We met Carole Phillips, Greenacres’ lovely librarian and
were shown to the library, which was bright and airy and clearly a very well
loved place in the heart of the school. I
spoke to three groups of students from Grade 3-5; all fantastic. They knew lots about Australia and had fun
telling me what they knew. They were
very keen about Alice-Miranda too and I signed a huge pile of books for the
students at the end of the last session.
It has been great fun to test the acting abilities of some
of the children as they take on the role of Jacinta Headlington-Bear,
Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale’s second best tantrum thrower. We had a lot of fun with the students at
Greenacres with some of the best dramatic performances of the tour to date.
It’s also been wonderful to have a lot of boys getting into
the stories too – although I laughed when one boy asked quite seriously, ‘are
these books for boys?’ to which I answered ‘yes, of course. There’s action and adventure and lots of
mysteries’. I also told him if he was
worried about the girl on the cover he could always make a new one of his own –
perhaps with a dragon or something beastly on it.
We had a great time at the school and I only wish we had
stayed longer. The visit came about
through a friend at home who has a friend whose children attend the
school. We met the twins and talked a
little about Australia. Carole kindly
drove us and our luggage to the station where we negotiated the ticket machine
and caught the train to Grand Central Station.
Rushing through the countryside, the landscape changes dramatically from
the grand houses with the large gardens to high rise tenements and real inner
city living. Once you hit 125th
Street in Harlem the train heads into the subway and it seems like no time at
all and you’re in Grand Central – what has to be the most beautiful railway
station in the world. We walked the
eight blocks to our hotel and found that our room wasn’t yet ready. So they stored our luggage and Ian and I
headed out for a very late lunch. We
went to a steakhouse called Smith and Wollensky, just around the corner. The steaks were huge as per usual – and delicious. While we were there a very tall fellow came
in with a short man in a suit. Another
big guy came in and it was obvious from the buzz around the waiters that they
were ‘known’. I assumed professional
basketballers and I was right about one of them. Our waiter told us that his name was Laundry
Fields and he’s a player with the New York Knicks. The other guy was an up and coming
footballer, so we assume the small guy was their manager.
There was also a television crew in the restaurant too but
not to film the sports stars. They were
filming a segment on another one of the waiters who had just been voted the
best waiter in New York. They asked if
they could film us too – of course we said yes and apparently we will be on the
Bloomberg News Channel Friday morning at 7am New York time. I think we will be gone by then as we have an
early start. But it was fun – we’d been
in the city about an hour and already made the news! Only in NYC.
When we arrived back at the hotel our room still wasn’t
ready so we were offered complimentary breakfast for the duration of our
stay. I didn’t mind about that at all J
No comments:
Post a Comment