You may have noticed (or not) that the blog posts somewhat subsided during May as I put my head down and studied for my CFA exam, and blogging just felt like a bit too much of a luxury. Anyway, the good news is that the exam was yesterday so I’m back and free to have guilt-free fun again!

I’ll start by filling you in on some of my May adventures (or scheduled “revision breaks” if you prefer).

I hear that if you’re a true baseball fan in NYC, you actually support the Mets, not the Yankees, as the Mets are typically the underdog team so their fans are more dedicated, with a stadium that is more out-of-the-way in Flushing. Dara and I took a couple of English friends to a Mets game and saw them thrash their opponents but the big excitement was that we got on the screen, twice!! That was a first for all of us! Watching sport so much more fun here than in the UK, as you basically go to cheer, eat deep fried dough and hotdogs and drink beer, with frequent breaks for singing, catching t-shirts being fired into the crowd and general merriment. Let’s Go Mets!

It was also Memorial Day weekend and I figured as we had three days off, I could take a day off studying to go to my friend Alex’s pool party…. We all hopped on the train out to New Jersey and were blessed with the best weather of the whole weekend. We quickly started on the cocktails and Cynthia whipped up these marvellous creations: Champagne garnished with a popsicle (one of my favourite American words):

I also introduced everyone to Pimms for the first time which they LOVED so I’ll have to source another bottle in NYC as my supplies are low! Here’s the girls with the birthday girl (and her dad):

Testing the (not so warm) pool…

And the Amy raft (we’re both called Amy, although taking the float also induced a lot of British colonising jokes….) I could have lived in that pool…

But the one thing guaranteed to lure us out of  the water? Alex’s mum’s famous southern fried chicken and BBQ ribs which all my friends had been talking about for weeks. A great day out of the city with good friends, sunshine and barbecue!

If you need me, I’ll be here from now on….

My social life really had to wind down in the final two weeks before my exam so I don’t have too much else to report but now I am free and plan to make the most of that between now and August by visiting as many rooftop bars in New York as I can… starting last night with a barbecue at my friend Brennan’s apartment where I made loads of new Canadian friends on his amazing roof terrace!! Somehow photos never seem to do these views justice but if you look below, you can see the Freedom Tower, the river and general rooftop beauty!  I think I’m getting better at these panorama shots!

We also had great fun watching this… which we thought was a proposal but it was so windy that the letters kept getting blown away – as far as we could see, it read “Zero heart” and then disappeared behind a tall building – very cryptic!

Today, I woke up with a spring in my step that comes from having a day stretching out ahead of you with nothing you need to do. I took a novel (a welcome change from my CFA books) up to Conservatory Gardens, one of the parts of Central Park I hadn’t yet made it to yet and a place so tranquil that you wouldn’t even know you were still in Manhattan. You enter though Vanderbilt Gate, which used to be in front of Vanderbilt mansion on Fifth Avenue and 58th Street and see ahead of you the beautiful view below.

The southern part of the Garden is in an “English” style – a little taste of home with a  big oak tree to provide welcome shade and statue of Mary and Dickon from The Secret Garden. 

Everyone there is quietly sitting, reading or strolling and it’s a welcome sanctuary from the buzz of the city.

I made some more progress on my rooftop bar quest this evening with some friends who were in town from London, starting at the Library Hotel Rooftop which is cute and does a great champagne cocktail, even if it doesn’t have the best views in the city. It’s right next to Grand Central so this may be one I frequent a bit more often from now on!

After a quick tourist stop in Grand Central (which I may have joined in even though I go there every day….)

…we headed to another rooftop which is alllllll about the view – The Refinery Rooftop which looks right onto my old friend, the Empire State Building! It hasn’t featured on my blog much recently so I’ll put two photos to make up for that!

And here’s an arty shot I took on my walk home – living centrally can have its advantages!

Back to reality from tomorrow but expect more sunshine, rooftops and fun on here from now on! Bring on the summer!