If I decide to walk home from work, it is about 4 miles (about 6.5 kms) and takes me about 1 hour 20 mins. My pace slows considerably over the Brooklyn Bridge due to the amount of slow walking tourists walking in packs.

I tried walking home every night during Lent but various things got in the way and now the weather is too uncomfortable, but here are some pics that I have snapped on my phone along the way home.

Live news broadcast trucks at City Hall –

Walking up to the ramp of the Brooklyn Bridge –

I couldn’t imagine living right on the ramp of the Bridge… the traffic there never stops!

View looking back towards the Financial District –

Ahhh that skyline –

Brooklyn at dusk –

In Brooklyn and looking back towards the bridge –

My bridge –

On the Brooklyn Bridge looking at the Manhattan Bridge. Yeah.. I love bridges!

Cars cars cars!

The aftermath of the Superbowl parade –

Around City Hall –

Our neighbourhood in late February –

Can’t get enough of the cables-

The Brooklyn waterfront –

With lights –

Getting dark and the skyline sparkles –

Home sweet home –

Brooklyn traffic –

Protests at the park –

Police van –

Fireman responding to a false report on the bridge –

Locks on the bridge –

Have you seen Roma, città aperta (Rome, Open City)?

If not, you should!

A really amazing film.

(I can’t post anything else about it… but if you are up for a 1945 wartime drama…watch it!)

By now you all know how much home baking we do – as much as possible in our little apartment kitchen! We haven’t bought store bread since February and with that, a few weeks ago Bill set about to make our own homemade crumpets! Crumpets are hard to come by here. When we lived in Chelsea, the local Garden of Eden would sometimes have them in stock and otherwise you can get them in some speciality grocery stores. Now that we know how easy they are to make, we will stick with the Bill recipe.

Here they are being cooked – Bill used special English Muffin rings to keep their shape.

And here they are nearly finished… with a bad photo.

I thought I took a photo of the end ‘end’ result but I must have forgotten.. but trust me.. they were beautiful!!

We made a stack and froze them in a large ziplock bag. Bill cuts squares of parchment paper so they don’t stick together in the freezer. They defrosted and toasted perfectly!

Now that we’ve had home made crumpets, I am converted! If you are a fan, you should definitely try making your own!

We see some amazing things from the Library.

Back in February we were working away when we heard a horn play New York, New York. We ran to the windows and could see a beautiful cruise ship sailing up the Hudson. It was the inaugural Disney Cruise arriving in the city with much fanfare. They also played When You Wish Upon A Star – it was just beautiful! You can see the Statue of Liberty in the distance.

Anyway today, we didn’t have a cruise ship. We had the Space Shuttle Enterprise floating up the Hudson River to its new home at the Intrepid. It was quite a bit of a novelty to be able to say you saw a Space Shuttle going past your workplace!

The Queen’s Jubilee has been something I have been excited about for months. For the river pageant, I made sure our calendar was absolutely clear. Because of the time difference, we could get up and enjoy the pageant on Sunday morning.

So naturally, I was so excited I was up at about 6am. I had plans to basically be on the couch with a great front row seat along the Thames. BBC America finally decided to do away with the eight hours of Top Gear they show a day and dedicate the next few days to the Jubilee. I was excited because we were getting the actual BBC broadcast – not a special one made for America.

For the first couple of hours of the broadcast, we meandered along while listening to many dull interviews waiting for the Royal arrival. But once the Pageant started, the broadcast didn’t improve in the slightest. We learnt hardly anything about what was happening, the shots were awful (this was baffling because even on the most overcast day of weather in London, you cannot get a shot of the Thames and Westminster wrong), one minute there was a interview with some person in the crowd in a Union Jack tie and then we would be cut straight to the Royal barge and then off to speak to someone at some twee-hipster tea party. It was truly awful and amateurish and as the weather got worse, so did the broadcast. It was brutally dumbed down and really did not offer the viewer at home anything more than watching some row boats going along a river in miserable weather with random shots of Her Majesty thrown in. Then, they basically ran out of things to say. This shone a light on lack of research by those who were hosting the segments and just a real lack of understanding of how to portray such an event to us at home.

To say it was disappointing would be an understatement but it was good to know I was not alone in my thoughts on the BBC broadcast. Almost immediately, other viewers were letting their feelings be know on Twitter and the next day, many newspapers also reported on the dismal nature of the BBC broadcast. I was thankful that would still be able to watch the many documentaries that would be shown as well as the Jubilee concert and Thanksgiving service but from the BBC, the Queen deserved better.

Yesterday we went along to the Lebanese Food Festival for the restoration of Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral – for the third year in the row!

Thankfully, it wasn’t nearly as hot and humid as the other years so straight after Mass we headed down to Remsen Street to join in the festivities. The cathedral is beautiful and this event is always so successful – I hope they are getting close to their fundraising goal for renovations.

My photos are very much like the previous years… but it is such a great event, I had to share it again! It reminds me of home. 🙂

People enjoying the afternoon festivities –

Dancing and games –

The grill –

The Lebanese Pizzas were very popular!

The menu –

Our dinner –

The desserts tent –

Getting there for an early dinner meant no wait for a seat!

Dessert!

Food tents –

Lebanese Food Festival 2011
Lebanese Food Festival 2010

Well we made it! A blog a day for a whole month and for some reason this was easier than last year… but I think I can attribute that to blogging more regularly in general this year. It has been a blast – I haven’t commented on other blogs as much as I would like so I am hoping to go back and revisit some of them over Summer.

While it is the end of the financial year in one hemisphere, this weekend we are gearing up for our 4th of July celebrations. In 2009 we did this and last year we did this. To mix it up, this year we are heading up to Albany where we have Niece Rebecca’s graduation party/BBQ and with Pauline ordering 5 lbs of sausage mince it is also going to be a Sausage Rollapalooza! On Monday we’ll skoot back to the city, hopefully stop for a picnic along the way and get home in time for some of my favourite TV specials of the year where I always end up crying at the montages they show! We’ll be recording and flicking between –

– A Capital Fourth on PBS
– The Macy’s Fireworks from right here in the City
– The Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular

Turner Classic Movies also have a night of patriotic movies so it should be fun!

There is no-one better to start the celebrations than the King with one of my favourite patriotic songs and Dad loves this song too! American Trilogy… yes!

Addendum.. Since posting this, Bill and I have had a discussion about this song and there is another discussion here about the meanings behind it.