It’s pouring today! As Jacco said this morning, maybe the city will miss us too…a little. Today we both went to our jobs for the last time. Fighting our way through the umbrella rich crowd. Weird idea, specially for Jacco to walk (yep, his bike is sold too) that route for the last time! Tonight we’ll have a goodbye dinner with Jacco’s collegues in ‘Mole’, a Mexican restaurant near our house where we have been many times. Oops, I have to go (breakfast in Starbucks), can’t be late for my last day.

Just a guy on Greenwich Avenue: “It worked! I saw your panties”…

Tip for the skirt wearing women! Unless you want to relive a famous Marilyn Monroe moment, STAY AWAY from the subway grates! Because, yes, it does work.

Hi,

Since many people ask when we will be coming back (yes, we ARE coming back); we fly on Friday night the 31st of October (Halloween) and arrive the next morning at Schiphol. Although we’re really going to miss NY, we are looking forward to see our family and friends again!

x

I’ve been slow in updating, but here is a quick overview of what we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks.

Sat, Sep 21

The Woes & Julia Haltigan @ Spike Hill (Brooklyn)

We had seen both of these before, in different venues. This was a new venue for us (fun!) and both of their shows were fun!

Wed, Sep 24

Loudon Wainwright III @ the Highline Ballroom

I’d been looking forward to see Loudon in real life. The last time I came close, I suddenly had to travel for work, and Saskia ended up goign with someone else to a show in Paradiso. And now he was here in New York. With a lot of family close by, so who knows…

It was a weird setting (large hall, full with tables and chairs, and we were put at a table with 4 other people, but very close to the stage). But a great show. With lots of the aforementioned family doing cameo appearances. Daughter Martha sang a song, daughter Lucy did one, and son Rufus joined him for one as well. Lots of fun and joking.

(movie from the show we attended)

Fri, Sep 26

Honky Tonk Angels @ Banjo Jim’s
With Marco and Margreet, we were in the mood for some live music, and decided on some Country Music. SO we went to Banjo Jim’s for the first time. I had read about it before, but we didn’t get around to going there until now. It’s a tiny place, no stage, so the musicians just stand in a corner and play.

The Honky Tonk Angels are not a band, but more a collective of female country musicians from Brooklyn. And so we saw three seperate acts that night, where I think the first one,  Serena Jean, was the best we saw that night. The atmosphere was great, and although it was a little hard to get to the bar and get a drink, we had a very cool night, and will definitely come back to Banjo Jim’s before we leave!

Sun, Sep 28

Country Corner @ The Living Room

One of the organizers of the Honky Tonk Angels night told us about this afternoon get-together. It starts around 4pm, and is basically a sort of open-mic event with all musicians, that seem to know eachother. We ended up there because the rain did not allow us to play mini golf. So after some shopping, we all met up at The Living Room, ordered margeritas and saw a quite a few different performers.

So many different performers, in fact, that I truly believe we were the only people there that were not in a band. There were two or three partners of band members, and then there was us. Therefore it felt a little like an incrowd. But it was fun, and the margeritas were very nice.

Wed, Oct 01

Ben Folds @ Terminal 5

I have seen Ben Folds once before, in Cologne. And when I saw that he would be playing in New York, I first emailed Viktor to tell him he’d be playing in Den Haag as well, and then ordered tickets to go and see him in Terminal 5, a place we hadn’t seen before.

We were there quite early, so after the age-check (always bring ID!) and the ticket-check, we had some time to check out the venue before the opening act, Missy Higgins. It is actually quite a big venue, with the main floor an dtwo levels of balconies, both with bars. Sort of the same setup as Paradiso in Amsterdam, but a lot larger. One of the balcony levels has a lot of couches, where we sat and enjoyed a drink before the concert started.

Not having heard of Missy Higgins, we were pleasantly surprised. Fun music!

After that, the venue actually got a lot busier, and we found a place to see the concert on the ground floor. Ben Folds started off with a lot of the very new songs from the album that was released a day before. The strange thing was that, for a number of the new songs, two versions were played. He explained how those extra versions had come into existence. Basically, they were afraid that the album might be leaked prematurely, and that people would be downloading the songs off the internet.

