I have decided to work backwards with my blog posts from recently until back to Christmas as I think it will be easier to catch up that way!
The weather has been cold. As in really cold. The week between Christmas and New Year was spent avoiding the cold as much as possible. New Years in a cold climate equates to falling asleep at 10pm and wondering what is wrong with the people standing in Times Square literally freezing on the spot.
So in a nutshell, the past month has gone by in a flurry of sleeping, eating and work. I think I experienced my first ever bout of cabin fever. Days during winter consist of trying to avoid the cold so much that you realize that you have basically hardly experienced any fresh air whatsoever. For one whole week I was headachey, lethargic, dealing with parched and thirsty skin and charged-with-static hair. Winter isn’t kind – but it is still better than humidity!
To get back out there and in the land of the living, over the Australia Day weekend, Book Club aka ‘Club’ (mainly because we choose a book, read it and then never discuss it) caught up for a late lunch at Trailer Park and we strolled up to the Fashion Institute for an exhibition called Seduction.
Apart from the over zealous security guard who continually told us to move out of the way of here, there and everywhere it was a great little exhibition. And.. free!
By Book Club becoming ‘Club’ it has really opened up our options for social interaction! 😉 In February, we are getting together to see ‘He’s just not that in to you’ in support of Team Jennifer.
After ‘Club’ I then hopped on the subway and down to Brooklyn to meet Bill at the Sheep Station where he was hanging out for the afternoon. He is clearly on his way to being an honorary Aussie… an appreciation for Boags Beer… an appreciation for Chopper the Movie and The Castle and… Cottee’s Cordial.
With Monday being a long weekend (we work Martin Luther King day and get Australia Day off) Sunday was very relaxing.
We started with brunch at Big Daddy’s Diner where we sat down at a booth then looked up and hey… the casts of my two favourite shows – 90210 and The Brady Bunch were dining with us!
As another treat for dinner, Bill got us Restaurant Week reservations at Jean George’s restaurant on the Upper East Side called JoJo. It was a culinary feast of flavours. Restaurant Week is just fantastic here – where you have the opportunity to dine at fantastic restaurants around the city as they offer special restaurant week menus. For $35 for 3 courses I ordered the most velvety rich butternut squash soup with trumpet mushrooms, a wonderful steak which was infused with Asian flavours and had a bit of a spicy kick and the most delicious chocolate lava cake with ice cream.
Between watching the Australian Open, Rachel Ray’s recent visit to Melbourne that has been screening on the Food Network and the whole ‘Australia Week’ stuff for work – the chances for being downtrodden with homesickness have been high but… none so far!