Come to the Life Cafe after Maureen's show...

Josh is out, I’m sitting and feeling entirely encapsulated by the red couch, listening to Jamie Cullum.  Things are pretty good.  Time to catch up on some blogging…

Last Friday.

The day began in a less than satisfactory way, while I awoke feeling motivated and keen to tackle the Brooklyn Bridge, my motivation soon waned when I realised my laptop was refusing to turn on.  Nothing kills the mood like a broken computer.  The devastating possibility that you might lose precious photos and documents (not to mention the cast recording of American Idiot I downloaded from iTunes the night before).  The day was not off to a good start.  I made an appointment with a Mac “genius” at the 5^th Avenue store for 7:40pm and tried to get on with my holiday.

Josh, Justin, and I were waiting (as a favour to our host) for new tenants to arrive so we sat in our room eating cheese, bread, and grapes, which was not at all unpleasant.

New Canadian tenants checked in, old German tenant checked out we were free to roam.  We went to the East Village for coffee at Ost Cafe on the corner of Avenue A and 12^th.  The day was stupidly hot, so when Mikey arrived to meet us, we went in search of a café with a garden so we could sit and have an extended lunch…  It was really all the day was good for.  Sitting.  And eating.  And not being in direct sunlight.

On Avenue B we happened to walk past the Life Café of RENT fame.  You know, “come to the Life Café after Maureen’s show” and frenzied calls of “wine and beer.”  That one.  So we went in and as a total bonus it also had a shady garden area out the back.  The staff there are friendly, the food comes in enormous portions and is really great (sweet potato chips a big winner), and the atmosphere is totally relaxed and perfect for a hazy summer afternoon.  And Benny did not come to bother us, not even a little bit.

With a few hours to kill before my appointment with the genius and all the energy of sweaty, tired people we decided the only thing to do with ourselves was to go and sit in Central Park.  We found a shady spot (that became sunny and then returned to shady again) and sat watching people and absorbing New York.  I wandered off on my own for a while to take some photos.  Central Park is one of the most amazing places in the world.  I’ve explored parks in other cities (most notably, London), but this is more than a park.  It’s a snapshot of what New York would be if it weren’t a thriving metropolis.  It’s wild, beautiful, and even a little frightening.

I walked across that bridge that features in about a million movies, took some awesome photos with the playful afternoon sun, and went back to sit and watch personal trainers whip their charges into shape.  So many people, Central Park is a true hub of diversity.  I think you could legitimately visit New York for a month and sit in one spot day after day just observing and not feel like you didn’t have a fulfilling experience.  Maybe I’ll do that one-day… There might be a book in it.

And finally it was time for my appointment with the Mac genius.  The 5^th Avenue Apple store is the most organised glass cube in history and being open 24/7, I suppose they have to be.  They have so many procedures in place and amazingly, as the team members tap away on their iPads, everything seems to fall into place.

Now, I was hoping for a bit of taptaptaptap “oh yeah, this is what’s wrong… let me just… there all done” and to walk away with my baby completely fine.  Unfortunately, my genius hooked my laptop up to some kind of computer life support system, did the taptaptaptap and pointed to the screen, “see that?”  I nodded.  “That means there’s no way to make it work.  It’s dead.”  Dead?  Sadly, I packed my computer away, ambled through the crowds and exited the glass cube.

I decided at this point, to make my way back to Queens and left the boys to go on to dinner.  I spent the rest of the evening arranging for my mum to send over the back-up I did before I left home and reloading photos onto Justin’s computer so I could put them on my external hard drive.

After a few hours (and making the decision to buy a new laptop the next day), I was feeling better.  It wouldn’t be a travel adventure without some kind of minor drama, and this one was pretty manageable.

From the keys of Josh’s laptop with love, Jules xx