Sunday, April 09, 2006

Introducing Theodore

Theodore is my class bear and he likes to travel. The children take turns to take him home and so far this year he has attended a number of birthday parties, a weekend in Scotland and a skiing trip to Italy. This holiday, the children have graciously let me take Theodore to NY, so here he is, enjoying his breakfast this morning:

He particularly liked maple syrup on his bacon.

Armed with Theodore, A and I set out early to walk the streets of Manhattan, with a vague aim of Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty - good photo opportunities for Theodore, obviously! Unfortunately, even at 9.40am on a Sunday morning, the queue for the Empire State was outside the building, so A put his foot down. He doesn't do queues. On we went, and reached the Flat Iron building, where Broadway crosses 5th Avenue at 23rd. A market was setting up, so we stopped for a coffee prior to browsing. The view from the window was too good to miss:


I then charmed my way into the hearts of one of New York's finest:


It's amazing how far you can go on a smile and an English accent.

On we trekked, through SoHo, TriBeCa, past Ground Zero and into Battery Park. A's queue phobia hit again, so this is the closest we got to Lady Liberty:


We then strolled through Battery Park, past the Staten Island Ferry terminus and up to South Street Seaport. I can never understand why A is drawn to boats so much - he won't set foot on one (if there had been no queue for the Statue of Liberty ferry, I wonder how he would have coped?) but he loves to look at them in dock. We also went around the Bodies exhibition. It sounds really ghoulish, but some of the exhibits truly show what an amazing and beautiful piece of engineering the human body is. We then walked back to Midtown, through Chinatown, Little Italy, the East Village and Gramercy Park. I've worked out we only walked 8 miles or so, but my Docs let me down and I have a huge blister and my hips don't feel like they belong to me any more. This does not bode well for the Midnight Walk in June!

1 comment:

Neil Ward-Dutton said...

Lovely post - that picture of Theodore with the policeman is priceless - he's doing his best to smile!