To try and prevent this from happening, the band wrote alternate versions of all the songs on the new album, during a flight to Spain. In 8 hours, they wrote new versions of all the songs on the album, music and lyrics. And some of them were good enough to warrant a performance during this gig. Very interesting to hear completely different versions of those songs, and to be honest, I would not have been able to tell which of the two would be the official album version.

Although the new songs sounds great, somehow it’s always a bit nicer (to me, at least) to hear more familiar songs. And we were treated to some of those later on in the concert. The highlights for me were renditions of ‘Missing the war’ and ‘Army’, both of which involve heavy interaction with the audience. The first one was directed by Ben Folds, dividing the audience in three groups that each sing a part of a chord. It never ceases to amaze my how cool that sounds, and how “in tune” it sounds.

In the original version of the song “Army”, there is an interlude played by a clarinet and a oboe. Two tunes that sort of cross over eachother. During the concert in Cologne, he directed this bit as well, to great effect. However, in this concert he didn’t do anything. But apparently, a lot of people had seen one of his concerts before, because at the moment that that segment should start, almost the whole audience sang either one of those two melodies, and did that very well. Chicken skin! (goosebumps, you know)

(This is a version with the instruction)

Fri, Oct 03

Stoney Clove Lane @ Banjo Jim’s
With Mum and Dad, we wanted to go and see some live country music, so we went back to Banjo Jim’s. We saw about a show and a half, and Stoney Clove Lane was good enough for me to buy their CD.

Sat, Oct 11

Tim Blane @ Rockwood Music Hall

Wow, look at that. More than a week without live music! On this Saturday we went back to Rockwood Music Hall. Saskia had done a little investigation and figured that Tim Blane would be a good bet. And it was. We could not get into the place during the concert before that, so we used the artists part of the bar to get in, and get a drink. When that show was over, quite a few people left and we could get in. And we saw a very nice show. He had brought some fans that knew most of his songs.

Tue, Oct 14

Joe Whyte+Emily Zuzik @ The Canal Room
We had seen Emily Zuzik before, but in a solo show. This would be a full band performance, so we were interested to see how that would be. The evening started with a band around singer/guitarist Joe Whyte. He started with a slow song, where his female bassplayer sang backing vocals. After that impressive song, the rest of the band joined him on stage and they played sort of poppy country music, pretty good. We enjoyed it, but hoped for more backup singing by the bassplayer. Their voices worked really well together.

After that, it was Emily Zuzik’s turn. She’s a tall woman, and knows how to carry herself on stage. But somehow, the sound didn’t really click. It all sounded sort of “thin”, I felt. The songs are great, but somehow, it needed something extra. We did end up buying a cd, as we feel the songs are definitely worth listening to some more!

Monday, 15th of September.  Someone’s NY birthday! I picked her up at the apartment and we went for breakfast at Orchard. I got us tickets to see The Seagull of Chekhov on Wednesday. After a healthy yogurt, granola and berries we took the subway to 42nd street and saw Bryant Park, The National Library and the fancy shops of 5th Avenue. We had lunch back at LES and in the afternoon we took the subway to Brooklyn Heights to enjoy the view on Manhattan. Unfortunately the sun had already set but the sky was beautiful! We met Jacco at restaurant Frankies in another part of Brooklyn, Carrol Park. We had dinner here once before with Wayne and Dana and because it was so good we needed an occasion to come here again…voila. This restaurant is in the middle of a living area with shops and quite a bit of traffic but as soon as you sit in their large their garden you are in a different world. The only thing you see pass by in the distance is the subway that runs above ground at that point but even that has a surreal feeling. We had a drink outside and went in for dinner. I’ll leave it Jacco to write a review about that, he has the right vocabulary to describe food,…but it was really good.

This could have been a nice ending to a good and full day but it was Monday night which meant we had to show mum the Kuntryoke! Jacco and I even rehearsed the song ‘Jackson’ of Johnny Cash but as soon as we arrived at the bar we heard the same song bursting enthousiastically out of the cafe. OK. Slight set back but we WILL do it another time (they don’t play the same song twice). We stayed and heard some good performances, highlight being a truck driver from Canada who happened to be in the area and who sung….. Brave people! My mother had a very good time, also because she knew most of the songs! The reliable yellow car took us back to our beds.

