Ice Cream, Man...

We saw this rather cool ice cream man cycling his trike through McCarren Park this afternoon. Unfortunately he's not a real ice cream man, he was being filming for something. The camera man was sitting on the back of another tricycle riding infront...

I wonder what they were filming for...?

Wonderwalls...

Boardwalk/Cat Walk...

There seems to be a bit of a fashion trend starting in Atlantic City...

You heard it here first.
Rainbow Umbrella Shade Hats are going to be BIG this summer!

Down On The Boardwalk...

The Atlantic City Boardwalk is lovely, it goes on for ages, and is in really good condition. Similarly to the Coney Island boardwalk, it's got some interesting looking people around and some interesting looking establishments, but it's so full of character and history - I loved it.We went back to have a better look at the Taj Mahal, it looked far more glitzy in the sunshine...And our hotel look pretty grand too...I'm not sure, but I think the Resorts Hotel might be one of the original hotels from back in the day, it has a very art-decoy feel and everyone working there wears 1930s-ish clothes, the music in the lobby and lifts is that great 30's swing type music too. They also have Atlantic City's first legalised fruit machine in the lobby, from the 70's when the casinos first opened. I actually thought that there had been casinos there since the beginning, but apparently their a farely new addition, and one that wasn't very welcome to begin with.We walked up and down in the scorching heat, taking in all the funny sights, the tacky gift shops, and the fascinating people - one shop was selling Hermit Crabs in colourfully painted shells...It was getting blummin' hot walking around, so we stopped off for a drink and did some people watching in the shade. New Jersey doesn't exactly have the best reputation, or at least the people of New Jersey don't - and we were starting to notice why...

This guy had one of those ankle tags on!

One of the many traditional things that are still going on the boardwalk, are the basket rides. There are loads of these hand-pushed taxis going up and down the boardwalk, $5 for 5 blocks, sitting in the shade, being pushed by a man, probably puffing and panting right in your ears...

We didn't get a ride, but we were certainly tempted to get one back down to the hotel as it was so hot. We slowly and sluggishly made our way back down towards the hotel, enjoying the view of the beach and the pier...

There was so much great seaside signage around, it was like down at Coney Island, with all the amusement signs and food stalls...

We mooched about in the casino for a wee while longer, and we went to find the spa in the hotel to use our vouchers - unfortunately we'd forgotten to pack any swimming stuff so we had to give it a miss. Abi had managed to get this whole trip as part of a really good Livingsocial deal, we got the transport to Atlantic City, the hotel, the spa admition, a free meal each - all for less than it would have cost us for the bus ticket alone - and as part of our bus ticket we got a $5 playing card for the slots and a $10 meal voucher each... so we ended up getting another free meal out of it. So the whole trip was a blummin' bargain really.

We had a bit of a wait before the bus back to New York, so we went to the bar which was out of the way of the all hustle and bustle of the casino, and had relaxing drink - so relaxing that Miss Turner had a little nap on the comfy sofas!

Then, although we were still pretty full from breakfast, we had out meal vouchers to use... another all-you-can-eat buffet!!! We held back this time, well - I held back, a certain someone took full advantage of the dessert section...

There are SEVEN different puddings there! I have to add that none of them were very good, so only seven spoonfuls were had before we headed to the bus for our journey back.

There was a HUGE storm during our journey back to New York, big lightening, crashing thunder and rain so heavy and fast that you couldn't see the road infront of you. It had felt that the storm had been brewing for the whole time we were there, so I bet the air was a lot lighter afterwards. The air back in New York though was still as heavy as ever when we arrived.

It was a fantastic little break, and it was great that Abi managed to get the whole trip so cheaply. I think we're going to try and do more little get-aways to break up work and stuff. There's just so much around to go and see and so many places to visit. I'm sure we could go somewhere every weekend and still not see everything around us. But I'm so glad we're getting out and exploring as much as we can.

Another Day, Another Dollar (Lost!)...

The next morning we woke up in our lovely big room, checked out and made our way to the Borgata Hotel for their all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet!

Because the casinos are all quite spread out around Atlantic City there are buses that stop at all the different hotels called Jitney's. So we got the Jitney up to the Borgata, one of the newest and poshest and most Las Vegassy hotels and they have a rather fantastic breakfast buffet...

This was plate 2 of 2 for Miss Turner, I had a plateful of sausages, bacon and eggs and then hit the waffle bar...

They must have known we were coming - they'd made special waffles!

We finally managed to roll out of the restaurant, having successfully filled ourselves with a weeks worth of breakfasts, and went to mooch around the Borgata and play a little more blackjack.

The Borgata was rather fancy, and had some amazing glass sculptures in the ceiling of the lobby - not as fancy as the ones at the Bellagio, but they were still pretty impressive...

We unfortunately had a not-so-great time on the Blackjack table in the morning. When I said before that some people are nice and try to help you, well this time people were trying to help us, but they were doing so in a bit of a grumpy way...

'You have to play for the whole table, not just for yourself, if you make a bad decision, you can ruin the game for everyone at the table!'... they then gave us their advice, we'd follow it and we'd lose. So we thought stuff 'em, and we played our own game... we still lost though. Oh well.

