Visitor Rosario - 6 days full of fun!

The last 6 days were devoted to my latest visitor here in NYC. Coming over from Amsterdam to celebrate her birthday here, Rosario was looking for having fun combined with some serious exercising...
This meant having diner in great restaurants like Asia de Cuba, Rosa Mexicano, having brunch at Balthazar and discovering Ninth Avenue with its diverse cuisines along both sides between 42nd and 55th Streets. The diners made Rosario go running in Central Park every morning, I made it to join her on two of the 40 - 50 minute morning runs that she committed herself to. Great work out!!
And of course, Soho and Fifth were waiting to give Rosario a warm welcome in their seductive shops like Anthropology, Victoria's Secret and Juicy Couture...ooh what a temptation!

We celebrated Rosario's birthday by having a highly appreciated diner in Asia de Cuba on Madison Avenue, starting with some colorful cocktails. The concept of blending the warm Latin style with Asian food is still very popular and gives you the best of both worlds. Afterwards we danced the Salsa and more on the tunes of a live band in a typical Mexican place, hard work and big fun I must admit!

Together we discovered a lot of places in Manhattan, from the quite streets and small shops in the West Village to Alphabet city (East Village) and the more Bohemian Lower East side. We sat at Pier 17 watching the ferries go by, we bumped our way through the crowd at Canal Street, Chinatown, and we danced in a Meatpacking club on the latest dance and R&B hits. On our lazy Sunday afternoon, we went to the movies: we saw Duplicity and it wasn't that good...

We had a fun and fantastic time together!

St Patrick's Day - green is the color!

Yesterday the national holiday of Ireland was celebrated, not only in Ireland but also here in New York.
St. Paddy's Day is celebrated worldwide by the those of Irish descent and increasingly by non-Irish people who just call themselves "Irish for a day" for the sake of it. Celebrations are generally themed around all things Irish, the colour green and attending parades.
Probably thanks to the huge Irish population in the Big Apple, the St. Patrick's Day Parade along 5th Avenue is the largest in the US, probably in the world...
Unfortunately, this day didn't provide me with a public holiday, but during lunch some colleagues and I walked to 5th Avenue and watched the Parade go by. Standing in the sun, we were surrounded by green wearing revelers enjoying the thousands of Irish participants march by. The atmosphere reminded me of the Dutch phenomena "Koninginnedag" or Queen's Day! People being happy and celebrating in the street and in the end getting extremely wasted in one of the many packed Irish pubs...