The next day I took my mother on a very long tour,…in short we visited St. Paul’s Chapel, Wall Street, Battery Park, the Hudson Riverside Park (all by foot) and then we took a cab to the Meat Packing District and walked past our first home into Bleeker Street. At night we ordered Mexican food and ate in with our feet on the table watching Frasier. Unfortunately Jacco had to work late and came in past midnight.

The next day I had to work so my mother went on her own to Central Park and to the MOMA. In the evening we met in midtown to go to the Walter Kerr Theater to see The Seagull but first we had dinner at a nice Italian place where the waiter spoke South African and where a pretty well known actor was our table neighbour (still don’t know his name). So, the play…the theater was beautiful, hardly seen anything like it! Imagine a theater from early 1900 with ornaments on the ceiling, painted walls, new fluffy chairs and a thick velvet stage curtain…as if it was hung and done yesterday! Later we read that it had been recently renovated. The play was wonderful! It was really special to see actors like Mackensie Crook (the nerd in The Office, pirate in Pirates of the Carribean) and Kristin Scott Thomas (The Piano) play on stage.

Let’s see, what did we do the next day…AH, we went to Ellis Island, the island where between 1890 en 1952 millions of immigrants arrived. The ferry took us first to Liberty Island with the statue and before stopping at Ellis Island. We took a audio tour to hear all the stories which was really very interesting.  It’s amazing that nearly half of the population of the United States can trace their roots to Ellis Island. Also many Dutch people. Should you want to find out which of your ancestors made the trip you can find out at this website www.ellisisland.org. I already found many ‘de Ruiters’ an ‘Nieuwlanders’. We spent a good afternoon at the island and took one of the last ferries back to Battery Park. The weather was beautiful, one of the last nice summer days. In the evening the three iof us went out for dinner in the East Village, to a Spanish restaurant. The next day I first went to Brooklyn for the English-Arabic class and met up with my mother later at the subway to go to the Rockefeller Center. We went up to enjoy the view from the 68th floor. Again a sunny day so the view was amazing and my mother loved it. Down at the Rockefeller Center we drank a last wine before picking up her suitcases and travelling to JFK. <!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –> We looked back on a great week and now my mother knows why we love this city so much!

Hi everyone,

It’s been a while. Before I will write about the festival,…did you see the temperature icon? It’s nice outside! Sunny and fresh…we sleep without the a.c. on, just with an open window and we love it! In the evening we even need a vest and yesterday I wore my jeans…didn’t thing I would touch them before the end of September. I know. it can change in a day but for now it;s nice, nice, NICE!

The festival,… for those of you who I didn’t tell, I’m working for the International Fringe Festival. It’s a multi-arts festival (I believe the biggest in North America) with performances of over 200 companies. It started last Friday and runs untill August 24th. I am the box office manager of one of the venues. This is a fancy title for selling tickets but I guess that’s very American. As soon as you have some responsibilities they call you a manager. Any way, my job is to sell tickets on the day of the performance and only 15 minutes prior to curtain. This can get somewhat hectic as there are between 4 till 6 shows a day per venue and if a show does really well people are lining up to get inside. My venue has about 65 seats so it’s easiliy filled. Apart from a few most visitors are very easy going. For example, after the doors close there is no late admittance. In Holland you would have a lot of troube with ignorant, angry people but here they understand and blame themselves for being late which is nice for a change! The amazing thing of this festival is that there are so many performances in just 16 days. Some of the companies have rather extensive decors for their performances and they have to be able to set up and break down in 15 minutes! But I heard that that is what Fringe is all about, doing the most with little. Most groups are American but I’ve also met actors from Canada and Britain. The nice thing about this job is that I get to see some of the shows in between my shifts.

One of them is named Hot Cripple, a one woman show about a model/actress who gets run over by a car and her struggle with hospitals, doctors, health insurance and the way you are treated in this country when you don’t have an insurance. If it wasn’t for the humor in this piece you would cry the whole way through. Especially the way she describes the indifference of the health benefit organizations is scarily gripping. Apparantly it’s her own story which made it even more intriguing. In the end she is bankrupt and lives of foodstamps and doesn’t believe in the health and legal system anymore.

