NYC

I'm writing this post with my iPod from Brooklyn in the apartment of a very nice man we 'met' on www.couchsurfing.com. What I mean is we've never physically seen this person but we've seen evidence of his existence. We've moved into his apartment, read his welcome note, we've slept on his inflatable mattress (as advertised on his CS profile), and we've stroked his little bunny (no, that's not euphemism for something else). From this evidence we've deduced he's a pretty cool cat! Hopefully, we'll get a chance to shake his hand and say thanks for his hospitality in person.

So...New York...actually...Vancouver then New York...it's somewhat appropriate that I forgot to mention Vancouver as both Corina & I forgot to do any planning for our visit to Vancouver. We knew that we would stay with Craig & Mathy and meet my new nephew, Yohan but beyond that nothing! That being said, Vancouver is not a city that one should slough off. It has everything under one roof...hiking in the mountains, going to the beach, or shopping in every store you can imagine!

One thing we noticed about Vancouver is that the emphasis is on outdoor activity...everyone seems quite fit & trim. No surprise that they won the bid for the 2010 winter Olympics!

We were looking forward to NYC but were just getting reaquainted with family when we had to leave. Corina fell in love with Yohan (who knew she had a thing for younger men?). We both enjoyed our time with Craig & Mathy and were sorry to have to say goodbye.

We arrived at JFK early Saturday morning with little sleep on the red eye from YVR. We'd prearranged with our CS host to pick up the key as he was at the beach for the day. We dumped our stuff at his place, grabbed a quick nap and we were off to explore midtown Manhatten.

We wandered the streets in typical tourist fashion, with camera in hand, gawking upwards. The highlights of the day were: Times Square (need to go back at night!), Grand Central Stn, the Chrysler Bldg, and touring through MoMA (saw Picasso, Cezanne, Rothko, Newman, Van Gogh, Matisse, Mondrian, de Kooning, Johns, Warhol, etc.).

Today was another day full of walking...map and camera in hand (Corina thinks I'm addicted to the map). We walked over the Brooklyn bridge, saw the Fuller bldg (the Flatiron, as it's more commonly known) & the Guggenheim and walked through Central Park.

We returned home to another note from our host who will be away for another night. I guess we'll have to keep his bunny company one more night. We don't mind though...now that we know his name...Santos.

We've found it difficult to stay on top of posting blogs as we only have this little gadget to write with. We'll make a better effort once we settle into this travel lifestyle, I'm sure.

Salutations from NYC,
Jason