Showing off another one of the new calendars I am now selling online! This one's titled Stars & Stripes, and filled with photos of the American flag - the Star Spangled Banner. All photos were taking in September 2007, in New York City and Washington DC. Copies are available for sale through my website, with worldwide shipping and all payments processed by Lulu - your personal information will be completely safe. Any purchases will directly help support my art, so thank you in advance for looking!

So, in case you can't tell by my incredible lack of blogging, I am a little sick & tired of NL's current format. I need a change here, very badly - a fresh wind. I don't really have time at the moment though, so you'll have to excuse the lack of blogging. I'll try to post a few more photos here instead, I do still update my Flickr page very frequently with whatever I'm up to.

Halloween was great:

It's still one of my favorite holidays, and this year Alison and I carved a pumpkin and made sugar cookies shaped like ghosts and brains and skulls - it was SO much fun! On the same day, however, a tap underneath the sink in the downstairs bathroom started leaking so badly we had to turn off the water entirely to stop from flooding the living room, and I discovered the mice are back in my attic.

On the good side, the leak was fixed by the plumber the next day, and the mice are only in the attic, no sign of them anywhere else and the pest control guy put another dozen traps up there - and it's been quiet since he did that...maybe they're all dead now.

Anyway - that's life for ya! Can't believe it's November already....time is flying.

Just a quick note to let everyone know I have landed safely and am now back in the Netherlands! I'm staying with my mom for a few days, and finally flying on home to Belfast on Thursday.

The flight home was fine - Pirates 3 was one of the main movies shown on the flight, and I LOVED seeing it again. Yay Jack Sparrow! Yay Tia Dalma! We left around 6.30PM New York time, and landed 6 hours later at 8.15AM Amsterdam time. Very short night, with no sleep whatsoever for me - so I am a bit frazzled right now, but trying to stay up as long as I can to prevent jetlag.

I miss New York. Man that place rocked. I MISS ITTTTTTT ALREADY! :(

Still recovering from our long day in Washington, we decided to take a little easier today. After we got up, we leisurely strolled to the Crysler building next door, and checked out the beautiful lobby. We walked on down 42nd street towards First Avenue, which is where the building of the United Nations is. The General Assembly there starts tomorrow, so we HAD to visit it today. It wasn't too busy, luckily, and we bought tickets for a guided tour. Within half an hour, we were walking through the building with our very nice guide from Peru!

Security, by the way, is very strict at the UN, as you'd except. Many of the museums and sights we have visited, including the Statue of Liberty, have bag checks and metal detectors, just like at airports, and even after that you're still not allowed to take backpacks or bigger bags inside. It was the same at the UN - and security people everywhere too. The whole city is crawling with police men, by the way - they are a very visible presence. The UN is international territory though, so they have their own security force.

The tour around the building was very interesting and impressive. We saw all the main halls, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Issues Council, and much more. There actually was a meeting taking place in one of them, which was doubly cool - we weren't allowed to take photos of it, but we were allowed to talk through the room and watch for a few moments.

After the UN, we walked up a few blocks to the subway, and took the train to Strawberry Fields. We wanted to do a tour of Central Park, but preferably not with a horse-drawn carriage. A horse died here last week, and there's been a lot on the news about how really, the horses have it very hard. Luckily, as soon as we got out of the subway, someone approached us with a pedicab (one of those bike ones with a seat in the back, like a rikshaw) and asked if we wanted a 45 minute tour of Central Park. We agreed, and off we went. It was so much fun, and perfect in the hot summer weather. Our guide, a young guy from West Africa, was very very friendly and knowledgeable, and I'd totally recommend this to anyone who wants to tour Central Park. He even stopped frequently to let us take photos!

After the tour, we bought sandwiches at a deli shop, and ate them on a park bench in Central Park. We walked back across the park, towards Fifth Avenue, and visited the Apple Store again before walking down Fifth and taking the subway back to Grand Central.

As a little side note, I have been uploading plenty of photos of our days here over at Flickr! I haven't had time to insert them into the blog entries, but keep an eye on my Flickr for new photos - I'm still adding ones almost every day!