Time flies when you´re having fun!

Joy and Tim have been here for an amazing week and left for Sweden last Saturday. We have had a great time in lovely sunny weather and just now Fall seems to have embraced the city.

During the “sis-week” we walked around the city doing loads of things! We started our week together with a late dinner at the Dutch at Sullivan St.

During this week we had a coffee at the newly opened Tin Building by Sean-Georges at Pier 17, eaten Pastrami sandwiches at Katz´s Delicatessen and had dinners at Gelso in Little Italy, Shanghai 21 in China Town, Estancia 460 in Tribeca and Osteria del Porto in the historic South Street Seaport district of Lower Manhattan. We also got the chance to taste cool drinks in the Bar Room and a glass of wine at our “dive bar” Broom Street Bar.

During these days, Joy, Tim and I walked around the city doing a lot of things, like visiting the Met, walking Central Park from corner to corner the whole way up to Harlem, having breakfast at Balthazar´s on Spring St. and walking the High Line.

Since September means Pumpkin time, every grocery shop is filled of pumpkins. And of course Starbucks are also taking up the trend and Elvira has a new favorite “Spicy Pumpkin Latte”. 🙂

Joy and Tim flew back to Sweden around noon last Saturday and on Sunday morning we woke up to a chilly morning about 66 F (which Johan loves) and decided to power walk the Williamsburg Bridge, crossed the bridge and headed south into Bedford Ave in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This was an experience, to see the Hasidic Jewish Community Then we took the Manhattan Bridge (guaranteed the least nice brigdes of the BMW Bridges) and landed in China Town on the Manhattan side and headed home.

A lovely lunch at the City Vineyard at Pier 26 followed the bridges trip. Johan´s friend Peter Martin had invited his New York friends (he himself had just participated in the OCR World Championships up in Vermont) for a get together lunch! So nice to listen to the experiences of other Swedes and besides, there was an American sitting at the table. 😉

Here I also learned about the moth-like bugs who have blanketed New York the last months, the Spotted Lanternfly – an invasive planthopper from Asia. They only look black and beige with their wings folded, but once flying they show the bright colors of red, black and white.

This week schools were closed Monday and Tuesday due to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Still, the best times for the kids are apparently no-school-times, but as from yesterday they are back in the class rooms. We have also found out that they will need some more doses of vaccine due to missing one or some according to the American immunization program… Olle and I will see Dr. Gloria Perez at the Gouverneur Hospital on Monday, with the mission of getting him fully vaccinated. Elvira is probably next in line.

Last Tuesday I met a new friend, Camilla from White Plains, a county north of NYC. She also has two kids in school (German school, but anyways!) We had lunch at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park. Such a nice place, and such a nice Camilla 🙂 She and her family just moved here from 18 years in Munich.

We hope so much for the kids to soon feel better and I think it would be great if they actually planned for some after school activities, but time will tell.

On to something more fun 🙂 Danads will host a Self-Serve Summit next week which spills over into other activities, such as an office warming party, drink at ours and an opportunity for me, Olle and Elvira to say Hi to Johan´s co-workers from all over the world who are coming here next week!