New York's drizzling

I've always said I think London has an undeservedly bad rep for its weather. True, it's often grey, and the cold is damp as opposed to dry, but it rarely rains. It rains a lot more in Scandinavia than in London (nb this is completely anecdotal), and from my short NYC stint, it's safe to say New York is pretty wet too.

We don't get disappearing skyscrapes in Britain, so this is pretty exciting

I really like New York though, even if it isn't with the same passion I felt when I first visited Paris, or, indeed, London. That might be part of growing up, and being fairly well-travelled. Things seem less new now, because they are - particularly when travelling to other metropolitan cities in Western countries. I went to Budapest two years ago, and that was something else for sure (and I'd recommend everyone to go!). Anyway - New York, New York. I could see myself living here for a while, and over the past few weeks I've tinkered with the thought of perhaps moving over for a month or so. My best friend lives here, and my addiction to lobster rolls is developing rapidly.

Lobster rolls at Luke's Lobster - just take my money, will you?

I do feel like New York is more exciting than London. I know, shock horror. I'm pretty good at branching out in London (I mean I've even given it its own IG hashtag because that's how much of a millenial I am, vom vom) but last night we stumbled over a burlesque show in a tiny little venue in LES, and that's never happened once in the 8 years I've spent in London. And the night before we ended up in the most amazing Indian restaurant I've ever been to - it was covered in christmas fairly lights (love a good fairy light), and the food was cheaper than chips. It was a thoroughly bizarre and wondrous experience, and London's Brick Lane literally pales in comparison.

            "No filter needed" has never been truer.

I've been lucky to get the full NYC experience. It's been a glorious mix of work, shopping, food, drinks and cuddles with my bmfl. We've visited museums and speakeasies, swanky bars and gritty bookshops, posh boutiques and extraordinary food markets. And tomorrow evening we're going to a house party in Williamsburg, which feels like it'll be all the lols. So yeah, NYC has been very good indeed. And there's more to come - the bf and I will come back to NYC over Easter, in less than a month(!).

Ps if you need something to put a smile on your face today, read Jeremy Corbyn's OOO. It's a brilliant piece of literature (as expected).

A New York tale

I didn't exactly mean for this blog to be exclusively about travels to the US of the A, but as it happens I'm currently in NYC to a) visit Julia, b) attend Social Media Week, and c) eat my weight in lobster rolls. I've never been to New York before, but somehow it feels completely normal to be here. I had a similar experience when I was in California, and I'm pretty sure it's because of how much we're fed with American influences in popular culture.
 

Bagels at Little Skips, pretty cielings in China Town, and a celebratory brunch at Cafe Select

We're AirBnb'ing in Bushwick, a former/current working class neighbourhood in Brooklyn that is currently being gentrified beyond recognition by tech workers and hipsters alike. Not that all different from my former London hoods, Clapton. Readers of this blog is likely to know Bushwick from the Girls episode where the four girls go to a warehouse rave. Soshanna accidentally does crack and starts running around like, well, a crackhead. Remember?

So anyway - that's where we're staying. The first night we stayed with Julia's aunt and uncle in their five story house in Chelsea, Manhattan. It was an altogether different experience from Bushwick, but both come with their charms.

The biggest joy when travelling, I think, is trying out the local cuisine. And New York is great for that. So far we've had delicious Vietnamese at Omai in Chelsea (highly recommend), a greasy brunch at Le Grainne Cafe, wondrous burgers at Dumont Burger (#burgergirl), a typical NYC breakfast of bagels and coffees at Little Skips and a celebratory boozy brunch at Cafe Select. Nothing's been bad, but the kale salad at Cafe Select was particularly good, and at a bargain price, too.

My favourite bars so far - Juliette and Brooklyn Surf Bar, both in Williamsburg but wildly different. Juliette offers swanky cocktails (try the Hemingway - yum) and well-dressed hipsters, whereas the Brooklyn Surf Bar is, well, a surf bar. For $10 you get a pint of Pina Colada, and as if that wasn't enough to give a quirky feel, the entire floor is covered in sand. True story. I feel like it's Brooklyn's equivalent of London's Ridley Road Market Bar, though Ridley Road hasn't got any sand - they probably need to step up their game.

Another bar gem worth mentioning is a little grimy place called Leeves. For $16 we got two whiskey sours, one IPA and a bowl of cheese balls(!). Not sure what else one could ever ask for. Watch out for the pool players though.
 

Shenanigans in Manhattan, plant heaven at Brooklyn Flea and love stories on The High Line

Enough about food - yesterday when Julia had to work I ventured over to Brooklyn Flea to try and find myself an analogue camera. And I did! Very exciting indeed, I can't wait to develop my first roll. Other than that I didn't find Brooklyn Flea too great. It reminds me a lot of the often overpriced flea markets we have in London, which aren't flea markets as much as it's markets for handpicked vintage pieces and therefore a lot more expensive. You're better off trying carboot sales, I think.

On today's to do list: try out the camera, hit up the MoMA and get my paws on some of those lobster rolls...

A Californian Christmas, pt I

Two of my best people are American, and as it happened both of them were venturing to California over the Christmas period. I'd never been to the US before, and never really thought I'd go to California anytime soon, so it seemed like the perfect time and place to go. We started out in San Fransisco, and it looked a little bit like this:

I flew in to San Fransisco where I met with Best Person #1 (Julia). We checked into our swanky Hotel Tonight, and Julia managed to keep me awake until midnight (aka 8am London time) by force feeding me whiskey sours in dimly lit bars. To be honest I can't remember much - I suppose that's what happens when you haven't slept for 30 hours.

It did the trick though, as I woke up ten hours later feeling all things fresh and ready to go for a day on town. We started off with a greasy brunch at Brenda's in Tenderloin, which also happens to house (or, not house) homeless communities of considerable sizes. A "tech bro" recently penned an open letter to the city's mayor on it. Apparently, he thinks that since he's worked very hard in his life, including "getting an education" (lol mate) he shouldn't have to witness the misery of homelessness. Read more here, and prepare yourself for outrage.

I enjoyed SF. I only spent a few days there, but still managed to tick off most things I wanted to do. We walked all the way up Telegraph Hill to peer at the Golden Gate Bridge, we visited the quirky little shops in the Mission, we walked through The Golden Gate Park - which, by the way, is one of the most beautiful manmade parks I've visited, and we got to know countless of SF people by Uber Pooling.
 

And as always when we travel, food was in focus. I went on my first ever food tour (Christmas pressie from bf - aka Best Person #2 - and best Christmas pressie ever), though it could as well have been called tacos tour - we had a about five different tacos, with everything from fish to pork belly to vegan tacos. And accompanying margaritas, of course. Another highlight was the burgers, both the ones in true America style and the ones less so. If you ever come across Umami Burgers, do yourself a wonderful favour and have the Truffle Burger. A little piece of advice from someone who used to be known as Burger Girl (no joke). I'd also recommend going for chocolate tasting (yum) at Dandelion, having artisan coffee and pastries at Tartine Bakery (though prepare yourself for a significant queue), and visiting the Bi-Rite Creamery for some organic, homemade ice cream. Yummy yummy in da tummy.

The SF food scene is glorious, in spite of all the queuing. People don't really do queues in London, so I'm always taken aback when other metropolitan cities do. Another word of warning, albeit a bit more specific - if you're a fellow food lover, spare yourself the pain of visiting Foreign Cinema. While the film that was on during our visit is well worth the watch (after all, it was Breakfast at Tiffany's), FC was terribly overpriced and not very good.

All in all, SF was great. Next up - LA.