Thursday - Rain in Williamsburg.

Williamsburg is one of the trendy areas of Brooklyn. It has lots of little cafes, tiny old houses next to new apartment blocks, unusual shops, factories being converted into?? , the usual delis / corner shops  with lovely cheap flowers out the front, clothes shops for trendy young things 1/3 my age, a few vintage shops.  Once again , the locals had their gumboots on, the street drains were blocked, and people without gumboots  and without 6ft long legs got wet feet.  My waterproof, indestructible map only covers Manhattan and the small piece of paper I had with some Williamsburg streets was only legible for a short time. In fact, it fell apart before I was ready for it to fall apart. No matter, I just wandered. The map was helpful to get me to my first stop – a café started by the same guy who started Toby’s Estate about 12 years ago in Sydney that has spread in Australia and now to New York. It was in a large converted industrial space and had a nice feel to it. 

I came back here for lunch and spent the afternoon catching up on a few emails, compiling a list for my last 6 days and had  an afternoon nap.

In the evening I went to the bookclub  that the knitting shop I like organises. It was good.  I was made very welcome, my views were asked for, interesting discussion, friendly women.

A few odd things:

In a museum recently there was a sign on an exit door "Alarmed Exit" . I know what it means, but I did smile.

In a fancy jewellry shop on the Upper East Side the other day, I say a large life-like model of a zebra taking up a lot of the space. At the time I thought - another animal, but I cannot remember where else I have seen an animal in a jewellry shop. I think there must be a plague because yesterday I saw a large yak-like, again life size, animal. This one had fluroescent green hair. It was not the first animal that I saw. So I will keep my eyes peeled for a fourth animal in a jewelry shop..