Public Spaces – From relaxing to hectic

After parting with Peter in the Meatpacking District, Hendrik and I walked along the Highline park for a little bit. It’s an old railway track that has been turned into a really interesting raised park/walkway. I had read about it a while ago as a potential model for what could be done with the Gardiner in Toronto. It was very cool!

Highline Park

 From there we headed to Central Park. Hendrik and I both like wandering around and exploring, so that’s what we did. Lots of neat things to see, so I’m just going to post some pictures.

Central Park

Alice in Wonderland statue.

On a rocky hill with a nice view of the city.

Massive globe in Columbus Circle.

 From Central Park, we headed to Times Square, passing through Columbus Circle first. Here are the requisite nighttime Times Square shots.

Times Square tourist shots!

Monday was definitely a long day. But there is just so much to see in New York!

Hope you brought your walking shoes

Early morning above NYC.

Me partially blocking the view from the Empire State Building.

We woke up early on Monday morning to get to the Empire State Building before the notorious line ups. We were lucky… It took about 10 minutes to get from the entrance to the top without any line. I can’t imagine how long it would take in the middle of the day. We had a good overview of the city from the top and it wasn’t too crowded. A NYPD helicopter did a low sweep of the viewing deck which was pretty neat. I also noticed there were far fewer cars on the street than I would have thought, despite being there during morning rush hour. Lots of taxis and buses though.

Excitement at the Empire State Building.

After that, we had breakfast at a mediocre diner before meeting up with Christina’s friend Peter. Peter is extremely knowledgeable about New York and might just be the leading expert on the history of the New York subway system. Needless to say, he gave us a very informative tour.

We started off at the World Trade Center site. He took us through St. Paul’s Chapel across the street from the site. It is the oldest building in continuous use in New York and a place that people took refuge in in the aftermath of 9/11. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much, but being there and seeing all the cards and police badges and other memorabilia was very moving. You can see the impact of 9/11 all over the city. One prime example is the New York Stock Exchange, where we went next. You can’t get a car near the building and you need to pass through a metal detector before entering the building. Interestingly, there is a building across the street from the NYSE that has pockmarks in the walls from an attempted drive-up bombing a long time ago (I believe Peter said it was a carriage, not even a car).

St. Paul's Chapel, across the street from the World Trade Center site.

 From Wall St., we went to the South St. Seaport, which is unfortunately like so many other historical tourist districts. It reminded me of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. But there’s a deck with a nice view and it was a good place for a short break.

Our next stop was the Lower East Side, where we’d spent a bit of time the night before. We walked through SoHo and the NYU campus. I’ve looked at grad programs at NYU a bit, but housing is obscenely expensive. Peter told us a bit about the history of the tenement housing that is common in the area. It’s interesting how areas that used to be crowded, low-income, working immigrant neighbourhoods are now super expensive and trendy. Also, full of high-end stores that try to look exclusive, but that we have in Toronto. Okay, maybe I’m just saying that because I did no shopping whatsoever in New York and I’m trying to console myself.

Entertainer in Washington Square.

 We stopped by Washington Square Park near NYU, a great place for people watching. The square was full of all kinds of people doing all kinds of things. It’s always nice to see well-used, well-loved public spaces. We continued on through to Greenwich Village, where we stopped at Magnolia Bakery for delicious cupcakes. And then on to the historical White Horse Tavern, once frequented by people like Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, Jane Jacobs and Jack Kerouac.

Washington Square Park.

 We then walked to the Meatpacking District where we ended our lovely tour.

Note: These posts are from August, but I gave up posting for a bit because I was playing around with Wordpress. I decided to stay on Blogger for now because importing to Wordpress changes a lot of my formatting.

Show Me This, Show Me That

The next morning, we headed back to the city, where we walked from Grand Central to our hotel in Chelsea at 8th and 23rd. On the way, we passed the scaffold-draped New York Public Library and Bryant Park. There were a bunch of people playing bocce ball, or something similar, in the park. Along Broadway, the was an outdoor fashion exhibit of some kind. It was neat because a lot of streets around Broadway and Times Square were pedestrian only, or had a pedestrian walkway/bike path in the middle of the road.


When we reached Leo House, where we were staying, we quickly dropped off our bags and headed out again. We got some really tasty Indian food for lunch, which we ate near Times Square.

Above: Leo House, home base for a few nights in Chelsea.
Below: A school we walked past. The playground is on the roof...

