Michael Jackson passed away...

On Thursday June 25th at around 6pm I was about to meet with some friends to enjoy a mild afternoon at Rockefeller Plaza with some after work drinks. What struck me is that people were pointing at the monitors of the NBC studios that are located right there. "Breaking News: King of Pop dies in LA hospital" they said and I was standing there for some time, realizing this was a moment in music history that nobody would easily forget. He was about to come back in London with 50(!) concerts, starting next month.

While I was standing there a car drove by, all windows down, playing Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' song loud and clear. I thought: "Wow, this is drama, this is America..." From that moment on, the death of Michael Jackson has dominated the news and daily life up until this moment.

On Saturday, while playing the regular soccer game in Central Park, it was mainly Michael Jackson's music that was coming out of the usual radios carried around. And one of my colleagues said: "I will never moonwalk the same again..."
For the latest gossip and celebrity updates, mainly about Jackson, go to http://www.tmz.com/, you will be amazed by the updates about everything in the case "King of Pop"! The cause for his dramatic death has still not been confirmed.

Tomorrow, there will be a memorial at The Apollo, the Harlem theater that helped launch Michael Jackson's career, there he won the Amateur Night with the Jackson 5 in 1969. It has been a hard, crazy and extravagant life that he has been living since, may he rest in peace.

Visitors - It runs in the family - Part 2

Next visitors in my amateur Bed & Breakfast were my brother Arnout and his wife, Marieke. For Arnout it was his first time NYC experience, for Marieke it had been quite a while ago. It was great to see that they felt at home and comfortable as soon as they arrived! The first evening we had some drinks at the Hudson Hotel around the corner and a nice diner before falling asleep.

The weekend we explored Soho and down town. We took the Water taxi from South Street Sea Port around the south end of Manhattan and jumped off at Pier 66. There we discovered the most cool place to have a Corona on a sunny afternoon: The Frying Pan. A live band played and we had a great time drinking a beer in the sun, watching and being watched.
On Sunday morning A & M went to a gospel church up in Harlem while I did some morning after recovering... We lunched together in Central Park and had a traditional Sunday afternoon in Felix.

During the day I worked and we did some great stuff together in the evenings. We went to Avenue Q, the 'puppets' musical and we had a super delicious diner in Buddakan. Arnout and I went to the Chart House restaurant for a brother bonding evening in Jersey, at the other side of the Hudson river with amazing views of Manhattan during sunset. A & M shopped till they dropped in the Premium Outlet village and in the City, we saw the TAO restaurant and we browsed through the Village with its street fair, Magnolia Bakery and a nice lunch at Le Pain Quotidien.

The last afternoon for A & M we spent again at the Frying Pan, our favorite late afternoon spot before putting them in a yellow cab, back to JFK for the ride home.

Ar & Jens, I enjoyed every minute of the time we spent together, super relaxed and great stuff!

Visitors - It runs in the family - Part 1

Returning from a 5 mile run in Central Park - I'm training for the NYC Marathon - this is my first blog in more than a month...
In the last couple of weeks I had quite a lot of visitors coming to see where and how I live here in the City. Mom and Dad were the first family to find out what I was up to and how I'm surviving up till now. It was great to pick them up at the airport and proudly show them NYC, a city they hadn't been to for decades. For them nothing really has changed, the noise, yellow cabs and (most of) the buildings are still there. At the same time a lot has changed, security alerts and the number of police force and therefore safety has increased, the WTC twin towers have disappeared and trends are a little different from the 80's...

We saw a great musical, Billy Elliot, which has won Tony awards in the mean time, watched a baseball game in Central Park and visited the wonderful Frick Collection. After some days in the City we went for a road trip along the north-east coast. We came through Mystic, Newport, Chatham and Cape Cod before arriving in the Massachusetts capital: Boston.

Newport is a picturesque small town at Rhode Island, known for its extravagant mansions that were built along the coast during the late 19th century by the very rich, industrial families like Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. The Breakers mansion by the Vanderbilt family is pretty impressive, I must admit.

Next on our trip was Chatham, a village at the south-east edge of Cape Cod, a beautiful peninsula known for its beaches and second homes for New Yorkers and Bostonians. Cape Cod is also known for the whale watching trips out of Provincetown harbor. None of us had ever seen a whale at open sea before, so when we saw a dozen of them surrounding the boat and showing us their moves and tails, we were extremely excited and amazed by this special experience!
The weekend we spent in Boston, the city where most of America's history was founded, with a much more laid back atmosphere than NYC. I must admit I really loved it! We did the Duck tour, a must for Boston first time visitors as you will get a great overview of the city, both from the road and from the water...of course, we had diner in the Cheers cafe.

I had a super great time, both in the City and on our road trip. Many thanks for coming all the way and making it an unforgettable week with you, my good old folks!