New York state of mind

With New York fresh in my mind I thought I'd put up some of my favorite pics from a trip to NYC last July and chronicle our shopping expedition on Canal Street.

A great time was had by all that weekend. We saw so much and covered so much ground! Those double-decker bus tours rock! They take you everywhere you could possibly want to go and best of all you can get on and off as many times as you want.

The trip kicked off with drinks at the fab Plaza Hotel.

Klaudia, me and Paige with our $25 drinks! Yes....they were worth it! ;)

Scoring in Chinatown
The second day we took the bus tour into Chinatown to hit up legendary Canal Street in pursuit of that infamous New York staple, the Holy Grail known to all women as- The Knock Off.

But we weren't looking for just any old knock offs. No, we weren't interested in the super cheap, bad logo and incorrectly spelled name kind of stuff. Nope. No Prado or Goach bags for us! We wanted the good stuff, you know, the really good stuff where you have to actually touch the bag to realize it's a fake. Ha! ;)

Unfortunately we got off the bus far too early, many blocks away from Canal. After walking for a while, a water break at a Starbucks and consulting other wandering tourists, we finally stumbled onto Canal. Still though, no bags were in sight. Who knew it'd be so hard to get a hold of those suckers!

On our way to Canal we wandered up an aisle offering up these delicacies. Yes, those are bugs.

Almost ready to give up we finally spotted three tourists who had the "quality" goods we were looking for. The ladies pointed us toward a nondescript guy randomly standing on the sidewalk. We approached him, inquiring about the bags. After looking over his shoulder (yes, he actually did this) he walked us to a van a few feet away. Thinking it would be filled to the brim with our elusive knock offs we leaned in, expectation filling the air. He slid open the door and low and behold.....there was nothing in there! Confused, we just stared, dumbfounded into the empty van.

Now I must admit for one second, for just for one nano-second I thought he was going to ask us to get into that van so that he could "drive" us to the bag "location". My mind raced. What should we do? Run? Scream? It flashed in my mind- three fiesty women, one small Asian man....we could take him! (Yes, this all happened within that nano-second.)

Bagman (that's what we'll call him) reached down and pulled out a laminated card that had pictures of the goods. Klaudia perused the many choices and pointed to the one she wanted. Bagman sent some sort of signal to someone standing on the corner at the end of the street and that person yelled something to someone further down.

I'm pretty sure we thought we'd just waltz on down to Chinatown and the bags would be there, displayed on tables in the street like in a flea market. I never thought it'd be so under cover, so illegal feeling. It felt like we were buying crack or something! Everyone was acting so covert, anxious and nervous. Who knew it was so complicated?

Bagman said it'd take five minutes to get the bag. It took more like 15 minutes. The heat was so stifling that we almost left before it got there. Fortunately, just as we had turned to go someone came running up, out of breath as if the cops were hot on his tail. He handed the bag off to Bagman and took off in a random direction. After a thorough inspection and some deliberation my friend purchased the bag. Frazzled from the heat and our Canal Street experience, we made our way over to Little Italy for some much needed food and drinks!

Here's a great article about knock offs in Chinatown! Gives you an inside look into the counterfeit bag industry and its link to the underground criminal world!

http://www.nychinatown.org/articles/nytimes020623.html

The view from our sidewalk table in Little Italy.

No we weren't the only ones at the Statue! I ran up there right 

when there was a break in the crowd and Klaudia snapped this shot!

Ellis Island is worth the visit. I'd been to NYC before but didn't want to take the time during that trip to check it out. During the summer lines for the Statue and Ellis can be 4-5 hours long! Luckily my friend Paige is a NYC veteran and knew that if we wanted to go we'd have to be at the ferry terminal right when it opened. We were on one of the first ferries over and avoided the crazy wait and crowd.

While riding the subway we met some local girls who told us that a great place to get drinks was at the top of the Met! This picture shows off the amazing sculpture that was on exhibit. The steel tree sculpture is named “Maelstrom” by the artist Roxy Paine.

About

Hey there! I'm a mom to two little ones. Like all moms, I spend my days doing all the logistical things that kids require and most of my time just trying to teach them to be good little human beings. The few moments I do have to myself I keep my mind sane and busy by crafting, junking (transforming junk into cool new stuff), staring longingly at fashion mags and dreaming of traveling. At night when I finally crawl into my warm, fluffy bed I destroy whats left of my few precious brain cells with mindless, good for nothing reality TV. It's. So. Good.

I don't have the patience to scrapbook but oddly enough I somehow have the patience to sit here and blog, spending hours writing and tweaking it. I guess it's because I don't have to glue something down to one spot forever. I suppose that’s just a perfect metaphor for my life.

So that's pretty much it. My family, fashion, crafting, travel and reality TV! Thanks for dropping by my blog!

Jany

Laguna Beach

 

I was lucky enough to tag along with my husband on a business trip to Laguna Beach. It was 9 degrees when we left Cleveland, 2 degrees when we switched planes in Chicago and then....a beautiful 75 degrees when we landed at LAX. Good ol' L.A..... I can always count on you to be perfectly sunny and warm!

During the day, when my husband was hard at work, I walked down to Laguna's Main Beach and sat on the boardwalk with all the other tourists marveling at the thought that it was freezing cold most everywhere else in the U.S. and here we were enjoying the sun, surf and sand while watching college kids play beach volleyball.

A pretty cloud formation. I love clouds and always take random pics of them!

London & Paris: Fit For A Queen

My husband and I recently took a trip to London and Paris. It was the first time in London for us both and the first in Paris for me. We're both total history nerds and loved it all! I'd have to say that Paris was my fav and Versaille my favorite site. I love, love that time period and most of all my girl Marie Antoinette.

