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!