New York and ....Baltimore, Maryland.

Let's start off with New York, since that's where we are based. One of those typical places you could spend a whole life and still not know it all! It seems that Ellis Island was the first place immigrants saw in the "new world" now it's "JFK" Airport - at least going from the lined up queues I found myself in on arrival! Of course here are certain symbols as every city has, here it's Yellow Cabs (in London they are black) a hot dog on Times Square is a must (just on the side) - in Munich it is a bratwurst, in Paris a meter long "jambon beurre" - You munch on all these things whilst wandering through the streets looking for a Restaurant.......
New York, like ALL large conglomerations, world wide has had its catastrophies, maybe even more than its fair share, between hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters has also been the aim of International terrorism, and - almost every time  the world has watched, mainly horrified.
Life goes on - ticker tape welcomes, parades, memorial days and much more.
Similar to London in that it is really a collection of villages, just bigger, New York is a World City - like London, it has multi-culti populations and therefore all the advantages and disadvantages of such things.
I may be coming back to New York later on this Site, depends very much on events!

Baltimore, Maryland


Lump crab cakes from Baltimore.
The last thing and place I expected to visit, but strange things happen in life!
You see, I have a certain amount of family in the USA, mainly in the North Carolina area, and - to my surprise, I received a phone call from one of my nieces, proposing to meet up!
We arranged a meeting point roughly halfway between us,  a date, and a hotel! Turned out to be Baltimore.......!
I'm told Baltimore is beautiful  and our hotel is supposed to be on the inner harbour - it will be particularly nice to see again my niece - Hey........"Uncle Ian" ......not used to that! Just so you know, I'm a great-uncle as well.......The crabcakes ....well, we'll see!

That's the programme for the next few weeks, but I must say I am looking forward to sitting down, lazily sipping on the terrace of the Cafe de Paris,Vauvert  no doubt I'll get there - sometime!