I can’t believe I’m now 2 weeks into my time in New York. In a way, it has flown by, but at the same time, London feels like a whole world away. I’m sitting down now looking out of my window at pink and blue skies reflecting off the glass skyscrapers, tired and happy as the weekend draws to a close.

This week was pretty busy at work so I didn’t get up to much in the evenings but I will share a very American photo of a view I see every evening, just in case I ever forgot which country I was living in…

Empire State Building

On Friday night, I went out for drinks with an old friend who I knew when we lived in Venezuela (when I was aged 2-4!) who now lives in New York. We started off with whiskey sours at the Brass Monkey which is in the Meatpacking district, just off the high line which has a great atmosphere.

Me and Cristina at Brass Monkey

We then went on to the Sky Room which is a rooftop bar in Midtown and has some amazing views of the city.

Saturday was pretty rainy which gave me less incentive to venture out, but I met up with some friends in the evening to go to Brooklyn. We started off with pizza, with two “small” pizzas feeding five of us!

We then went on to some birthday drinks at a really cool bar called Union Hall (http://www.unionhallny.com), which has a couple of lanes where you can play boule- like what old men play in France but still it was a good focal point for the bar and I felt like it had a more relaxed atmosphere than some of the Manhattan bars. This is a pretty bad photo but you get the idea…

Today, with better weather, I was determined to make the most of the day. I got up early to go to church, and then met my friend Cristina to go back to Brooklyn. We walked over Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan, so I went to see the 9-11 memorial beforehand. It is very  humbling to go, and feels strange when are standing there as there is suddenly so much sky.

From there, we walked over Brooklyn Bridge which is a really impressive sight and has some beautiful views with the blue sky and boats out on the Hudson – just pretty tricky navigating between the pedestrians, cyclists and tourists taking photos (us included).

Eventually we made it to the other side and headed towards our final destination- the Smorgasburg food market! It happens every weekend in Brooklyn and has a huge choice of street food vendors.

After looking around, we decided we wanted to eat everything there, but had to narrow it down somehow… In the end, we started off with corn on the cob Mexican style, rolled in butter, cheese, chilli and lime- it was as good (and as difficult to eat gracefully) as it sounds! Next we had pulled pork in brioche buns and we rounded our feast off with some kind of fried beef and coriander roll- I don’t know what it was but it was delicious.

Deciding we needed to walk off our lunch, we took a stroll along the waterfront and then headed back across the bridge, with the views even more impressive this way round as you approach Manhattan.

We pretty much ended walking back up to Midtown from there, strolling through Soho (where I am definitely coming back to go shopping next weekend!) and Greenwich village, which is really cute and feels much more neighbourhoody than where I live. I was enjoying all the fire escapes! However, I have now collapsed as I think we must have walked at least 8 miles today! A glimpse below of some of the cute streets with coloured houses and fire escapes that we walked past – it just makes me think of Ross and Joey in the fire escape scene in Friends.

Have a great week!