Something we have had on our to do list for a while is to visit the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.
Neither of us had been before and Tuesdays are free admission. So now that Heather's work exam is out of the way we decided to head out of the house for around FIVE hours in the 95ºF sun. And yes, I did get a little more sunburn.
The gardens are 102 years old and sit back to back with the Brooklyn Museum and guess what they have in their car park....
Thankfully we did stop halfway round for some lunch and to refill our water bottles.
They also had some cool (not temperature-wise) pavilions so we jokingly went inside for a couple of minutes into the desert zone, the tropical zone and the warm temperate zone as outside wasn't obviously hot enough for us.
They had some thistles, which I've also actually seen in the scrub between the trees opposite our house!
The best part though, was probably the Japanese garden complete with its carp & turtle laden pool.
Like all good school english stories I'll finish it by saying "a fun day was had by all".
On Wednesday around 11am I went for a run around the nearby Prospect Park.
I ran about 15mins, felt okay... in the shade of the trail, but when I came out down the far side of the park and had to do more out in the open I really started to feel the heat.
I could feel that these were the hottest conditions I've run in! My heart rate monitor really gives you an idea of how hard you are exercising compared to normal... as if I didn't know. But the numbers were extraordinarily high.
Normally I could cruise (jog) along at 150bpm but when I was forced into walking every three minutes, and after each stop at the water fountains my HR was sitting at 155. When I started to run again, despite trying to go slow now, it jumped right up into the high 180's!
So I ended up jog/walking the last 30 mins of the run. Even funnier was stretching my calves outside the house (134bpm), walking up the three flights of stairs (165bpm), then coming inside and trying to untie my shoes (191bpm). A delayed reaction to the stair climb plus the heat inside the kitchen.
Unknown to me it was nearly 100 degrees outside! Although I must be acclimatising somewhat, as I've found myself thinking at times "It's okay, it's just 75º".
Then at the back of 4pm the sky darkened and all hell broke loose. Thunder, lightning and torrential rain. The weather website made for a funny picture.
So basically it dropped 17º but was still 20º!
Then because of the storm the next day was a lot cooler. Indeed, I read that the high temperature in Central Park was 76º which was the first time since June 26th it hadn't hit at least 80ºF.
Then on Friday, the most complete polar opposite in one persons body reaction to weather happened.
I finally bought a new bike! Tracked down the one I was after away up on West 81st street in Manhattan. I paid for it, was just away to leave and the sky just opened and started more rain of biblical proportions. To be fair it had been darkening with a chance of rain but c'mon!!
Once I realised it wasn't going to stop I just went for it.
I've never (at least not for along time) felt so cold on a bike. By the time I was halfway down Manhattan I was shivering.
I've also never seen Central Park, the Manhattan Bridge or Brooklyn Bridge park so quiet!
The prescription insert in my Adidas eyewear started misting up too. Of course by this time the glasses themselves were covered in water and I couldn't see out of them anyway! So I took them off and cycled a few blocks without being able to see, oh yes. At nearly 4pm on a Friday of course it was practically rush hour traffic too.
After I deemed that too dangerous I stopped and thankfully found putting the cap that I had with me on under the cycle helmet and then putting back on my regular glasses was alright to continue.
Took me 1 hour 40 mins to get home and then ring all the water out of my t-shirt, socks, etc and empty my shoes out.
Of course, you can't just chuck your stuff in the washing machine either. And because it was Friday, the washing is now held over to Monday as the weekend is apparently far too busy a time to go to the laundrette unless you get there by 8am.
Other than that excitement, my final resident paperwork is posted and I have been job searching in the hope I have something lined up by the time I am actually allowed to sign up for work somewhere.
We also went to see a gig on Tuesday, Delta Rae. Not 100% my cup of tea, but amazing voices and a couple of really good songs including a brilliant Fleetwood Mac cover version (The Chain). Read Heather's music blog for a gig report.
I only mention them in case they go on to be massive and I want it noted we seen them before they were big.
Last Saturday to celebrate some friends turning 30 I was invited to play paintball!
It was all the way across the other side of Staten Island which meant getting to the Staten Island Ferry for 9am. The ferry is free and is noted in guide books as a cheaper way to get a decent view of the Statue of Liberty than paying for the normal tourist boat cruises.
Plus the trip meant I got a good view of the fifth borough and the one I'd never visited properly. The bus from the ferry terminal to the paintball venue took around 50 minutes, which was okay going there as you could see the contrasting housing on the island. Massive mansions, proper american houses with yards and normal New York style flats and 'dodgier' areas.
We played on & off for about three hours. It was in the high 80's but mostly shaded. I wore my heart rate monitor as I was interested to see what my HR would be, plus the calorie count.
I've played before and know how the adrenaline of the situation really pushes your HR up.
So I averaged 156, what I would do for an easy run, maxed at over 200, and burned 2000 calories, ha ha. Our referee did compliment me on my stealthiness though!
The return journey to the ferry on the bus, not so nice. A quick march to the bus as they only come once an hour, followed by a tired, dirty, sweaty trip back, counting our bruises and then a change of clothing in the ferry terminal toilet.
Just like the end of The Dark Knight
That's how you live here though. I hate it. No time to go home, just onwards for food and drinks at a bar in the nearby financial district. Worse when it's in the sticky 80's and you feel so grubby.
Finally I got home at around 10pm for a shower and to check out my wicked bruises.