 Now Marie is notoriously attributed to uttering the phrase "Let them eat cake!" Supposedly saying this after being informed that the people of Paris were starving because there was a widespread shortage of bread.

There is actually no record of these words ever having been spoken. The phrase was first printed in the book The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an autobiography. 

"Finally I recalled the worst-recourse of a great princess to whom one said that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: "Let them eat brioche..."

The book was written in 1769, Marie Antoinette arrived in Versailles in 1770, a fourteen year old princess- long before Rousseau or anyone knew who she was.          

I suppose she was attributed to saying this phrase because of her over the top, lavish lifestyle when France was in financial dire straits. At the time, many attributed everything wrong with France to the Queen and her spending. Ultimately, her spending was the tiniest tip of the iceberg of what was really wrong with France and it's monarchy.

Enough about the history... let's talk about how fab her style was!

Marie had two palaces given to her by her husband King Lous XVI, the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon. Each were used as entertaining palaces. She also built herself a beautiful home called Hamlet. My favorite by far was the Grand Trianon.

The Grand Trianon is made of fab pink marble!

This was her drawing room. Gorgeous fabrics, furniture, candelabras and chandeliers.

Marie was a fun gal. She loved to play pool and gamble with the boys! 

She was notorious for gambling for days on end!

The wedding bed where their marriage was famously NOT consummated.

Portrait of Marie Antoinette

Don't worry.....I loved the decor of every room but I don't have pink walls and gold furniture in my house. I just love that she was bold and brazen and did not let the prescribed gender roles of her time constrain her. She decorated her homes with her style and not what was typically in style during that time period. I think that even today it all still works. Obviously over the top but she was a Queen for God's sake.

The gorgeous open air breezeway/corridor connecting the two wings.

 The main palace, Versailles was also amazing, breathtaking and beyond words or comprehension. If you're ever in Paris it is definitely worth the train ride and 2 hour wait in line for tickets! Yep, we (or shall I say my husband) waited in line for that long but it was definitely worth it!

Niagara: A Hop, Skip and a Falls Away!

If you’ve got a free weekend and you know someone who likes to drive then gather them up and hit the road to Niagara Falls. Yes, Niagara Falls! This natural wonder is only a four hour drive from Cleveland!

I came across this fun day trip while looking for other things to do in Cleveland. The weekend weather outlook called for sunshine, something we hadn't had in a long time, so I set about finding something fun to do outside. After amassing a long list of things to do in the city, I stumbled upon a site that listed Niagara Falls as a day trip from Cleveland. Excited at the prospect of seeing a natural wonder, a national monument and getting to cross it off my "Things to See In My Lifetime" list I called my fiance and told him I had the best plans ever!

Arriving before noon at the U.S./Canada border we presented our I.D.'s and eagerly looked toward the Falls. But with just our I.D.'s to prove our U.S. citizenship we were disappointed as we were re-directed to the Canadian customs office.

The official Niagara Falls website indicates that state I.D.'s are all you need to get into and back from Canada. Unfortunately this information is not up to date. When looking for travel information be sure to always reference the guidelines listed on the Official U.S. Customs website only. As of June 2009 the U.S. will require all citizens traveling into and back from Canada to have a passport. Until then a state I.D. card along with your birth certificate will suffice. Social security cards are not a valid form of identification.

After answering several inane questions about our intentions and what we did for a living we were given the green light for the Falls!

The view from up above.

Looking up and down the sky terrace walk above the Falls.

View of American Falls from walking bridge over street,
making our way down to Niagara.

Gorgeous Niagara Falls!

Know collectively as Niagara Falls. The Falls are made up of three individual falls: The American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls and the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. The Horseshoe Falls are the most impressive and most recognizable of the three.

The water is very shallow around the Falls.

The Canadian Horseshoe Falls is 2600 feet long and it's falls are 167 feet high. Water flows at 600,000 U.S. gallons per second over the falls. Straddling the Canadian and U.S. border it is in the Province of Ontario and the State of New York.

Niagara Falls attracts some 12 Million tourists every year and is 12,000 years old! The mighty Niagara river plunges over a cliff of dolostone and shale. It is the second largest falls on earth next to Victoria Falls in southern Africa. At the bottom of the falls, the water travels 15 miles over many gorges until it reaches Lake Ontario.



Some random facts about Niagara Falls:

According to the U.S.G.S. (United States Geological Survey) of Niagara Falls, it appears that almost 1/3 of the Canadian Falls actually lies within US Territory!

One fifth of all the fresh water in the world lies in the four Upper Great Lakes-Michigan, Huron, Superior and Erie. All the outflow empties into the Niagara river and eventually cascades over the falls.

The American Falls

The American Falls is 1060 feet long and its falls are 176 feet high. Water flows at 150,000 U.S. Gallons per second over the falls. There are two hydroelectric plants which draw water into their reservoirs prior to the Falls. Their intake greatly affects the volume of water flowing over the falls. Flow is greatest in the daytime during peak tourist season (June, July, and August). In the event of an emergency the flow can be somewhat reduced by the hydroelectric companies increasing their intake.

A beautiful rainbow framing the Rainbow Bridge and the American Falls.
The Rainbow Bridge connects the U.S. and Canada.

The American Falls viewing bridge.

View of the casino and hotels from the Falls.

Icy cold!

There is plenty to do in Niagara other than just seeing the Falls itself. Of course there are your usually tourist trap shops hawking everything you could ever want (and lot's that you don't!) with Niagara Falls printed on the front of it. There's also a full shopping mall and even a gorgeous casino if you feel like testing your luck! We had packed an over night bag just in case we wanted to stay the night but decided against it. We're not big on the typical tourist trap kinda stuff. We lived in Reno, NV for years and have had our fill of that! It was still such a gorgeous day by the time we were through at the Falls so we hit the road back home!