The Big Apple

If I said that...

we stayed home...

we didn't hang out with awesome people...

we didn't do fun and interesting things...

Went to bed early...

or that we didn't meet interesting new people,

then I'd be lying, beloved readers, because NYC was awesome!!

The instant that you arrive in New York, you become aware that NYC runs to a definite rhythm which you are either in sync with or not. I think that is why few people are indifferent to New York City; people either love it or hate it. We loved it!

We stayed with Hannah's aunt, Karen who has a beautiful apartment in Soho, Manhattan. We arrived on Friday as she was leaving for a weekend away. We spent our first night tracking down some of legendary NYC pizza. We settled for Lucina in Brooklyn which came highly rated. The pizza was very good, but our ultimate team mate Ryan Thwait's Pringle Bay pizza is better. We met up with Adrienne, Blake, Scotty and Andrew whom we'd met in Nonquitt for a quiet drink which ended at 4am when the bar closed and asked us politely to leave.

Here they are; From left to right, Adrienne, Blake, Hannah, Andrew, Scotty and yours truly.
















Saturday night we hosted the gang over at Karen's house. The gang now included Jared whom we also met in Nonquitt. Readers, meet Jared. Jared, meet the readers.















Everyone survived our vegetarian dinner. Maybe the beers and wine helped. Maybe it was the cheese cake brought by Scotty and Andrew...let me eat cake I say. After dinner, it was off to Mason Dixon for some bull riding; pretty tame stuff.

Then off to Eastern Bloc. Home at 5am.

Sunday night was spend at Cubby Hole, a local Sunday night hang out where the barman, Christov, knows everyone's name. With the big drinks and choose your own music jukebox, it was suddenly 2am. Ooops! It was a school night for some! Sorry Andrew and Scotty!

Karen and Rima invited us to Rima's house for supper on Monday night in Brooklyn. We walked to Brooklyn from Manhatten over the Brooklyn bridge. We had a great supper and met Rima's son, Dan and two of his friends. Dan is, in fact, a rugby player. Yes, rugby is surprisingly popular in the US, but the only cricket you'll find in the US is in the garden.

On Tuesday night, Karen made us family supper. Tuesday night supper is a great tradition in my family. She even bought cow's milk feta as I'm not a fan of goat's milk! Thanks Karen - what a treat!

Thereafter it was Rudy's. We'd hear alot about Rudy's. There is a pink pig outside, cheap pitchers of beer inside and free hotdogs! All the rumours and stories were true - Rudy's was great! We had a customary photo shoot with Rudy (the pig) upon leaving at 3am! Thanks Rudy!

Wednesday night, we had supper with Hannah's dad, Chester and Marianne in their Central Park West apartment which, as the name implies overlooks Central Park. It was a beautiful night and we decided to have supper on the roof. The view was stunning and the food was great!




















On Thursday evening, we met up with Valerie who is Hannah's cousin. We met her in Cape Town when she was touring with Ashford and Simpson earlier this year. It was also September 11th and there were memorials all around the city, including a huge American flag projected onto the side of the Lehman Brother's building near Times square...It was quite incredible being in NYC for September 11 and hearing New Yorker's stories about where they were when the towers fell. You were reminded constantly by the two huge beams of light that shine into the sky where the towers stood.

As Thursday was our last night, we decided to pop in to see Scotty and Andrew. We all met up at a bar close to their house. While we were there, Jared and Sam (another Nonquitt attendee) happened to walk past...on their way... for Sam to get a tattoo! Sam had had a quite life changing day and decided to mark this auspicious occasion, quite literally. Well, we couldn't let him go alone so we went with to lend moral support!

The next day, we caught the Bolt bus (which has free wifi on the bus) to Washington DC for a well earned rest, bathed in the afterglow of NYC...wow, what a city!

Boston

After the excitement of Nonquitt, it was time for some R&R in Boston. We arrived in Boston on Friday night and went out with Hannah's great friend, Brock. We went to a specialist beer bar which had over a 100 beers on tap! More on beer in a later blog.

We stayed with Deborah, Mark and their son, Ben who are well established (as opposed to old) family friends of Hannah's parents. Deborah and Mark looked after us so fantastically - nothing was too much trouble and it was great to have dinner, chat and reminisce (Hannah reminisced, I learnt about the family ;-)

We explored Boston a bit and really enjoyed the city especially Cambridge which ironically is the suburb where Harvard and MIT are situated. I did have the misfortune of driving through the city once which was one too many times. It is a warren of one ways, narrow roads and difficult to read signs.

We caught up with some mates living in Boston. I met up with George, an ultimate mate from Cape Town who is now living in Boston. We went out with Brock and Ian to shoot some pool one night. We also saw Karen (of Karen and Roy fame) who is another old ultimate friend only to discover that they are start the next generation of ultimate player.

We spend 5 fantastic days in Boston in total and definitely didn't see enough of the city, but it was great to see our friends and just hang out, especially since our next stop was New York City...















Mark, Hannah, Deborah and I















Supper! Note the Hamilton Russell chardonnay!















Playing pool with Ian and Brock















Hannah and Brock

NQT

Our good friend, Adrienne, who we know from SA, had invited us to a get together with a group of her friends for the Labo(u)r Day weekend. Her friend, Katie’s family holiday house was in a little town called Nonquitt. The get together included the O’Brien parents (who are two incredibly accommodating, hospitable to a fault, fun loving people) and sixteen ‘youngsters’. A special highlight besides seeing Adrienne, was also seeing Steve who is a great friend of ours. The weekend started with watching Barack Obama’s acceptance speech. (He really is a masterful speaker – do yourselves a favour and download one or two of his speeches on youtube.com). The theatrics and festivities only increased from there!

