Back to (our version of) nature in Greenport, NY

Greenport Village

Look – a deer – IN OUR FRICKIN’ BACKYARD! And a rabbit! And you can’t see it, but there’s another deer hiding behind the shed! And fireflies – LOADS of them… everywhere! We’ve only ever seen fake fireflies before – at the “Creatures of Light” exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History. Those ones were impressive enough but blimey, the real ones are incredible: they really do light up! And the noises! There’s proper, kick-arse birdsong stuff going on out there. As you might have guessed, we’re no longer…

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10 things I now know about Astoria, Queens

It exists. For some reason, not many New Yorkers mention it or seem to know about it. If you like Greek food but are averse to budget deficits and dodgy politicians, Astoria is the place for you. It’s a doddle to get into Manhattan, thanks to the E, M, R, N and Q trains. Screw you, Greenpoint and your G train. You’ll keep your brain on its toes with the street grid system: the avenues go east to west and the streets go north to south (completely opposite and upside-down compared…

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Finding Nederland

That’s the end of the puns for this post – it was exhausting coming up with that one. So… Nederland. It’s a mountain town in Boulder County, Colorado. While it seems someone was having a “let’s be ironic” moment in the town-naming office that day, there is an actual reason why it’s called the same thing as the European country (which is “Netherlands” in English but “Nederland” in the native Dutch). You see, the town has had a few names over the years. Between the mid- and late-19th century, it’s…

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The wifi coffee shops in NY we couldn’t do without

Birch Coffee

The couch gets too squishy after a while, the floor too hard, we don’t have a table, and the bed is taken up with both Rob and his work (he’s still a fan of paper, unfortunately). And because we won’t compromise when it comes to living by ourselves, with a kitchen, and wifi, and air conditioning, and a nice location, it means we have to compromise on apartment size instead. And we’re happy with that. Really we are. It just means that occasionally we go a bit doolally with claustrophobia,…

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