Last week I experienced myself how easily you can loose a lot of money in the health care system. I had to get my B12 level checked since it was very low before I left for New York. Since I couldn’t just get a test I had to see a doctor, 250 dollars for my first visit. Then I got my test and had to come back to the hospital to hear my result, another 150 dollars. When I thought this was it I received a bill in the mail of the lab,…another 355 dollars for the labtest! Apparently the doctor tested for all kind of things while the B12 test is only 80 dollars. And today I got another bill, this time a ‘modest’ amount of 25 dollars for the needle or something!? It took a trip to the hospital and a discussions with two managers to learn that a) always be carefull when you are examined by a intern (?!), b) always ask how much everything costs beacuse they won’t tell you upfront and c) just call the lab when you need to hear a test result. Aaahh! I got them a far as to reconsider the lab test bill and see if I am intitled for a discount. Now I understand why people who barely can make a living and do not have the resources to pay for health insurance can get in serious trouble very easily. Land of the free…

By the way: my B12 was fine now.

How is that for a change? A weekend update on the Monday, right after the weekend!

This Friday, Saskia had secured tickets for a special show on the Upper West Side. It was a tapdance & song show, the final night of Tap City, an 8-day tap dance festival. I have to be honest and state that, after a week of working, this would not have been my first choice. But we took the subway to 95th Street. Turns out that there were many people still trying to get tickets for this show, so something quite special must be happening here!

We got an extra cup of coffee to make sure I wouldn’t fall asleep, and went inside. It turns out I wouldn’t have needed the cup of coffee! The whole thing was very entertaining. I’m still not a huge fan of tapdancing, but have learned that there are styles that I prefer over others (the whole ad-lib thing with tapping is not my cup of tea). The cool thing was that most of the audience was very much into everything, shouting and clapping after particularly complex moves and stuff.

Another cool thing was that we saw Ruth again. We met this girl while waiting for the flight to the US back in May. We then met her again when we were having lunch with Sjuul and Roland, and it turned out she would be living on the same street we did. However, after that, we didn’t see her again. And now she was on stage, performing in a tapdance show. Very funny!

As this was the last night of the festival, a number of awards were awarded (? - handed out? given?). There apparently is a Tapdance Hall of Fame, and several performers were inducted. And most of these were very old, but appeared on stage, still very energetic, although not able to dance anymore. All in all a lot more fun than I expected! Thanks to Sas for making me see more!

We hadn’t had dinner yet, so decided to travel down to the West Village to find a place to eat. But by the time we were looking for a place, it was 23:45. A little late, even for New York standards. And if one chance encounter (Ruth) wasn’t enough, Saskia bumped into Steven, an actor that was part of the Clockwork Orange production. Incredible how small the world can be sometimes. We were invited to come and have a drink with him and his wife on their roof terrace in the West Village one of these days!

After that we managed to find a bar that still served food (and had no music, quite nice for a change), and after that took a taxi home. Not quite the early night I was hoping for, but we did have a lot of fun!

On Saturday, we needed to get up relatively early (I think we got up around 9:30), because we had a morning program! We got tickets from MediaCatalyst to do a boat tour around lower Manhattan. We cycled down to Pier 16, got a coffee and picked up the tickets. Then we had to stand in line for quite a while to board the boat., with a lot of grey-haired people around us. Luckily, we found a place in the shae on the side of the boat, and had a perfect view of Manhattan as we sailed around it. Very cool to see the waterfalls from this vantage point.

We probably haven’t mentioned these waterfalls before. It is an art project by Olafur Eliasson, consisting of four waterfalls. Pretty cool!

The tour took us up over the East River to the Manhattan bridge, and then back around Manhattan on to the Hudson River, where we could just make out our first apartment. From there we went on to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty (the first time I saw this up close, and actually quite cool!). And then back to South Street Seaport. All in all about an hour’s worth of boating, and I would recommend anyone to do this trip. It was a very nice and relaxing way to start the day. Pictures will be up soon.

