Street where I live

Last Saturday during Dewey's Read-a-thon I realized that I had a package to pick up at the Post Office (check out the blog post from The Streets Where We Live for great photos of that post office). So I grabbed the umbrella, put on my iPod to listen to Gourmet Rhapsody, and trekked off.

On my way home I thought I'd take a couple photos with my phone of my street with the fall rain.

Here's looking South...

Here's looking North...


And here's looking down...
It's dumping rain today so I thought these photos were appropriate for a rainy fall day.

Harlem River at Night

A while back after I bought my new camera, I snapped some photos at night in our park while walking the pups. I don't have a tripod yet so I had to be very still while shooting at night with no flash.

Just a little note: Manhattan Island is obviously surrounded by water. To the East is the East River (clever name really), the West is the Hudson River, and the north where our neigborhood is has the Harlem River. The Harlem River connects the East River to the Hudson River.

We are also really close to the Henry Hudson Bridge which connects Manhattan Island to the Bronx. Actually, it spans what used to be the Spuyten Duyvil Creek. There's a small portion of land across the river called Marble Hill that used to be connected to Manhattan Island. They diverted the creek for shipping purposes and Marble Hill is now part of the Bronx. Here's a fun little map from Wikipedia:When we walk to the Bronx from our neighborhood (there's a Target, a Starbucks, an Applebee's, and other stores) we walk along the Broadway Bridge. Broadway, yes THE Broadway runs a long long way in New York State. In fact it runs all the way up to the state capital, Albany.

So here's the Henry Hudson Bridge. The lights underneath are the Spuyten Duyvil train stop for the Metro North Line:

And here's some a view of the Bronx to the right. The bright lights underneath the building are the Marble Hill train stop of the Metro North Line. The bubble area to the right is part of Columbia University. Their two stadiums are behind these buildings. I'm not sure what sport goes on in the bubble building which only appears when it gets cold. The building you can see is the Columbia University's rowing house. Sometimes while I am walking the dogs in the morning, the rowing teams are out practicing.
For some more of my posts on this area, check here, here, here, and here.

Random Park Scene

Here's a random photo from the lake/salt marsh in the park near our apartment. It's just a little lake that is part of where the Harlem and Hudson Rivers meet. So the tide comes in and out of our lake which is pretty cool. During the end of summer and in fall we've been seeing some cranes picking at fish. I snapped a photo of this one:

Bald eagles have been reintroduced in the last few years. I think I've seen one. And we've seen a few big (hawks?) which are pretty cool. So even though we are on Manhattan Island, I sometimes don't feel like it.

Random Neighborhood Photos

Just a few shots I took with my new camera on a walk with the dogs in our neighborhood the other day.

A birdhouse in a garden:


I would LOVE to live in this cute little yellow house:

Our Neighborhood Park

I think we are lucky.

On my way to work...

I took these pictures last week while walking to the A train on my way to work. I really can't complain about the view, can I :)

Coffee..wine..just around the corner?

So I am SO insanely excited that a new cafe/store is opening up around the corner from our apartment sometime (hopefully) this month.

Indian Road Cafe

Just to give you an idea, while our neighborhood is ideal in having wide streets, lush green parks, a beutiful view of Harlem River...there's not much in the way of stores. One little deli down the street and that's it. Slim pickings.

When we were first looking for apartments in our neighborhood last year we were so excited to see signs up for a new cafe right across from the park! Yay! But the poor owners of the cafe have been through fun NYC policies and legal drama...so it's taken longer than expected. But hurray!! It's actually happening!

So Amanda will finally have her neighborhood cafe to sit and drink coffee...or a glass of wine...and relax. AND!!! There's a fireplace! How cool is that?!?! AND!!! (My sister's going to get a kick out of this..) While I've never seen the show, apparently the guys opening the store were part of the prodction of some of The Sopranos episodes and some of the tables and chairs are from the set of the Nuovo Vesuvio restaurant in the show. Hmmmm...now I'm going to have to watch the show :)

More Reminiscing

Ahhhhhh!!! I might be signing up for three classes this semester!!! I might be insane and I might go insane...we'll see when I register tonight what I decide to do. So instead of thinking about the crazyness I might be signing up for, I'll do a little...