From there, we were just a block away from the Music Box Theatre, where Christina had arranged tickets for Lend Me a Tenor, a Broadway show, which was not a musical despite its name. I didn't know what to expect, but it was quite funny. It was also neat to see actors who we recognized on stage (and up close, we had great seats). The actors included Anthony LaPaglia (Without a Trace), Tony Shalhoub (Monk) and Justin Bartha (The Hangover).

After the show, we headed off for a very different experience in a very different part of town. We took the subway to the East Village, where we had a nice walk before catching the Improviser Festival at The Stone. The Stone is a "performance space dedicated to the experimental and avant-garde." What this means is we were two of about four audience members for what was a really interesting, intimate and not too pretentious set. The instruments ranged from guitar to pink post-it notes to a weird glove connected to a computer.

Above: We saw some men fishing near this sign when we were walking around the East Village.
Below: At The Stone.

We got dinner at Katz's Deli, not realizing it was sort of a landmark, until we walked into the packed restaurant. Then we noticed the walls covered in photos of celebrities and presidents, and found out it was it was featured in films such as Donnie Brasco and When Sally Met Harry. I tried a potato and spinach knish, pretty much the only vegetarian thing on the menu. I didn't know what it was until I ate it, but it wasn't bad, essentially a stuffed bun. Vaguely like an Estonian pirukas.

Above: Hendrik trying a chili dog for the first time.
Below: My spinach knish (the "k" is not silent) which Blogger decided to rotate on me.

Note: I might be moving my blog to WordPress in the very near future because I waste a lot of time fighting with Blogger when trying to post/format pictures, despite having a rudimentary knowledge of html coding...

Arrival and Escape

On the boat cruise. Everybody was really excited about the Statue of Liberty. We took our tourist shots, too. We were tourists after all.

After arriving, we went for a Circle Line boat cruise around Manhattan Island. It was interesting and nice to relax after the long bus ride. Hendrik and I both commented afterward that Manhattan is much greener than we were expecting. There is a fair bit of parkland, and not just Central Park. I should mention here that most of the pictures to go with these posts were taken by Hendrik. There's no point carrying around 2 cameras and taking pictures of the same things, so I just let him use mine.

Above: Domino Sugar factory, soon to be luxury lofts.
Below: Where the World Trade Center used to be.

One thing that this day highlighted was the importance of packing light. We were originally going to stay at a hotel on Saturday night, but Christina's relatives, Laura and Andy, graciously invited us to dinner and then to stay the night. Because our plans changed, we ended up carrying our bags around all day. (In case you were wondering, the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York does not have lockers. But you can leave your bags at the Greyhound baggage counter for $8/bag.)

There are a lot of bridges (and tunnels) connecting Manhattan to the rest of New York and New Jersey. Note that I'm carrying my backpack.

To get to Andy and Laura's lovely home in Greenwich, CT, we had to take a commuter train from Grand Central Terminal. The walk there from the pier took us past the edge of Times Square, which was insanely busy, but I'll write about that later. Grand Central was neat, but it was a little hard to find our platform (partially because of the apathetic ticket booth attendant). The train ride was uneventful. The train itself was a little... depressing. Definitely not as nice as GO trains in the GTA.

Human traffic around Times Square.

Laura picked us up from the train station, then drove us through town and down to the water. It was so nice to just relax at their house that night. Hendrik and I went for a swim before bed, listening to the tree frogs and other night sounds. They were different than what we have at home, but somehow familiar. It was really nice to Andy and Laura again and I look forward to the next time.

Looking out at the water in Greenwich, a stark contrast to the city.

New York. Getting There is Half the Fun!

People have been hyping up New York for years. "You'll love it, you won't want to leave." "It's the most amazing place." "It's so exciting." "You have to go!" Did it live up to the hype? I'm going to post my thoughts in a couple of posts. Which, believe it or not, I'm not writing in the middle of the night, rushing against the countdown until my time runs out and the internet cafe cuts me off...

View of the city from the bus before entering the tunnel from New Jersey.

There was some talk about going to New York with my family, but unfortunately that didn't happen. (Partially because my parents ran off on a last minute trip to Estonia for a traditional multi-day wedding.) But then I started looking at bus tickets to New York and decided I was going with or without them. (Greyhound and Megabus have good fares if you book ahead of time and don't mind a 10 hour bus ride.) My cousin Hendrik decided to come to Toronto for a few weeks from Estonia around the same time I wanted to go to New York. So I bought some bus tickets and off we went.

