America: New York (13th -> 20th)

We arrived in Penn Station on the evening of Saturday 13th. This was a grim experience as the station was not air conditioned. We left quickly and took a taxi to meet the person who would let us into our apartment. This turned out to be straightforward and we had a nice, although small, place not that far from Times Square.



We went back out once to buy food and then settled in to sleep.

Sunday was a bit of a non-event, well for me at least, it was hot and I was tired and didn't fancy venturing out. So we only went around the corner (to Amy's Kitchen) for pizza slices and cupcakes for lunch and made use of the apartment kitchen for dinner (vegetable risotto to bring some welcome vegetables to our diet!).

Monday was the Museum of Modern Art. This turned out to be a disappointment. It wasn't bad, but it was the first place we'd been recommended that just wasn't excellent. The Museum tends to rotate artists, so I assume we were just a bit unlucky with the current selection. This was also the day that we discovered that the Lonely Planet book, which had been great for Washington, was not nearly as impressive for New York. It failed to correctly locate the Tourist Information.

Lunchtime we bought some burritos from around the corner. In the afternoon we located a launderette for the mid holiday washing. We found it and found an English couple from Bristol doing theirs (they were out for four weeks). This was good as we got to chat about holidays and also very useful as they were able to advise on using the machines and things. No-one was very hungry for dinner so we bought cake from the bakers around the corner.

Tuesday we had pancakes for breakfast. It was also the day we discovered that the Museum of Modern Photography had moved. So bateleur suggested The Top of the Rock. We thought it was a bit of a long shot - as it's one of those attractions where they advise you to book - but tried to get tickets anyway. And, actually, had no problems at all!



The Top of the Rock was probably my favourite attraction in New York. In the afternoon we visited the M&M store in Times Square and bateleur cooked more veggie risotto for dinner.

Wednesday was Central Park. It made a pleasant change from wandering hot streets (the temperature for the week was mostly 30 degrees C.



For lunch we had hot dogs. Dinner was cous cous and fried beef.

Thursday we went to Madam Tussaud (without Bea as waxworks did not appeal to her). This was a big hit with Ryan as it had both Ghostbusters and The Avengers as exhibits. Lunch was huge pizza slices and dinner was pasta.

Friday again started with pancakes and it was our shopping day. I bought a t-shirt for chrestomancy and chocolate for work. For dinner we went out to a nearby Italian called Amarone Ristorante. I had the Orecchiette ("w/ Leeks, Prosciutto, Smoked Mozzarella, Pink Sauce" - where pink sauce is cream and tomato) and then Tiramisu.

Saturday was a 4am start to catch our plane back. We had arranged to be picked up by a Dial 7 car and this worked well (you can't book yellow cabs, only hail them, although it turned out that we saw plenty at 4am). I was unimpressed by JFK compared to Heathrow - pricey and lacking in seating. The flight was decent (we were served breakfast and also muffins). We landed early at around 7:30pm London time.

We got home to a rather surprised, but well-fed, cat. chrestomancy had looked after him well.

The Hunger Games trilogy, Jaggy Splinters, Mortal Engines, Zootopia, Inside Out and Dear Esther

During my holiday in the US, I managed a fair amount of reading and re-reading. The things I read for the first time were three short stories and five books.

The short stories were all pieces by authors I knew and were little additions to series. They were Penric's Demon by Lois McMasters Bujold (a Chalion demon story), Lockwood & Co: The Dagger in the Desk by Jonathan Stroud and The Last Day of Christmas by Chris Brookmyre (Jack Parblane). All were good, but in my opinion less good than the full-length novels of the same series.

The full-length books were:

• The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Technically three books rather than one, but I see no need to separate them. I've seen three of the four films, so only the last half of the third book was new. I quite enjoyed them, but felt I liked the Divergent trilogy better (which is a bit unfair as it came second, I think). This just gets much too dark and distressing, although I liked the ending slightly better than that for Divergent.
• Jaggy Splinters by Chris Brookmyre. This is actually a collection of short stories, two Parblane, one Simon and three others (one is not technically a story). I thought these were OK and they completed my Brookmyre collection, but that was about it.
• Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. This is the first of a series, but works perfectly well as a standalone. I liked the concept and I thought it was quite good, but there was rather too much switching between characters and I found it difficult to care about some of the ones I was supposed to care about. That said, Reeve can write endings, which is something I feel many authors struggle with.

I saw two films this month, both animated, one in the States and one back at home.

• Zootopia - we saw this at Nina's. I thought it was enjoyable with a decent plot, nice voice acting and it was generally good to watch.
• Inside Out - this was Kermode's film of last year and I can see why. Lovely concept, it really felt that you were inside a child's head, and generally about the right length.

On Thursday, chrestomancy and I played Dear Esther. It's entirely a walk-through of scenes with voice-over and music. It is not really a game, but instead is somewhere between setting a mood and talking about the past (screenshot below). There isn't really a plot or even much of a story, but it was interesting to see. Although, sadly, it gave me terrible motion sickness.



Finally, I had something of a surprise when I returned home from holiday - I've lost weight. Not a great deal, but knowing that I put on weight last time I went to the States, it was a bit of a shock!