Res and the City

I'm here! I'm finally here, in this wonderful "alternate home" of mine, New York.

I landed shortly after noon, and then proceeded to make the horrendous mistake of using SuperShuttle, which meant I arrived at my hotel over three hours later. That and the early onset of travel-exhaustion turned me into Little Miss Blue, my thoughts running something like "sure, it's fun and adventurous and liberating to be a single woman travelling by herself, but one of these days I'd like to go on a vacation with someone for a change." And of course the super-sized wet-room shower (I just love American hotel showers) was so obviously made to be shared. What is it about trans-atlantic travels that deludes us into thinking we will somehow leave our old sorrows behind? I should know better by now.

Never mind. It's illegal to be blue on vacation, especially on vacation in New York, so I decided to take my sorry behind out of the hotel and off for a walk (and as many double shot lattes as my bladder would allow). Most hotels in Manhattan are concentrated in the Midtown area, but not being much of a fan of skyscrapers I've chosen to try out the Thompson Lower East Side hotel, perched on Allen Street about two blocks shy of gentrification.

And this very clever choice of mine meant that my stroll took me through Soho, up to Bleecker (lots of bitter-sweet memories there), around NYU to Washington Square Park, and back. I was tempted to do a second, wider loop through Chinatown and Tribeca but despite the three coffees I was simply too tired to keep going. Will just have to save it for tomorrow, after my spa appointment and coffee with a very old friend and her very new baby.

For novelty's sake, I'll try to keep posting from NY over the next few days and provide you with a "virtual" tour. And if any of you, dear readers, are in/from NY and want to share some recommendations, I'd be much obliged!