The house is situated right on the sea so the days were spent swimming, throwing frisbee, kayaking, playing wiffle ball, badminton, competitive games of croquet and tennis. I did do a little fishing in very pretty areas, but no fish caught. Late afternoons were spent having sun downers, evenings started with a huge supper and continued with classic games such as mafia, psychiatrist, encore, fantasy and charades with a group of people who have the following day jobs namely, actress screenwriter, actor, accountant, consultant, masters student, community organiser, astronomer… Need I say more…Games often continued until 3am and beyond. I did say that the O’Brien parents were incredibly accommodating – can you imagine trying to sleep with sixteen screaming, laughing, shouting people downstairs!

Monday was Labo(u)r Day and the O’Briens treated us to our first ever New England clam bake which consists of a huge sit down lunch which includes clams, lobster and corn. The amount of food was relentless and delicious! Unfortunately, it was time to leave on Monday to go to Boston, but a deeply heartfelt thank you to Mr. O’Brien, Mrs. O’Brien, Katie (their soon to be famous daughter) and Adrienne for inviting us and treating us to such an incredible long weekend!!

Next stop Boston!
















The house
















The view

















The badminton challenge - Steve and I will need to defend our title next year!
















The Nonquitt open!
















Supper - Mr and Mrs O at the head of the table!
















The gang!
















Let the games begin!















I am not the mafia!















Oh yes you are!
















18 year old Talisker and a bottle of 1,75 litre Johnny red are serious business...

Cape Cod

The next stop was Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Hannah’s great grandfather bought a big plot of land next to Pleasant bay on which the extended family has built five houses on the water’s edge. The reason for the visit was the marriage of Hannah’s cousin, Allegra.

All the houses were full as well as houses of other cousins and extended family with wedding guests! John and Dinah (Hannah’s aunt and uncle) did a fantastic job with all the wedding organising and hosting! The ceremony was held over looking the bay and was heartfelt and sincere. A huge marquee was erected in the garden which housed the dinner tables and guests. The reception party was great fun with the wedding musicians partying harder than most!

Most of the guests left on Sunday and a few on Monday and we were lucky enough to have Dinah to ourselves on Monday night. After an exhaustion-induced nap (due to going fishing at 3am), we cooked up some bluefish fillets I’d caught that day. After a good meal and a great conversation, it was sad to finally to go to bed. Hannah and I stayed in Cape Cod until Thursday. We hired a car, play adventure mini golf (putt-putt), read our books in the hammock, swam and went fishing again for bluefish. Hannah even reeled in her first bluefish on fly! Thank you for Dinah and John (and all the other people) for their incredible hospitality.





















The bride and groom!















Chester and I




















Thinking about going for a swim...















Sunset at Pleasant bay














The core of the wedding party having sundowners

















Fishing report (skip if you aren’t interested)

Cape Cod is famed for its fishing (hence the name!). I hired a guide with the movie star name of George Ryan, for the Monday after the wedding to show me the areas. He picked me up in his 69 Ford Grand Cruiser at 3am and headed down to Provincetown at the northern tip of Cape Cod.

Cape Cod is famed for its bluefish (elf / shad in SA), striped bass and once for its cod. Due to cod’s complete lack of fighting ability, bluefish and striped bass are inshore fishermen’s main quarry. We fished along the breakwater off Provincetown Harbour. The breakwater creates three distinct fishing areas, namely 1) off the beach (surf), 2) in the bay between the breakwater and harbour and off the point of the breakwater. We couldn’t fish off the beach due to the onshore 15mph wind so we tried the inshore bay in the early morning and worked our way to the point. We arrived fishless, but the point is surrounded on the western side by a deep channel and allows one to get a fly into deep water. I caught my first bass of about 5lbs on a well sunk clouser. Bass are quite similar to the Kob in SA even to the point of the shaking of their heads when hooked. We caught several smaller ones before the fishing when quiet. We fished our way back into the bay and I caught one of a similar size of a sand eel imitation. There is a sharp drop off in the middle of the bay which can be accessed at low tide where bluefish patrol for baitfish swept over the edge. The bluefish have razor sharp teeth and therefore a few centimetres of steel wire is needed to avoid getting bitten off. We were only able to fish the drop off for about an hour due to the prevailing tide, but we quite quickly caught four hard fighting bluefish around the 4-5lbs mark!

Although the fish weren’t the biggest, it was truly a fantastic day out! I’d highly recommend George as a top notch fly guide. I was really impressed at the quality of the fishery. The striped bass were virtually swiped during the 80’s and have made a full come back! My mission is to catch a ‘keeper’ which is bass over 28inches.














My first England bluefish




















My first striped bass














Another shot of the same bass














Another bluefish on a different day!

Bass Pro Shop

The fishing god, Scale, broke off a little piece of fishy heaven and sent it to earth in the form of Bass Pro Shop – a fishing warehouse of epic portions. Hannah and I visited the Massachusetts store on the way to Cape Cod.

A warehouse of fishing equipment - rows of rods, reels, flies, lures - basically everything that opens and closes all under one roof.

The three hours (bless Hannah’s soul) we spent there went past in a flash!