More reminiscing. This past summer my husband and I packed up our house, dogs, and a little lucky bamboo plant to drive across country from Las Vegas to move to New York City. Oh...and did I mention this was a mere three days after our wedding? Or was it two...that time is a blur. So here's a photo recap of our first week in New York City:

So our entrance into the city via New Jersey the night of July 7, 2007. It was about 10:00 or something and we had seen the fireworks coming in from Live Earth Concert.

After we unpacked the truck, lugged the dogs, our luggage, our camping gear, and the lucky bamboo plant up to our apartment...we crashed:
Here's our lovely little bare apartment...funny how it seems bigger now with our furniture and stuff in it. The kitchen:
We actually have a desk, a bookcase, and a file cabinet here now...crazy!
And we've managed to cram a California King into this bedroom...amidst other furniture AND the dog beds.
The next day or so we took a walk around our new neighborhood to see where we lived. This was mainly due to the fact that I hadn't even seen our apartment before we moved in (neither of us had seen it when we signed the lease papers...yikes!) and I had seen the neighborhood only once before.

Steps in Isham Park
Beautiful promenade in Isham
A street in my "hood"
And of course when we moved we sold all the non-essentials so we headed to IKEA for some necessities. Did I mention IKEA is in New Jersey?

This is New Jersey:
A common bridge scene (I won't tell you how long we were stuck in it):
Coming back to New York:
Love this one:
Ok...then a day or two later we got the dogs out hiking again in Inwood Park. We were so wiped out because we weren't used to the humidity coming from Vegas with a minus 500 humidity factor (ok not really...I'd be an awful weather person). But at least the scenery was beautiful:



I love trees

And we'll finish the week with our new kitchen table and a bottle of wine (the bamboo plant made it too).And of course Charlie is in the kitchen too:

The End!

Rainbow Tree

The first snowfall around a week ago took a lot of trees by surprise. This one in front of our building was so cool looking I snapped a few photos.

A Walk in the Park

My sister has become an avid reader of my blog. I think it's super cute. So today I got a chastizing email saying that I haven't posted anything lately and if I had fallen off the face of the earth. So here you go sis :)

This weekend was pretty slow. It decided to dump buckets of rain Friday and Saturday so we were stuck at home Saturday contemplating going out but then just taking naps instead :) So Sunday we decided to get motivated and went on a three hour walk with the puppies and our New York friend. Our trip took us up through Inwood Hill park, along the Hudson River, past Fort Tryon Park, to Fort Washington Park, back through Fort Tryon Park and home.

Things I saw and/or did:

1) Partially sunken sail boat (not toy)
2) Make-shift bed consisting of mattress, umbrella, and fallen log as a ceiling
3) Train tracks (that we ran over for a few feet...me terrified and dragging Charlie)
4) Red lighthouse

So I was still too terrified from running on the Amtrak tracks to take photos of anything but the last item. I seriously had to contemplate what I would do if a train came....run to the other side or stay, grab hold of the fence, and hope Charlie and I were not blown under the train. Robb thought I was silly...well slightly silly.

So here's my photos:

Red leaves with George Washington Bridge in the background:


The bridge again:


Tired puppies (Anna's licking her nose):


The little red lighthouse:


Our friend enjoying the view:


Oh what a pretty day:

Feeling like Fall?

So this weekend has been absolutely gorgeous here in New York City. It is super warm (seventies) and the trees are still pretty much all green. I was bummed because since I worked ten hour days last week...I was swamped this weekend with homework. But Robb and I did get out today and took a nice long walk around the parks near our apartment. We took the dogs and Robb took his long board. He was super excited because he said it's like snowboarding without the snow. I took my camera (I usually forget) and got some good shots of the walk. Enjoy :)

The Hood

It's about time I loaded some photos up from my camera and posted a few. Here are a few photos from the park near our apartment...which is why we love love love our neighborhood. It's kind of a little secret here in New York, so we are trying to keep it on the down low so people don't move in and drive up the rates. And yes...we are in Manhattan on the island. These were taken a few weeks ago...enjoy!

Working Girl

So I am officially (well, starting October 22nd) a working girl. I've been full-time temping with a company that is awesome and everyone is so friendly. So I've been offered a job here and I took it. Right now I'm a receptionist, but the pay is super great, great benefits that start day one, AND I can do homework when it's slow. How great is that!!! Robb took me out to Guadalupe Restaurant in our neighborhood...fast becoming an all-time favorite. Delicious food...I had the enchildada with mole sauce...mmm. And they have these great rum, sugar, and pureed lime...so so good.