Ahhh Richmond, getting there and the touristy bit ...

... Arriving at JFK, I got talking to the chap who was helping me to check in my two bags at the kerb side when he suddenly said we needed to go inside to check in, I was a little surprised but followed him regardless.

It turned out that he had spotted my visa waiver and figured that even though I had been in the US for 4 days I shouldn't have to pay to check my bags, and he was right, how nice was that, I wouldn't have known either way.

The plane to Richmond was tiny, only 12 rows of seats, the chap I followed on had to duck so as not to bump his head. It has been a long time since I was on such a small plane and I quickly remembered that I didn’t like it very much at all, LOL.

I didn’t know much about Richmond before arriving, I had intended to get a guidebook but time just ran away with me so when I met up with Squirty she did a great job highlighting quite a few of the local attractions that I could check out whilst she was at work.

It was a beautiful day for walking around so I left my hotel in the morning and didn’t return for almost five hours.  Richmond was like taking a step back in time, I stayed at the Jefferson hotel, which went a long way towards creating that feeling, the hotel was built in the late 1800’s.  

The architecture of Richmond is just fantastic. I walked around looking at the buildings, marveling that they were still around and wondering again how some of them could have been built without the technology of today’s world, something I always do as I wander through the streets of London. 

Up the road from my hotel was a house, which had a statue of a bear outside, I had no idea what the significance of the bear was, there was a plaque on the house but it made no reference to it.

A little further up the street I happened across the capital state building. 

I took a walk along the canal and part way along the river, watching some crazy people canoeing through the rapids.  Squirty told me later that the river was pretty tame where I had been but it seemed pretty fast to me, lol.

We visited St Johns Church, it was locked so we couldn’t see inside, the church was built in the 1740’s, it was the place where Patrick Henry gave his ‘Give me Liberty or Give me Death Speech’, incredible to see it still standing. 

We went to a park that had a fantastic view of the river, Squirty had mentioned this place to me before as the park has a sign referencing Richmond on Thames in the UK. The similarity of the view is uncanning, it took us a few minutes to determine the picture on the sign was indeed Richmond on Thames on not Richmond, VA.

The weather was too nice to spend time inside so we did the next best thing and wandered down Cary Street looking at the shops.  I could have spent a fortune and definitely could have completed much of my Christmas shopping if only this wasn’t the start of my trip (I didn't want to be carrying too much around with me).

This post is getting a bit long so I'll do a separate one on eating, drinking and general merriment. :)

New York, New York ...

... so good I am coming here twice.  This part of my trip ends tomorrow, but I will be back the day before Thanksgiving to spend another six days in the city before heading back to the UK, but more on that when the time comes.

On Sunday not long after I arrived and checked into my Hotel I headed off to Nutley, New Jersey to the A.N.G.E.L Initiative fundraiser, they put on a great show.

Amy T was the MC for the evening and opened the show, she was very funny and at one point later in the evening she had her little puppy make a guest appearance, awww.

Christine Martucci arrived fresh from an audition for America’s got talent, she was brilliant, she has a really raw, gutsy, gravelly voice, just the kind of singer I like.  If she recorded something I would definitely buy it.

Gloria Bigelow was hilarious as always, I love her style of humour, I first saw her about this time last year at the Stonewall Inn

Lori Michaels – Me & the Girls, closed the evening out with a very slick, very energetic performance. I was knackered just from watching them, LOL

I was really glad that I went along, the evening was the perfect length and kept me from going to sleep too early, though I was still wide awake by 4am.

Now about the Hotel, it is a really nice place in a great location, but I just had to send a couple of pictures to my friends showing one of items that can be found in the Mini Bar. 

I am a fairly well travelled person and have stayed in many hotels around the world but I have never been in one that had items from the Pleasure Chest for sale. LOL. This is the label from a canister in the mini bar. 

A sealed envelope contained other 'items' that could be ordered via guest services and delivered to the room.  

On Monday, I left the hotel in search of some breakfast, I cant believe I went to Pret A Manger, I go there at home, but it made for a simple choice and I new what I would be getting, from there I wandered up Broadway, as far as Central Park (about 20 blocks or so), I chilled out in the park for a while listening to my IPOD and people watching, I cant explain how nice it is to suddenly stop and just be still.

