worried it makes me look unapproachable (actually I have been told a couple of times already on this adventure that that's the case) but really I don't know what to do to avoid that?!? I can't go around with a goofy smile on my face all day because a) it's fake and b) it would hurt after a while. I'm enjoying the things that I am seeing in New York but deep down I miss Anchorage. It felt like home to me...
I don't think I can go back though until I work my head out. It's a situation that hurts me because I am at the same time so happy but also crushed because I have unrealistic expectations and my head in the clouds. Need to come back down to earth and see things for how they are and accept it and move on. Too cryptic and I'm rambling...SORRY!

Take care back in Aus (as the mercury gets closer and closer to 30C) and keep your fingers crossed for me. I have to go pack!
xxx lisha

Foxy Lady

What should I do tonight, do you think? It's almost 8pm on a Tuesday night here.

*p.s. thanks to everyone who has been leaving comments-especially Dad!!! Nice work :-)

CONAN!!!!!

Seems like a long time since I last posted here!

I've been doing quite a bit around here in Manhattan. It's a really easy city to get around as the focus really is on moving from one place to another. It gets a bit annoying when you just want to sit down and have a coffee or something and watch the world go by or read a paper or whatever. It's always go go go.
But, briefly, here are some of the things I've been doing and seeing (in no particular order):

-WTC ground zero site
-Wall St and the NYSE
-Staten Island Ferry (good views to the Statue of Liberty)
-Times Square
-The diner from Seinfeld
-The apartment building from Ghostbusters (opposite Central Park...where Rick Moranis' character gets turned into a hell dog or Sigourney Weaver or something)
-Rockefeller Centre+Top of the Rock observation deck
-CONAN O'BRIEN
-Central Park+Strawberry Fields (monument to John Lennon) and the Dakota Building, where he was shot
-Madison Square Garden
-SoHo/that area
-Broadway and theatre district
-Grand Central Station

There is probably more but they've slipped my mind right now.

Unfortunately, I've also been eating more junk food than usual. For one it is cheap, for two it is everywhere and for three they are open almost all the time. Today I had 'White Castle' (as in from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle) and I go in and the board says White Castle (burger) for 53c. Fifty Three Cents??? Score! Then I see that you can buy a 'crate' of 30 for $15, and various 'crate' sizes (up to 100 burgers). I supposed it was for catering or something. I mean, seriously, 100 burgers is alot! But then the two guys in front of me ordered a 30 crate. Hmmm maybe they have a party to go to? Then I order and get my White Castle burger. It's like a dinner roll with a meat patty about the same thickness as stiff cardboard in the middle of it. It was so cute! Totally 53c worth. I can see now why there would be demand to buy 30 of them. Don't get me wrong, eating 30 burgers in one sitting is a whole new level of gluttony but they are so tiny that it wouldn't be too fat of you to split it with 2 friends. White Castle is my new fave. Previously it was the Third-Pounder Angus steak with swiss cheese and mushrooms from Maccas (only the second time I'd gone to Maccas in the almost 2 months I've been in the US! Gimme a break!) but 53c beats $3.99 anyday.

I think things on the Visa front are out of my control and I will have to come home. Out of control as in, it's going to cost US$430 to lodge my application for a working visa to the UK. Stiff shit, I guess? It's really a massive shame but everything happens for a reason. Getting an American working visa is a hassle and a half. I hate beaurocracy (sp?) as it is, but the red tape involved in getting a visa to work over here is something out of this world. A real shame...this country is very lovable (so are the people) and there is so much to see and do here.
BUT the fat lady hasn't sung yet so we'll see how it goes. If Covermore get off their fat arses and complete my insurance claim and give me my money back then we might be in business.

I'm not going to Niagara Falls anymore (even though I did get my new passport- finally) instead just going as far as Rochester. Money and time contstraints mean I can't go all the way but I'm ok with that.

Oops got <1min left and I haven't even talked about Conan!

I went to the taping of Late Night with Conan O'Brien (watch it tonight!!!!!) and it was FANTASTIC! I'm so happy I went I had great seats and it was so much fun. Crap 10sec left I gotta go!