A Weekend in New York

We've just enjoyed a weekend in New York, where Spring had arrived and everyone was in extremely good spirits. It was the turn of the Sikh community to parade down Sixth Avenue this weekend, and the colours of their clothing really shone in the sunshine. As the only non-Sikh people showing any interest at all in this particular area of the street, it was somehow inevitable that a camera crew from a NYC TV news channel would home in on us for an interview. We quickly shoved Jordi up front as our spokesman!

Monday was the Empire State Building's 75th birthday and as always, we enjoyed simply walking the streets, gawping at the wonderful architecture. So much detail on these huge buildings goes unnoticed until there's a chance of a close look skywards - not easy on a crowded pavement or in the middle of a busy street.As usual, we ate very well indeed, at Kelley and Ping Soho , Bright Foods, and the Prime Grill We were pleased to be amongst the early adopters of the new ColdStone Ice Cream store on W72nd St, too! The White on White (with a little grey) exhibit at the Folk Art Museum was fascinating, and was surprisingly empty. We stepped out along the pavements of Chelsea and Soho on Saturday, and took a look around Zabar's before taking in a craft market and street fair on the Upper West side on Sunday morning.

On Monday evening, the Anglo-American branch of the Raff Society Lads got together for a fine concert including the Piano Quintet - a long-time favourite. Perhaps not quite up to the memorable performance in Rapperswil last year, but nevertheless an excellent reason for coming over for the weekend!

The full concert report is at the Joachim Raff Society website now... (The Shopping report (!) can be found on Gill's blog )

More photographs here as always.