I had a look around Bloomingdales for a while, ended up just browsing though, before making my way back to the Hotel down Lexington Avenue.  I stopped at the Market Hall in Grand Central Station and bought a shrimp salad for lunch which I ate al fresco in the park opposite the hotel.

By this time it was about 3pm and I decided that I needed a little siesta before meeting up with my friends later for drinks, it was great to see them again, it has probably been almost 4 years since we were last together so we had some catching up and some reminiscing to do. Though I was quietly pleased when they needed to head off about 9pm as I was struggling to keep my eyes open. LOL.

Today I decided to head south, the sun was out and it was a perfect Autumn day (is it still Autumn?) but as my feet were still a little sore from yesterday I took the subway.  It doesn't matter how many times I come to NY or how often I travel on the subway I still cant help but remember Ghost and see Patrick Swayze's head looking in the express trains as they whizz past at speed, I dont think that image will ever go away.

Note to self, one earbud is enough when crossing the streets of NY. Gasp, that truck was huge and he frightened the crap out of me when he hit the horn and passed by what seemed like an inch away from the end of my nose!!! 

When I arrived at Union Square I grabbed a coffee and wandered over to the square to settle down to enjoy the sun for a few minutes, when I happened across a couple of hundred elves singing and dancing to jingle bells ... 

Here are just a few of them after they had finished.

At first from a distance I thought they were scottish dancers (because of the way they were dancing), and then irish leprechauns (as I clocked the green outfits). 

But I must confess that I only realised they were elves when someone said, what a dummy. In my defense though I didn't have my glasses on at the time, ha ha.

Tonight I had planned to going to see either a movie or a show but made the mistake of kicking off my shoes, settling down in front of the TV and catching up on emails, so instead I ordered room service, I have both a glass of wine and a cup of tea on the go and think the most adventurous I am going to be doing tonight is to take a long soak in the oversized bath tub.

It is funny how knowing that I will be back here for almost a week has taken the pressure off trying to cram everything in, LOL.

Tomorrow I will be leaving NY and heading off to Richmond, Virginia.

Later today ...

... I will be arriving in New York.  And not one to let the grass grow under my feet I am immediately heading out to this, a good line up and a good cause, what a way to start a vacation. I heard about the fundraiser through my friends Denise and Donna owners and hosts of My Lesbian Radio.

A facebook account ...

I was talking to my friend CG recently and she asked if I had a facebook account, which I don't, well not really, I do have a London Haize facebook account but only so that I could see some pictures that friends from Florida were posting, I don’t actually use it. 

CG was asking because she wanted to know how she could get updates from my holiday, as she didn’t want to wait until I came home.  Seriously, some people are just too impatient, LOL.

I mentioned that I did have a blog where I would be posting updates when I had the chance to and that I would send her the link but I didn't really want her to pass the link around so she said OK.

A while later, I was about to send her the link, and suddenly thought 'crap, I can't'.  Our friend, J, is the person who came into the office last year wearing the top that had me looking at her cleavage all day and is my 'out of town friend', I have blogged about these things and whilst I have not used her name it wouldn't take CG a minute to realise who I had been talking about. 

I mentioned this to my friend K as she knows about my blog and has read a few of my early posts after I came out to her.  K’s response … "Oohhh, I wondered who you had been talking about and wanted to ask, so thanks for that".

Damn it, I was blushing like a shy teenager as I realised what I had just confessed.

K suggested I remove the posts referring to J but I am not going to, I dont want to, they detail how I was feeling at that time, I'll just email CG holiday updates instead. Problem solved,

Gosh, is it really almost time …

… Back in April this year, I took a deep breath and booked myself onto the first ever Sweet Caribbean Cruise. I booked and paid for the cruise quickly so that I wouldn’t, or rather couldn’t , change my mind as I was going by myself. Anyway the cruise was way in the future, seven months away to be exact.

Blimey though, if this year hasn’t just flown by and November is almost here. This coming weekend I will be on a flight to New York to start my holiday. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t still feeling nervous about the Cruise but the nerves are definitely being overtaken by the excitement of the trip more and more.

