Thank you cat, for giving my tongue back

I realise there has been a scarcity of words on this blog over the last few weeks, but who can blame a girl for being absent from virtuality when in reality, she's seeing His Travel Romance for the first time in seven months?

So, my luck with flights continued to a strong degree when it came to my flight out of Charles De Gaulle for JFK - I was only delayed by a couple of hours, and can now say I've been to Canada as our flight stopped in Montreal to refuel before attempting to land in the Great Blizzard of New York! By the time we landed at 9pm local time, we were only the second flight to have done so for the entire day. It took over three hours for the ground crew to get our bags off of the frozen plane and across the icy tarmac, during which time the great majority of us sat on the floor around the baggage carousel and waited. I emerged from the terminal to find that, due to the conditions on the roads, hardly a yellow cab was in sight so myself and two others paid $70 each to share a private car which dropped us at our respective hotels... A yellow cab from JFK to Manhattan is a flat fare of $45 plus tolls and tip so, all in all, not a bad night to be a hire car driver.

His Travel Romance arrived the following night after similar baggage delay issues and actually waiting the hour and a half in line for a yellow cab, and a visit to the wrong hotel room at two o'clock in the morning when the hotel gave him the wrong room number and a swipe card to someone else's room... Oops? And there commenced just under two weeks of remembering what it was like to be in a relationship when the person you're with is actually with you. It's a novel idea, this being with the one you're with!

There were fabulous dinners and delectable breakfasts, long walks on snow-compacted sidewalks, lots of shopping and browsing, and lots of catching up with good friends. We went to Duane Park for New Years Eve, mocked the tourists who continually feel the need to hold certain parts of the Charging Bull's anatomy, and saw the Statue of Liberty from a dinner cruise. The Statue of Liberty was lovely lit up at night. We stayed at the New Yorker and I fell in love with Art Deco, we had a horse and carriage ride through Central Park, visited Tiffany's on 5th Avenue, and ate a Candy Apple in the snow. We also took a day trip to Washington DC which was a long day, but well worth the early morning... Especially when I got to have a staring competition with Johnny Depp and play the piano with Duke Ellington...

Vietnam Memorial

Vietnam Memorial

The Lincoln Monument

The White House

Will Smith watching on as Johnny and I stare it out

Duke and I at the piano

Her and His with the Washington Monument in the background

We skated around the Rockefeller Center's ice rink, saw the NYC skyline from the top of the Rock at sunset, and had a minor Australian celebrity moment when we saw Scott Cam coming out of the Rock with his family!

We had such a great time, and it was so lovely to see each other again, that we've decided we don't want to keep doing the long distance thing. He's decided he can't do without me, and I've decided Europe would be much better with him by my side. We are both very excited about the prospect of a little less travel (for now!), and a lot more romance :-) In roughly six weeks time, after a ski trip to Bulgaria and some holiday time spent with my dance husband in a yet-to-be-decided location, I will be hopping back to the land of the Kangaroo and wearing corks on my Akubra once again! Ok... maybe no Akubra, and the corks will be coming out of the bottles of wine, but you get the picture ;-)

A touch of red in the apple

2011

Happy New Year! I hope 2011 is as fun for you as last night was for me. x

Happiness is an art

There are few things that make me feel as happy or as at peace as an art gallery or museum do...

I wander around art galleries and museums for hours on end, gently stretching my day across wishing trees by Yoko Ono, cows by Pablo Picasso, giant bundles of hay, silhouettes with two pairs of legs, advice on sleeping straight, electronic art, works by Lee Bontecou that just make you want to jump into black holes to see what's in there, self portraits in reflections, self portraits in gold reflections, self portraits in relfections next to Frida Kahlo's self portraits... I love it. I love yo MoMa.

A spoon full of sugar

A few evenings ago, right after sushi and the spiciest bloody mary that ever existed, right after the Sex & The City Tour, Donna and I did something else that was utterly brilliant... We saw Mary Poppins on Broadway!

As soon as the orchestra starting playing I was right back in my childhood (which would've been better if I had actually shrunk down to child-sized me - the distance between the seats was almost non-existant!), shuffling around and singing chim chiminee with soot on my nose and riding on magical ponies sprung out from a carousel! Although, they didn't do the horses, which I was a little upset about. They did however have the bird lady, who steals my heart every time!