Didn’t get a lot done on Thursday. We were just settling down to work when John phoned to say the maid was on her way. We weren’t expecting her until Friday so Maria was in a panic. I cannot understand why you should need to tidy up before the maid comes, I thought that was her job. Maria says, yes it is but the maid is sooo.. tidy if we leave it up to her we’ll be searching for our things for the next week, and we’re only here for 10 more days. So we tidied, loaded the washing machine and then went out for a bit of shopping.
When we came back the apartment was cleaned but the smell of cleaning products was so strong (the Americans favourite product is Clorox bleach, they use it for everything) we decided to open a window and go up on the roof. I wish we’d taken some sun block with us. Still I think we realised in time and we’re only a little red.
Claire arrived on Friday. The start of her journey went really well. This end looked a bit iffy, on Thursday there was a fire in a tunnel and all the trains to Penn were diverted to Hoboken + ferry. When she set off from the UK the situation was still unresolved, but John and Maria kept track with the internet ( it’s amazing how you can follow flight etc online, so we knew as soon as she landed etc) and although the tunnel was open by the time she landed we decided it was better for her to go to Hoboken and then take the ferry since it lands at the World Financial Center and we can just stroll back from there. Apart from the fact that she dropped John’s whisky and broke it at imigration (that’ll smell good for a while) it all went well. Claire seems rather please with the fact that she traveled by taxi, train, monorail, plane and boat to get here.
Because of the time difference we were all up early yesterday and had breakfasted etc. and were out of the apartment by 8.30. As usual (it being a weekend) most of the downtown subways were shut but we got up to Union Sq for the Farmers market. Maria is thrilled because they were selling lily-of-the-valley, her favourite flowers. We then went up to Grand Central for their market (we got there before it opened!!!) and did our food shopping. They do some gorgeous food.
We then made our way back via Century 21 (we needed cutlery, the stuff in the apartment is rubbish and has been breaking on us) and Ground Zero. We were shattered by the time we got back and Claire was trying to go to sleep. Still, some lunch soon revived us and we strolled out to the Carnival @ WFC (sort of a glorified school fete). This seems to be the season for school fundraisers, the nursery downstairs was holding a hayride on Thursday afternoon.
We were rather impressed with a trimoran tied up in the North Dock. We were even more impressed when we found out it was in fact the one that set the record for sailing around the world that Ellen McArthur broke recently. Apparently it’s been here since early April, on ‘the starting blocks’ (as it were) for a transatlantic effort, but it’s been too calm.
However the clam weather has enabled some rowers to set off accross the atlantic. Some people do the strangest things for fun.
We had an early night since we’ve got a lot planned for tomorrow. Rather spoilt by the fact that we were woken at 11.45pm by some fireworks.