The weather in New York has definitely started to turn this week, and you can no longer count on it being a balmy 20-25 degrees when you step outside, even if the sun is out. I learnt that this morning and found myself shivering on the way back to my apartment from church, ready to tuck up with a film and hot chocolate.

My week was pretty sociable and I went to a couple of cool places – I had a great steak at a restaurant called The Smith and also went out to a bar called Cannibal (which was much more understated than you would think with a name like that), where we sat next to some people eating a pig’s head for dinner… (not sure what the etiquette is on asking to take a picture of someone else’s food so sadly I can’t show you but it had the full snout, ears etc…) It did actually look quite tasty but I’m still not sure I’ll be queuing up to order it any time soon.

My dad was in town again this week so we went for dinner on Friday. It turns out there is a cheese factory in Manhattan which happened to be right near where we were having dinner so we popped in for a starter of mac’n’cheese using cheese made right there on site! It was amazing and definitely worth a visit if you are in New York (Beecher’s Handmade Cheese)

And then on Saturday, this happened…..

Some serious New York rain… that put an end to my plans of taking the Staten Island ferry to see the Statue of Liberty so we decided to go eat instead at the Caracas Arepa Bar. We used to eat arepas in Venezuela so it was nice to find somewhere that serves them and we were definitely not disappointed! We went for shredded beef, cheese, jalapeños and black beans. I think the place gets quite lively in the evenings so I’m definitely going to come back another time.

A trip to the Met was our next rainy day activity, although lots of people had the same idea, but I saw a few new parts of the museum and this was my favourite painting this time of depression-era New York.

I also found my next musical instrument to tackle… a drum with attitude…

The sun did finally come out around 4pm so we were able to take a stroll through central park via Turtle Pond- which it turns out actually has turtles swimming in it! I was very excited by this! Look how cute they are.

Here’s a picture of me and my dad in the sunshine which rounded off our day nicely. I’d like to say that’s a high speed turtle zooming towards us in the background but sadly I think it’s a duck.

The last food item of the day contained .. you’ve guessed it … more cheese! We met up with some family friends for dinner and ordered the 15-cheese selection, with each cheese coming with a special chutney or preserve. The waiter then proceeded to give us a 2 minute explanation on each cheese and the accompaniment – we admired his dedication but we really just wanted to eat the cheese!

Also, look what we saw on the way to the restaurant- a fire station with a Dalmatian! Apparently dalmatians are traditional dogs for firefighters to have as they used to keep the horses calm when they had to use horse drawn carriages.

I went to my first New York house party after dinner which was pretty fun, in a loft in TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal Street- inventive naming there) and then today have just been catching up on life admin and ready for an early night! This place is definitely starting to feel a lot more like home though!

As the author Tom Wolfe said, “One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.”