I had an awesome trip to New York! I've been pondering what to write about the trip and in the end I decided to write the full story complete with the few pictures I took. To warn you, this is a loooong and picture heavy post. It took me hours to finish writing it! All day, actually.
I flew to New York late Wednesday afternoon with a suitcase half full of wool and Icelandic licorice (gifts). The flight went smoothly and I got totally engrossed in a book I bought at the airport (Freakonomics - I highly recommend it). Time flew, and before long I was handed the documents that the US customs requires visitors to fill out. In addition to personal information and the address you'll be staying at in the US you need to answer a few questions, which to the ordinary human being like myself seem a tad weird. Here's an example:
"Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage, or in terrorist activities, or genocide, or between 1933 and 1945 were involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?" Umm, no.
When I arrived at JFK there was a huge line for the customs and it was damn hot there. After 45 minutes, I finally got to the border control guy, who fingerprinted my sweaty index fingers and took a picture of tired me, a beautiful picture, for sure. Cassie's husband Jon picked me up at JFK and we drove into the city to meet Cassie, who was teaching a quilting class. While waiting for Cassie, we had a beer in a bar opposite the quilt shop, and finally, I got to meet her! We've been very good friends for over two years now, and it was really about time that we met in person. Eep. The three of us grabbed a bite to eat and drove to their lovely Brooklyn apartment where redwine was consumed and politics discussed. I managed to stay awake until 2 in the morning which would translate into 6 am Icelandic time. I was pretty tired at that point, but happy to be there.
I woke up at around 6 am Thursday morning after only four hours of sleep, most probably due to the time difference. Having had little sleep the whole week (stress at work), 4 hours of sleep did not help and I was pretty dazed the whole day. We drank great amounts of coffee and discussed knitting until noon, and then took the subway to the city and walked around. By pure accident (mhm) we passed a knitting shop (Purl) where I got some beautiful Colinette sock yarn. After more coffee we went back home and in the evening had dinner at Jared's and Luigi's. Dinner was delicious, and getting to see Jared's sweaters in person was awesome! Not to mention how much fun it was to meet them in person, they are really very nice people.
Friday afternoon we drove up to Cassie's mom's summerhouse, close to Rhinebeck. On the way out of the city I saw ground zero
It was pretty strange to see it, having seen the twin towers in countless movies and watching them fall to the ground on TV. It's difficult to imagine it in the real world, that they actually stood there and that people actually were right there and watched them fall. Unreal, somehow.
Close to the summerhouse Jon brought us to a field of pumpkins. A field of pumpkins! I've never seen anything like it
When we got to the summerhouse, which is a lovely lovely place, we had a beer and played pool. Jon taught me a bunch of great tricks for improving my game. Marcy arrived with her cute dog Oli and it was great to finally meet her, and Oli of course! In the evening, Marcy and Cassie taught me to spin on a spindle and I got hooked immediately.
Saturday morning we drove to Rhinebeck, me behind the wheel. My first driving experience in the US was pretty pleasant and I discovered the convenience of automatic gear switching or whatever it's called in English. In traffic jams a stick shift is a pain in the butt, really.
When we got to the fairgrounds, I was totally overwhelmed by all the people and the variety of wool and wooly tools you could buy. I basically walked around in a haze and was pretty silent for most of the day. We met lots of people, and for part of the day walked around with Beth S. and Rebecca. It was so nice to meet them, although my only regret is that we didn't have time or opportunity to relax and chat and get to know each other in real life.
Marcy, Cassie and I all bought Forrester spindles
and lots of roving. I only bought one measly hank of yarn, the softest angora, or bunny crack, as it is apparently also known. After we had had enough of crowds and tempting offers of beautiful wooly goodies, Cassie and I visited the sheep tent and met a bunch of sheep. I was quick to find a fellow Icelander
Apart from the Icelandics and the Shetlanders, most of the sheep looked hilarious to me. Here a few of the funnier ones:
There were also other fiber animals. I'm pretty sure that the smaller one is an alpaca, but the larger could be a llama.