After that, it was definitely tim efor breakfast! We found a cool little place just off of the touristy South Street Sea Port, and I had an amazing spinahc, tomato and feta omelet. Saskia went for a French Toast and fresh fruit combination, looked very good as well.

We did some shopping, and made it back to our place for a refreshing shower. We then decided we needed to sit in a nice and cool space for a while, so we selected a movie theatre close to our home and choose a movie. Wall-E. Again, on our bikes and up to East 12th street. A very cool, old movie theater, with the air conditioning cranked up (down?) all the way to minus 10 degrees. Brrr. Fun movie though.

We were getting a little hungry. We first stopped at a place right next to the theatre to have a drink and a look in our trusty Time Out New York - Eat & Drink. The place we walked in, Bar Veloce, was weird, in a very interesting way. Great selection of wines, some very good looking sandwiches and bruschetta (we tried the latter) in a cool looking bar. There were two guys behind the bar, one serving the wines (in an italian suit, with tie) and one making the food (in a grey overcoat, also waering a tie). Strange but good!

We then went on to Frank’s, an Italian restaurant. We had to wait about 30 minutes for a table, so we had another drink somewhere else, and then returned to find our outside table on 2nd Avenue. A simple menu, with very affordable food. Their wine list was a little bigger, and contained many less affordable wines. After struggling with the 50-page (!?) wine list for a bit, we decided to get some help from the waiter. We mentioned our price range, and he suggested a very nice red Sicilian wine. The food was really very good as well, maybe a little too much yet again. But I managed to finish both my plates, and Saskia tried very hard. Her pasta (with shrimp, radicchio and almonds) was the best-tasting of all of our dishes. When we were done (around 1:00 am), people were still wlaking in and getting a table, and food. I love New York!

We didn’t get up until about 11:00 on Sunday. Very nice to be able to sleep a little late for a change! We first went to see Yvonne’s apartment and hand over money for the keys. Then we bought ourselves a picnic blanket, and cycled all the way up to Central Park, along the Hudson River. It was very cool to see the city from this side. Lots of people on bikes (somehow, more people wearing helmets on this cycle path then we see in the city itself) and rollerblades. We cycled all the way up to 72nd street, where we entered the city again. Got some picnic stuff (fruit, water, chips) and then found a spot in Central Park to lie down and do some reading. I actually fell asleep again for about an hour. It was busy, but we got a relatively safe spot on a little hill, and Saskia was only hit once by a stray ball.

By 17:30 we made our way to the area where we would go and see ‘A Midsummer Night’s dream‘. Saskia had already met the director, a contact established through Nancy. I had heard of the story, but the quick summary that Fanneke and Saskia provided, helped me greatly in understanding the three seperate stories unfolding during the play. It was being performed in the park, but not in a theatre setting. It started on a rocky outcrop, but during the play, we moved around, following the actors and sitting down close to them. The whole concept of this ‘promenade play’ was new for me, as was the play itself. But I enjoyed it thouroughly. Sometimes the actors were hard to understand, both because there was a lot of noise in the park (music, trumpets, helicopters) and the usage of the old English. However, that did not influence the overall understanding of the play.

I really liked how they used the park as the stage, some of it worked really well, especially with the sun setting, creating some very nice lighting. Again, something I wouldn’t have found myself, so Saskia is really showing me some interesting stuff!

After the play we walked Fanneke back to the Eastside of the park, where she got on a Subway. And we cycled all the way down 5th Avenue. It took a little over half an hour, and it is a great feeling to cycle along one of the most famous streets in the world, passing the Apple store (still, open at 22:30 on a Sunday night, and actually a line of about 50 people!), the Chrysler building, the Empire State Building and mroe of those landmarks. It is still a little exciting, cycling along with all the other traffic, but we made it home in one piece, and were quite exhausted from the whole weekend.

Tonight I will put up some pictures of this weekend!

So, an update on our weekend (just before we have another one). Saturday we slept in until 10:oo after a night of Rockabilly in East Village. Jacco knew there was a market in the streets around Bleeker so we decided to check that out. But first breakfast at the Bayers Alehouse where we were served by a Dutch girl. She works there every day except Monday. After eggs sunny side up (spiegelei) and bacon (Jacco dan) we were ready to stroll along the stands. It was a nice market with local products like jewelry, bags (hey, it’s Bleeker!) puppets and T-shirts that say West Village. Jacco got one in light grey. Although the area is very popular by tourists it seamed a market especially for the locals. Of course we tried to blend in as possible.