Hendrik and me in front of the bus in Toronto. Before we knew we were in for a 15 hour drive.

I left work on Friday, July 30 and took the bus to Toronto. Hendrik and I had dinner with my mom and aunt Christina, who gave us a ton of tips (and helped out a lot with arranging things for us to do). Then it was off to the bus station... We took a Greyhound to NY. Our bus left an hour late for some reason. And then we sat at the border for 4 hours. There was some confusion at the border because Hendrik is a minor and the border guard didn't know how to dial an international number... But it was all fine in the end, even though we were 5 hours late arriving in New York...

Hendrik on the bus in front of our first glimpses of New York's skyline.

There were a few interesting "incidents" on the bus...

• There was a man sitting near us who leaned his seat all he way back. Unfortunately, he was sitting in front of two rather tall men, who politely asked him to lean it slightly forward. When he refused (rather rudely), they got the driver involved. The man with his lean on had this smug smile the whole time and kept looking at us as if we approved. It was rather bizarre. The driver ended up asking him to move elsewhere.

• I learned the most effective way to get your toddler to be quiet: Yell "SHUT UP!" repeatedly in a whiny voice.

All that said, the bus ride was better than the many overnight buses Tiina and I took in Spain last year. Mostly because I actually slept, even if only for about 2 hours at a time.

Algonquin Canoe Trip

Here's a recap of the canoe trip I did this summer in Algonquin Park.


Day 1:
Tim River to Rosebary Lake. Lots of beaver dams to drag the canoes over. After the girls went to sleep, some of the other leaders and I were freaking out because we heard something swimming. That is, we thought there was a bear. Then we decided it was a deer or moose. Raja calmly says, "No, they don't make that much noise when they swim." Then we heard a strange owl, which freaked us out even more (it sounded like a person!) and I said (half-jokingly), "I don't like wildlife! Let's go to Joe Lake!" (When we stayed on Joe Lake on our last trip, we found beer cans in the fire pit.) We never did find out what was swimming.


Day 2:
Rosebary Lake to Queer Lake via Tim River. The river was way longer than it looked on the map because it pretty much doubled back around every bend. Again, lots of beaver dams. The day ended with a 1330m portage. It was very hilly, and awfully steep considering we were carrying everything. Two of the girls did it twice back-to-back! It made every other portage feel like a stroll in the park, which was great because we had a lot of them.

It was a little cold sometimes...

Day 3:
Queer Lake to Little Trout Lake to Ralph Bice Lake. It was gorgeous! Idyllic really.


Day 4:
Hanging out at the campsite, eating yummy food. We found a little lagoon to swim in where we hung out on the rocks, eating trail mix and granola bars.

Day 5:
Ralph Bice to Magnetawan Lake via Hambone Lake. A short paddle to the access point. A short drive to Timmy's and then back to Kotkajärve.

This is why we do it.

Viljandi Folk

Let's pretend it's August and I'm posting this in a timely manner...

Zetod & Lenna Kuurmaa - rocking it in traditional Seto clothing

Towards the end of my trip, I went on a mini-road trip with my friend Remi, who I met the previous summer at Kotkajärv. He picked me up in Tallinn, we drove to to the town where he lives near Haapsalu (west coast). I ended up driving his standard car for a bit on a dirt road, and then all of a sudden I was on the highway and he was asleep! Thankfully, I didn't need to pass anyone and I didn't have to break because of a car coming at me in my lane... (No joke, the drivers are insane when they try to pass, I thought I might die a few times..) Remi and I ended up in Viljandi for the folk music festival (my second time) where I met up with my uncle's family the next day. Unfortunately, I sprained my foot the first night I was there, which slightly impeded my ability to dance in the mud pits that the festival grounds turned into because of the rain. It was still amazing! Ok, I did try to dance to Zetod with Lenna Kuurmaa, it was the last night, but it was so packed! (Always composed Riho the classical composer was even getting into it.)

Highlights: Paabel, Zetod, Aleksei Arkhipovsky (crazy balalaika player), Svjata Vatra

Joyful people coming together to enjoy the mud.

After Folk, I scrubbed the mud off of my shoes, headed back to Tallinn and then flew home. Flying over the suburbs of Toronto was hard, I had culture shock coming home.