When the fairgrounds closed, we drove back to the summerhouse. After dinner, Marcy and Cassie taught me to ply, and I plied my first handspun:
On sunday, Jon and I watched the great American sport of pumpkin chucking (a.k.a. punkin chunkin). Great fun.
I think the best part was seeing the pumpkins splatter on the ground.
During the festival, I kept seeing this weird spandex-clad guy on two GIGANTIC horses, the biggest horses I have ever seen. They were so big, that they looked almost like monsters, something out of a C.S. Lewis or Tolkien book. To give you an idea as to why I found them so outrageously huge, these Clydesdales are about 2-3 times as heavy as Icelandic horses, and 1-2 feet (30-50 cm) taller. They have big butts, I'll tell you.
At the end of Sunday, we had plenty of wool and long shadows
When we got back to the summerhouse, Jon and I watched American football on TV and he explained the rules and the point of the game. That was handy, since so far I have been under the impression that the main point of the game is to air advertisements every 5 minutes! I understand the sporty part now, and have to admit that it was actually fun to watch. After the game, we said goodbye to Marcy, cleaned the house and drove back to the city, arriving close to midnight in Brooklyn.
All in all, I was really happy about Rhinebeck. I met a ton of people, so many that I have a hard time remembering everyone. I would have liked to have more hang-out time with all the people we met, it was somehow a little weird to meet people whose blogs I read but not have time to really get to know each other. Next time?
On monday, Cassie and I visited yarn shops (School Products, Habu) and a Japanese bookstore. After lunch close to the Rockefeller center, we walked down 5th Avenue and along Central Park to Columbus Circle, where I met my friend Margrét (a.k.a. Maggie in the US) who's lived in New York for 3 years. Maggie and I strolled through Central Park for a while, sat down by a pond and caught up with each others life. Afterwards we stopped in a bookstore in the "vertical shopping experience" and I bought a book. We took the subway during rush hour to ... west 4, or something like that, walked down Bleecker street (nice!), sat down in the square at the end of the street and chatted some more.
I got home to Cassie's pretty much on my own by subway (yay!) and had a lovely evening. Jon taught me to play Cribbage and I beat him in our first game (although he won best out of 3). During the game, we might have talked for a while in mock British accent and for some strange reason, he kept calling me Smedley. Jon is excellent at faking accents.
On Tuesday, Cassie and I took the subway into and back out of Manhattan to get to the Brooklyn entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge
and we walked over the bridge to Manhattan. The weather was great and the view excellent!
We had lunch in a Japanese place next to Seaport yarn shop, where I bought some beautiful blue/green Noro. Then we walked along the waterfront and I snapped a picture of the Statue of Liberty
We walked a lot that day and it was nice to see more of the city. To rest our feet, we stopped at Purl Soho (yarn!) and Purl Patchwork (fabrics!) where I got some books. Those are good rest stops, yep, I recommend them.
In the evening Jon brought us pizza calzone from DeFara's, the best pizza place in New York. Freaking excellent pizza, oops, calzone. During the evening, I kept referring to it as pizza and Cassie kept stressing that it was not a pizza, we had calzone.
Wednesday was my last day in New York. My flight wasn't until the evening, so we sat around spinning, chatting and drinking coffee all day. During the week, we had had a lot of remembrances of old South Park episodes, so Jon brought a "best of" compilation dvd and we watched a few shows. The one we had talked most about was the Towelie show, and it was just as funny as we remembered. You could say that "Wanna get hiiiigh" was the theme sentence of the week.
It was sad to leave New York. I had such a great time and it was so nice to finally meet and hang out with Cassie and Jon. I think that I'll have to go back very soon, but until that time, I'm expecting at least one of them to visit me in Iceland and I hope I can show her/them as good a time as they showed me.
Since getting back home, I've been spinning. In fact, I haven't knit a stitch in over a week! I'm almost through the BFL top I bought at Rhinebeck. See:
Excuse me while I go finish it!
