Meanwhile across the Atlantic..

We've finally managed to confirm our trip home for the holidays, Kitty has a place to stay, we have a place to stay, we were told people are going to make food. That's a really good incentive right there!

I'll be happy to see everyone again, and I'll even be able to attend my grandmother's 94th birthday party! (unfortunately Bram will just miss it, as he has to go back for work)

The past few weeks have been not so much touristy but more real life-oriented, still a lot of new pictures have accumulated, so I´m going to just leave them here, with explanations when necessary :)

After we got back from our road trip, the first thing I did was head out to Central Park to take more pictures of fall foliage. Most of these have also made it to my facebook photo-albums but I'm still going to share the best ones here.

The sunsets are still spectacular as ever!

Then Halloween came around. This is what the lobby of our apartment building looked like, they did a great job!

NOPE!

We spent the evening at the birthday party of one of Bram's Dutch colleagues (he happens to be a really nice dude and we had a great time at the party!) We showed up looking like this:

Don't worry it's ketchup!

On our way to and from the party we got a lot of compliments from random strangers who loved our makeup, so that was pretty cool :) By the time we got home I was glad to be able to wash my face though, about 5 minutes after I left home I remembered why I hate to plaster my face with paint and other stuff. It's sticky, sweaty and messy and I never manage to NOT touch my face for more than 5 minutes, so the stuff ended up everywhere..

We did manage to find Waldo while drunkenly stumbling home!

The next sunday it was time for the annual New York Marathon! It's huge and it's literally right outside our front door, but if that wasn't motivation enough to go and cheer, there were people from my home town running as well! Apparently the idea for the annual "Venloop" was conceived at the NY Marathon 10 years ago. To celebrate that, some 60 people from Venlo travelled to New York to run the marathon again. Even our local newsstation was there to film and report, unfortunately I missed them, but a couple of runners noticed my sign and waved or cheered so that was pretty cool! 

After that was done I made some more random pictures on my trips through the city and Bram accompanied me to Central Park one sunny weekend afternoon to enjoy more autum foliage;

Please don't underestimate the amount of luck and patience it takes to take a picture of Central Park (or pretty much anywhere on Manhattan) that doesn't have other people in it.

See? Damn tourists... At least this one was good looking.

Well excuse me for stalking :P

I think he might be friendly... ;)

This is where the subway goes above ground and enters Harlem.

Metropolitan museum of art

Metropolitan from the other side

Guggenheim

So, Buddy has reverted to selling horribly sub-par cakes in our local grocery store. That, or hideous and overpriced is the new "thing"

MINE? MINE? MINE? MINE? MINE?

I walked outside one morning and nearly stepped on this..

Spotted a beautiful female Cardinal in the park

Two beautiful wrought iron gates at a playground next to the Metropolitan. I have a soft spot for fairy tales and fables :)

I went to do volunteer work for Randall's Island Park Alliance. It was extremely cold but we managed to plant 13 trees in 3 hours. This is one of the trees we planted.

The Salt Marsh on Randall's Island. I think we used to have one of these trees in our garden when I was growing up.

Low tide at Harlem River.

"A path! A path!"

The sunset was reflected in a glass building, made it look like a towering inferno. It was beautiful, too bad my camera couldn't really handle it.

Little snugglebutt in chill-mode. Looks like she wants to be left alone, that's a first..

And last but not least, yesterday's thanksgiving dinner, made by Bram! If he ever wants a career change he can probably make a lot of money as a chef, it was amazing! :D