Baseball and the beach

Sunday: Another glorious day in New York, which was mostly spent outdoors, taking a walk around the Upper West Side - where there was a big outdoor family festival going on - and through Central Park. Some great pictures as the lake was so flat and the camera picks out the reflection nicely.

There are a pair of red tailed hawks that have made their nest on one of the buildings around E 71st Street, and there are a crowd of enthusiasts and other interested parties look on through telescopes, binoculars etc. Mostly elderly UES jewish types, but all very lovely and obviously have a great time on their Sunday afternoons. I had a peek at the female and a chat with one of the regulars who explained that the male has been through three or so partners as they've died from eating rat poison and the like.

The evening culminated in my first ever baseball game, courtesy of GL. The New York Yankees playing host to the Boston Red Sox - big local rivalry, despite the teams being hundreds of miles apart. Apparently there are some big cultural differences between the teams, but the Yankees fans are pretty quick to remind the Sox that they have about 20 more World Series titles than their New England counterparts. It's actually really easy to uderstand at a basic level and I totally enjoyed myself. The chants are rubbish though, with anything more than about four syllables being beyond the crowd's capability. I tried to start my own that went, "We're the New York Yan-Kees, New York Ya-a-an-kees, we're by far the greatest te-am, the World has ever seen!" but it didn't catch on.

Anyway, the game was going really well until Boston decided to score three runs in the last two innings and we lost 4-5, but there was a phenomenal catch by a guy called Coco Crisp, which won them the game - so can't complain too much.

Oh, and the beach - yesterday I went out to Coney Island, which used to be a fantastic entertainment hub for New York and the area, but various fires and the passing of time has meant that it's derided by most now as a bit of a joke. Still, New York has a beach, one that you can get the subway to (it's about 70-80 minutes from Manhattan) and the water was lovely so I'm not going to knock it. If you want more proof that it's cool, Harvey Keitel was there.