Last week, myself, Heather and two of her friends went on a hike. One of her friends is possibly doing a Kilimanjaro trek next year so needed to try out some new boots. Plus I get out of the house and get to see another new part of America!
We hired a car and drove the 50miles from the centre of Manhattan to the Bear Mountain area. This involved heading over the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey, up the Palisades and back into New York state.
Bear Mountain Bridge
We parked at the Fort Montgomery State Historic Site car park and once we'd found where the start of the route was, it was fairly straight forward. I even remembered how to read a map.
But what with everything being back to front in this country, I found out that the dotted line on the map turned out not be a thin wooded trail like back home, but instead a larger forestry road.
The footbridge was all smashed up from the last storm in the area but luckily the water was low enough and there were enough stones to make our way across while staying dry.
Once over the water it was a fairly steep climb but really enjoyable. Bone dry rock but even had to use my hands a lot to pull myself up. Once we got to the top the view was superb.
The same bridge we were level with at the start
As the area has some old forts and historic battlegrounds, there is a cairn at the top in memory of fallen comrades.
Plus it borders the US West Point Military Academy so we could hear gunfire from the top of the hill away in the distance.
The weather was again, really hot and sunny but luckily there was so much shade on the route otherwise I would have struggled. I took a litre of water with me, but we had to stop at some guys house in the woods on the way down to refill our bottles. When you start to run low on water and are a little dehydrated it's really easy to see how you just want to pour all of it over your face.
For the whole route I've never seen so much wildlife under your feet. Centipedes, tonnes of those big daddy long leg type spiders, ants. Even seen the tail of a snake slither away under a rock. A big hawk circling the top of the hill. But the big winner on the day was this guy right by the side of the road.
The weather has been so hot and sunny during the day and it means that nearly every night you get these red-ish skies as the sun sets.
Every so often in Scotland you get a "red sky at night, shepherd's delight" kinda moment but it's pretty much like this every night at the moment.
This was taken from our window (with a powerful zoom ;) looking across to Manhattan with the new World Trade Centre buildings under construction on the left hand side.
Yesterday was the national holiday for some kind of independence from some other country or something.
We just spent it downstairs with the neighbours having a BBQ and then when the fireworks started at the back of nine we went up on our roof. They used to be on the East River but unfortunately they moved the celebrations over onto the Hudson this year, we still got a reasonable view though.
In other news, my paperwork is FINALLY ready to roll. My new cv is just undergoing the finishing touches and after a lot longer wait than I thought, I can get in touch with the real world again, and get a job.... somewhere.
On Saturday morning we did the Front Runners New York Lesbian and Gay Pride Run (5Miles). It was Pride week in New York. Every week seems to have some feature associated with it, some more important culturally then others, as next week it's Spiderman week!
Just as well it was a 9am start as this meant "only" getting up at about 6.30am so we could take a train to about 47th street and then a taxi up the east side to 102nd where the start was as the train isn't as close to the park up the east side and also not as frequent on the weekend.
We had the best thunder and lightning I've ever seen in real life on Friday as the three day run of 90/100°F weather finally broke. The lightning striking the Empire State Building was a pretty cool pic.
So I don't know if an earlier start would've helped with the weather as it was still in the 80°'s during the race.
It's still weird to have to stand and listen to "your" national anthem before ANY kind of event, then although I'd put a faster than I'm currently fit for time down as my estimated pacing I still struggled to get going the first 800m as you weave in and out of slower people.
There was just the 5000 finishers in this one so it was still a fairly crowded route but not as bad as the last one I did.
Not being familiar enough with Central Park yet, the route was a surprisingly hilly/undulating one and there wasn't that much flat. That and the heat, meant I was struggling for the last mile and a half. I couldn't even muster a pick-up towards the finish. I finished in around 37.30 and was about 500-something out of the 5000.
The best part was the popsicles/ice lollys they handed out at the end, in the Pride rainbow colours, I just sat on the grass for 15+mins waiting for Heather and trying to recover.
Because of the weather and also the bits of entertainment they put on near the baggage area you definitely get more runners hanging about afterwards.
Okay, it's definitely the weather! Back home it's rare not to want to grab a hot shower and put on a warm top.... zipped up to the neck.... in summer.
Back in New York, we enjoyed another sunday morning run in Prospect Park near our apartment followed by some food from a food truck rally that frequents the Grand Army corner of the park every few weeks.
Then on Tuesday night after a concert, because we were out of the house by 5.30pm we just HAD top have a bite to eat afterwards. So we went to Crif Dogs and had a couple of dogs, I enjoy the bacon wrapped dog, yum. Heather tried the corn dog..... on a stick. Not that great.
The place is so little but it also has an old phone booth style door in the wall that people, a few tourists but mainly the "hip and the cool" folks come to try and get into some little cocktail bar next door that you have to speak in the phone to see if they let you in. At least you can eat your dog and smirk at the people trying to get in.
Today I got my medical paperwork finally signed off by a doctor and opened a savings account as well as applying for a credit card if only to try and kick start some kind of credit history in this country.
I also walked the downstairs neighbours three dogs as they are on holiday and went grocery shopping. Not that thrilling but all in 100°F weather!
The weather is about 95-98°F but with the humidity it said it would feel like as much as 108° at some points!! The hottest ever recorded temperatures at the airports for this day in history, ha ha.
Not enjoyable. Now that I'm finally home, I can't leave the one room we have air conditioning in!
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