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!