After the market we stopped by a baseball field where kids were playing and parents were cheering at the other side of the fence. Afterwards we walked to Tribeca where there was a food festival (they call everything a festival) but that just ended when we arrived. Well, we just wanted to have some lunch and we decided to walk further downtown to find a nice place. Miles and sore legs later we crashed at a deli where the choice was enormous. That’s the good thing about deli’s, what they lack in atmosphere they gain in variety. After a salad and pizza (you figure out who got which) we walked to Battery Park where we had to struggle to get throught the tourists groups. But is was worth the view. You can see the statue of Liberty in the distance with helicopters swirming around it. Then Jacco took me to South Street Sea Port, a port with some beautiful boats and a dock with many bars and restaurants. Walking towards the city again we came across one of many, many film crews. This time they were filming a scene of Law and Order. No famous actors though. Tomorrow (thursday) they are filming a scene nearby our place, a romantic film with Catherina Zeta Jones!

Anyway, Saturday…we found a bookstore resembling De Slegte, so that was nice. Finally I found comic books! All the comic places I found so far are stand up comedian venues. So, after a long day of walking we decided to do some groceries at Chelsea Market where the vegetables are very affordable (finally!) and cook. Jacco made his famous mushroom risotto!

Sunday we had breakfast at home and stayed in until about two o’clock. It was raining so we went to the movies. We found a theater at 23rd Street where we saw Iron Man. Actually a good and funny film. This is not a typically superhero film because Iron Man is made by the lead character with the use of science and tools instead of swirling in a phone booth. After the film we walked down 23d Street and suddenly found ourselves in the middle of the gay area. It’s so weird that just for two or three blocks you (almost) only see well shaped men with dogs, mainly poedels. We found a really good Thai restaurant where I tried to widen my spice palet (I’m a wuss with spicy food).

Lets see, what else…went home, watched another episode of Spooks and went to bed. Still sufforing from allergies in the house, especially in our bedroom. Jacco is luckily over it, I hope I will follow soon (snif).

Another update on the work week coming up soon. Bye!

Forgot to tell you all about my gift from Sjuul and Roland…a true Firefighters Calender! Yes, it’a as hot as the desirable Pirelli calender but in this case you get real life, well shaped firemen. Well, some of them may save me any time!

Sjuul and Roland, smokey eyed Patrick of July says hi!

This Tuesday was a very interesting day. When I woke up, I checked the track&trace website of TNT, to see whether our passports with the visa were on their way. It turned out that mine was, and would ‘probably’ be delivered today, but Saskia’s passport was not in the system!! A quick phonecall to the helpdesk informed us that mine was indeed on its way, but that no guarantees could be given as to whether it would actually be delivered on Tuesday. And the next delivery day is Friday… I could phone them again after 14:00, to get more information.

But now for Sas’s passport. The helpdesk could see that it had arrived in Arnhem just after midnight. And there would be no way that it would arrive in Amsterdam on Tuesday. And that there was no way of contacting the Arnhem post sorting centre. Hmmm… I did get the street address of that centre, but googling did not help in getting the telephone number. It was time to find someone that worked at TPG/TNT, so I could at least get a phone number. After checking different leads, an ex-colleague from EzGov could help me out. Her husband used to work for TNT, and still had some contacts. I got a phone number, and got through to the security at the building.

They managed to put me through to the correct department, and there I learned that Saskia’s  passport had  already left for Amsterdam again, and got a phone number of the business centre where it should be! I called them, and got someone that went through a stack of letters, and found the envelope! He said it would  ‘probably’ (again, that word!) be delivered today. But, if I wanted, I could come and pick it up! Well, that was an easy choice. I jumped in the car and got the passport, and drove to Saskia’s office to deliver it personally. On my way there, my office called to let me know my passport had been delivered aswell. As you can imagine, we were both over the moon! The trip will go on. Exactly as planned. We got our stuff with a couple of hours to spare