Unique New York

The several thousand other people occupying the Sheep's Meadow in Central Park.

My new friend Andreas and his balsa wood plane (that he gave to me).

Catching some rays at Hudson River Park.

We had a great New York weekend, this past Saturday and Sunday. We spent both days lazing in the glorious sunshine, first in Central Park and then at Hudson River Park. On Saturday at Central Park, we had one of those only in New York moments. I was watching (read: staring) at a man making balsa wood planes. He made the one pictured above in less than ten minutes, from scratch. And when I say from scratch I mean, he shaped the wood and expertly put all the pieces together. It was fascinating. The gentleman must have seen me staring (and I thought I was so discreet!) because after a couple of impressive practice flights, he came right up to me and said if I could accept an imperfect plane, I could have it - like I knew the difference!

Now, I am quite shy in situations like these so to deflect my embarrassment, my good friend offered to take the first flight. We watched as she sent the plane spiralling through the air, landing softly on a group of people (there were thousands) occupying the grass. Then I had a turn, my first flight was pretty poor but after some coaching from my new friend Andreas (who turned out to be an old Aerospace Engineer from Hungary), I had the plane spiralling high in the air. We all took turns flying the plane, interrupting our new friend to improve our technique as we went. It was such a fun and unexpected way to spend an afternoon.

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On another note, sorry I have been absent from the blog the last couple of weeks. I think I just need a bit of a break to refresh my head. I will try and get back to some kind of regular posting soon!