I decided to make the most of my trip so will be in the US for the whole of November, I’ll be travelling around a bit, catching up with old friends based over there and meeting up with some new ones too . My trip starts with a few days in Manhattan before leaving for Richmond, Virginia, from there I fly to New Orleans to pick up the cruise, on my return I fly to Florida, spending a bit of time on each coast after which I fly back to New York to meet up with some friends flying in from the UK before heading back home on December 1st. I may be needing another holiday to recover when I get home :D

• Passport – check
• Tickets – check
• Money – check

The only thing I have left to do is pack my bags. Roll on the weekend!!!

Dinner in the dark ...

… This last weekend the group of friends that I go out for dinner with every couple of months all managed to get together for the first time since March, when we were getting together in June, I couldn’t make it because I was busy doing this, and then in August one of my friends was sick. We were all happy to be finally getting together.

We take it in turns to choose where we are going and on this occasion we went to the Buddha Bar. One of the things I have noticed recently is the growing trend to have really badly lit restaurants, so when I arrived I was not at all surprised that it the place looked as though it was almost entirely lit by candles. As I was escorted to the Bar to meet my friends I noticed the staff had little torches to check out the seating plans. It is true that the lack of overhead lighting does create a very nice atmosphere but seriously, how are we supposed to read the menu, the candle light didn’t help me in the slightest.

When our table was ready the waitress collected our drinks and showed us to it. As we sat down she leant forward to put the drinks on the table and lost her balance and emptied the entire tray on KC’s lap, she just sat there for a moment stunned, and then jumped up. KC was a star though she was wearing a black dress and dried herself off as best she could whilst telling us that every time she wore that dress something ended up being spilled on it. The restaurant staff raced around to clear up the mess as the manager came over all apologetic and gave us a bottle of champagne on the house.

I ended up having the tasting menu though because I couldn't see the menu I couldn't be doing with straining to read it. All food gets delivered into the centre of the table so that everyone can try everything.

To start with we had Shredded duck salad with hoi sin sauce, Buddha bar chicken salad, Sashimi (Crispy baby squid, fried in coriander with Thai basil tartar Scallops, tuna, turbot, salmon and razor clams),Gyoza dumplings and Seared scallops and shitake mushrooms with coconut satay and if that wasn't enough food we followed it up with black cod, grilled wagyu beef with Thai butter sauce, crispy pork belly with chilli bok choi and thai red curry with shrimp in young coconut. This was accompanied by a number of bottles of wine and we were all left with absolutely no room for desert!

There was another slight accident as I passed the shrimp curry to T, he hadn't grasped the coconut that it was served in as I let go and it dropped on the table and splashed back over me. I went to the ladies room to clean up and was helpfully assisted by the hot attendant in the cloakroom, which was fine by me, I came out of there with the biggest grin on my face :D

We had a really good night, lots off laughing and general silliness and I think I rolled in around 1:30 in the morning.

A rather late review ...

... Our plan was a simple one; we were going to have a relaxed dinner before watching the show. But we were delayed leaving home, setting off almost an hour after we had intended to and as a result by the time we got into town and parked the car we only had 45 minutes before the show started.

We found a restaurant close to the theatre; I had to laugh when CL asked if I wanted an appetiser.  Anyway, after a very rushed meal we arrived about 15 minutes after the show had started.

As we were late arriving we then had to wait for an appropriate point in the show before we were able to take our seats.  Actually they weren't our seats but they were equally well placed and we had a fantastic close view of the stage. 

The show was a good mix of funny and sad.  There were some very light moments, such as the mother and her friend having a celebration dance to the Jackson Five doing a dance routine (with a really surprising twist at the end) that you could imagine them choreographing as young girls in their bedrooms 30 years earlier, to the mother suddenly being told /realising the life she had led was cruel to the people she should have cared the most about.  All in all we really enjoyed the show.  

It is always interesting to hear comments from other theatre goers after a show and I had a chuckle with CL after overhearing two ladies talking.  They were disappointed that the main star wasn't at all like she had been on the 'X-Factor', ummm, well she wouldn't be now would she, she was 'acting' ... some people are priceless, LOL.