It seems we weren't the only ones who had had some bad luck that morning...

Poor man.

We decided that we'd had enough of the Borgata, and headed back to our hotel for bit more of an explore of the boardwalk.

Off to Atlantic Citaaay!!!

On Thursday morning we boarded the Hamptons Luxury Cruise Liner and headed to Atlantic City!

We discovered that the Hamptons Liner was infact a posh coach and not a boat, we did think that boarding a boat in the middle of Times Square was a bit odd - but it was a mighty fine coach and made our 2.5 hour journey to AC very comfy. There were soft, reclinable chairs, free drinks and snacks and film to keep us from playing I-spy the whole way...

Atlantic City is a mini Vegas/Blackpool type area in New Jersey - with a lovely boardwalk and a load of casinos. It's where the Boardwalk Empire programme's set, and has been on Sex & The City (which I think is the main reason Abi wanted to go!)

We arrived at our hotel, The Resorts Casino Hotel, and made our way to the check in desk... Abi, however couldn't even control herself for that short lenght of time and hit the slot machines as soon as they came into sight and instantly tripled her $5 bet! How's that for beginner's luck?!

After finding our room (on the 41st floor!) we went off to explore the boardwalk and the fun fare. Apparently the boardwalk is rated as the country's best, or one of the best, and there was a load of rides and games on the Steel Pier right outside the hotel.

It was a bit of cloudy afternoon, and veeeeery muggy - so we didn't spend too long outside, but we were out long enough to see a massive protest march. We could see the crowds of people coming towards the boardwalk, and then later they all came shouting and chanting and clapping, walking down the boardwalk and stopping outside the casinos...

I think it was a big protest about their work contracts - based on the 'What do we want? CONTRACTS! When do you want them? NOW' chants, but it didn't seem like a very angry protest or anything. But it did block off the boardwalk so we went back inside the casino instead...

Just by the doors that lead onto the boardwalk from the hotel, there were a selection of hand prints in concrete, all mainly from the 1980's, from people who have performed at the Resorts Casino. They had handprints of the Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, Englebert Humperdink, Joan Rivers, Steve Martin and loads more, including Dean Martin!!!

Complete with shot glasses and bottles!

During the course of the day, Abi got hooked on the slots, here she is at the beginning of the evening...

...and here she is a few hours later...

We went for another stroll down the boardwalk when it got dark, looking at all the sparkling and flashing lights, it was just like a mini Vegas...

Just down the way from our hotel was the Trump Taj Mahal, a very glitzy and unsurprisingly gowdy casino, with plenty more slots to play on. Then we popped down to the Hard Rock Cafe for something yummy for tea, and then back to the casino for one last gamble before bed.

We had a quick dabble on the blackjack table (albeit a quite unsuccessful dabble). It's always nice when you get friendly people on the tables with you, people who are willing to give you tips and advice. Luckily we'd found a quiet table with just two other people on, so the four of us had a nice game. Unfortunately after being up a nice amount, we both ended up chipless at the end of the game, the other guys however - they had piles of chips left!

After seeing Atlantic City on Sex & The City, it was great that we found the SATC slot machines for Abi to blow her earlier winnings on.

It was a great first day in Atlantic City, and we went to bed hoping that we'd have a bit more luck in the casinos in the morning - if not, at least we knew we'd have a good breakfast!

A Nice Message...

This uplifting street art gave me a much needed lift on the way back from work today.

It was cleverly covering the Nassau Avenue subway sign - I didn't even notice it wasn't the usual subway sign until Abi pointed it out.

I love clever and positive street art like this.

Midnight in Paris...

This weekend has been hot, really, REALLY hot!

So on Saturday we spent pretty much the whoooooole day inside, with the air-conditioning on, and today we did more or less the same, apart from venturing out to go to the BAM cinema to see Midnight in Paris...

BAM is such a nice cinema, it's just like the Showroom, and it shows very similar films. Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen's new film, and is just as odd as his other films - but we both really enjoyed this one.

It's a really original story line, and is really dreamy and quite Narnia-ish in an odd sort of way... While on holiday with his fiancee in Paris, Owen Wilson finds himself travelling back to the 1920's whilst walking around the streets at midnight... it sounds odd, but it was a really nice little film. I'm not sure if it's been out or coming out at home, but I'd recommend going to see it (although there's not much action for Tom).

Hopefully the heat will calm down a bit, there's supposed to be storms tonight and tomorrow so I'm hoping that'll clear the air a bit and we can get back to exploring and enjoying the sunshine.

Hotter than Hot...

Now it's REALLY hot!

Hot, Hot, Hot...

Things are hottening up over here!

Yesterday it felt like 30 degrees at 9 in the morning, it's 7.30am now and it's already 26 degrees and this coming Friday, it's forecast to reach 38 degrees!!!!

If the blog goes a bit quiet, it'll be because we've melted!

Sunny Strawberry Fields...

Ed and I have had a relaxing day today, mooching around Central Park and Strawberry Fields.

It was lovely to see Ed again and give him a little preview of New York before he comes back for a proper NY adventure in 3 weeks.