New York City: Part 2

Our second full day in New York got off to an earlier start. Tonight we'd be staying with our friends Daniela and Sam so we packed up what we needed for the night and headed from the east side to the west side via Central Park. The girls were pretty happy to walk through the park after being surrounded by buildings for the last few days.

Ava in Central Park

Lola in Central Park

New York City: Part 1

Back to the vacation posts...

After we collected our new visas in Ottawa we hopped on a plane (well, two planes) and headed to New York City for a quick visit with friends and to show the girls my most favourite city in the whole world.

We're very lucky to have good friends living in New York. And even luckier that they were happy to have us come stay a night or two - or three! Big thanks to Mylee & Richard and Daniela & Sam for putting us up and for showing us around the city they're all lucky enough to call home.

We arrived in New York late in the day and headed straight to Mylee and Richard's place for a catch up and a home cooked dinner. There's nothing better than a home cooked dinner when you're traveling. Don't get me wrong, I love going out for dinner but after a week of kid friendly restaurant food a home cooked dinner hits the spot.

We woke the next day to a beautiful morning; sunny with clear skies and just a hint of the approaching Winter weather in the air. I can't get enough of the views in New York. I would be happy to spend hours just looking out the window at the city. At home we have a good view over Berkeley, San Francisco and the Bay, but there's just something about the views in New York that takes my breath away. The colour changes over the buildings through the morning as the sun rose were stunning. My favourite thing about the view from Mylee and Richard's apartment was the fact that I could see the Time Warner Building which I like to pretend is my old home - I stayed there for three weeks back in 2006 setting up a condo for my then boss.

Golden glow as the sun rises

Just an hour later and everything's bright and sparkly

Boo! It's Halloween 2013

Well, Halloween is done and dusted for another year.

The girls had so much fun dressing up and going trick or treating with their friends. This year both of the girls decided to go for slightly scarier costumes than they have in the past. Ava dressed as a vampire and Lola was a bat; a vampire bat, of course!

Boo!

Two Years in America

Can you believe that it has now been over two years since the girls and I arrived in America?

Two years already! I can't believe it. I'm going to have to stop telling people that we just moved here from Australia as two years isn't really "just" anymore!

We celebrated the two year anniversary of our arrival in America in my all time favourite American city: New York. There'll be plenty of photos from our New York trip coming up.

Celebrating in New York

In the meantime here's a look at some of my favourite moments from over the last year.

31 Days of ABCs: Y is for Yoga

I'm excited to be taking part in a wonderful series which has been running throughout the month of October called 31 Days of ABCs. Each day a different blogger shares a project or activity related to a letter of the alphabet.

Today we're up to the letter Y. Y for yellow, yoghurt, yarn, yak, yam and, as you'll see below, Y for yoga.

Here in Berkeley, yoga is a pretty big thing. My girls love practising their yoga and are always showing me different positions that they've perfected - or think they've perfected! This got me thinking about how they could use their bodies to make the letters of the alphabet with yoga inspired positions.

Om

Some of the letters were pretty simple to make, think I, X, T and Y. Others were a little trickier and required a bit of balance and lots of concentration such as G, J, S and V. And then there were some letters that we just couldn't work out how to make with only one person such as B, D, N and U. These required cooperation and teamwork from the girls in order to make them work. Or in the case of the letter W, let's make that almost work!

So let's take a lot at our Yoga ABCs...

Québec City

Our last stop on our Canadian trip was the picturesque city of Québec. 

Now, I'd thought that the Old Town of Montreal was beautiful with it's mixture of quaint row houses and stately buildings, but Québec took the whole "Old Town" thing to a new level. Montreal's Old Town  had quite a European feel to it, however somehow Québec's Old Town felt more European. Maybe it was the street layout. Maybe it was the style of buildings. I can't really put my finger on it, but as we walked around the Old Town I really felt as though we had been transported into a European town.

Maybe what made Québec feel more European was the fact that it rained almost the whole time we were there! Unfortunately it rained a little too much for us to get out and see everything that we had hoped to see. I'd planned to stroll through the narrow streets down by the port but instead we had to suffice with driving through them in the shelter of our rental car. We had also planned to visit the nearby Montmorency Falls but the rain but a dampener on that plan too. Kind of ironic that we skipped out on seeing a waterfall due to water falling! Unfortunately though it was just too wet and cold for us to do all that much for a lot of the time that we were in Québec. However we did see enough to appreciate what a beautiful little city it is. 

We spent most of our time in Québec visiting the Old Town where tourists are drawn in droves to the picturesque port area. One of the main tourist draw cards to the area is the imposing Château Frontenac which perches atop a hill above the port. Built in 1893, the Château is in fact a very grand hotel. While spending a night at the Château was a little out our reach, stopping by the (not so grand!) Starbucks on the ground floor was definitely within our price range! A nice warm latte (or hot chocolate for the girls) was just what we needed after braving the cold walking along the boardwalk in front of the Château.

Château Frontenac

Bienvenue a Montreal

Welcome to Montreal, and the second part of our trip to Canada. 

While waiting for our visas to be be processed and ready to pick up we decided to head east to Quebec and visit the beautiful cities of Montreal and Quebec City for a few days. We spent the weekend in Montreal and we all fell in love with the place. Such a city of contrasts. North American, yet so European. A vibrant modern city with skyscrapers, heavy traffic and everything that goes along with a big city. Then there's the old town; Vieux Montreal. Cobblestone and paved streets lined with grand public buildings and quaint stone row houses dating from the 17th century onwards. Living in California we often forget just how long ago the East Coast of the USA and Canada was colonised by Europeans. Anything built in the 19th century is old by Californian standards (and similarly by our Australian standards back home) so being in such an old area without having to leave North America is such a treat. We really felt like we had suddenly appeared in a European city. The fact that everything is in French adds to the European feel too :)

Our hotel in Montreal was ideally located close to the old town which was our first stop for a spot of sightseeing. We walked the paved streets (which were super bumpy with a stroller - sorry Lola!) and took in the sights of the old buildings and the port. We had arrived a little later in the day that planned and it was quite a bit colder than we'd hoped so we weren't out for too long. After a few hours of exploring it was starting to get dark (and colder!) so we retreated into a restaurant for dinner then back to the hotel for an early night.

Montreal's old town