Do you know how to Park?

New York City Parks... are here for your body and soul to be safely and soundly parked for those summer months. Even though they say that New York was built to make a buck, there are other "means of greens" which define this busy city's face. And these are its parks. They can seduce anyone, really. No matter who you are, what you do, how you look they get their searching roots to your heart and will bloom on it till the end of eternity... 

But if you happen to be unaware of such danger let us give you a quick guide on your hot-five-spots:

July 4th

 

Wednesday of 4th of July brought us a feeling of freedom. A freedom to enter the USA General Consulate official reception on the occasion of Independence Day. It was official and everything,  but the air of true American party was in the air for everyone to relax and enjoy the celebration. 

Five Star Brass band was rocking the floor with their outstanding life-performance this night. Music, delicious food and American freedom of talking to anybody you want in the reception hall - all of that was there to please each and every of very-important guests of American Consulate.

Thank you for this wonderful invitation! Thank you for the incredible feeling of openness you translate. Thank you for willing to collaborate and support the ideas and creativity. It was a great pleasure to get in touch with the celebration traditions of US here among Ural mountains, in Russia.

Thank to the blog we are in love with we were able to enjoy all the fun of 4th of July. It is only fare to pay back and write a new post today. Keep reading and you'll see one of the greatest cities in the World - New York with our excited eyes.

9-11

What happen to you 10 years ago? Will you remember where you were and what were you doing? No? What if I tell you that was the day of 9/11 of year 2001? I am sure now you can recall it. Not only in the USA, but across the World, people know about World Trade Center and what happened here. That is why a newly opened 9/11 Memorial is on our list.

Chicago

Chicago! The place where winds blow, where the river flows back, where sky-scrapers fly up high, where Obama and Oprah had found success, where people stop to help the same minute confusion first appears on your face. We loved it there! Every bit of it! And if you go, make sure you avoid our mistake and spend there at least a week… Here are some of the high lights we couldn’t fit in any particular topic, but we felt obliged to share.

Meet the MIT

Digits. A few tones of digits we got ourselves surrounded with just outside of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. Monument in a shape of a thinking man contains lots of dear to a technology student’s heart characters. With one of those students we have met today.

Ford's Emerald city

“I’ve been working at Ford Rouge Factory longer then Mr. Henry Ford himself!” proudly announces Hank Sawer, who is guiding us through the factory at Dearborn, Michigan today. Since his very first day at the factory in 1973 our hero had managed to work at the most of 250 stages of a famous Ford-conveyer. Now he is retired, but still here as a guide on a green-roof station of our tour. Yes-yes! You’ve read it right! This factory looks just like an Emerald city – walls with a climbing up green screen, roofs are covered with a sedum grass. The last one grows on 4 special layers, all year around letting the insides of the buildings stay 10 degrees cooler at summer and same 10 degrees warmer in winter. Plus this kind of cover preserves the roof itself and it lasts instead of regular 20 years, for long, good 45. There are also a number of solar panels which do safe about 12% of energy placed all around the factory. This is how a modern and trendy eco-wave in the World affects the production here.

“Magic Trash” at Heidelberg Street

When you travel to a city there is list of things formed in your minds to expect. It could be a particular museum, a famous skyscraper, a walk on a bridge, a concert in the end! But once in a while you get surprised. You find something really special by accident. This time it was a Heidelberg street art project in Detroit.

You will fall for Niagara Falls!

Little Tips for a better Niagara Falls Experience

Rockwell rocks

An order to draw a pile of Christmas cards is the first paid job 15-year-old Norman got from his neighbor. Soon after that young Rockwell had realized what was a true passion of his life. He dropped from school for National Academy of Design in New York. This is how Norman had begun his long way of the most well-known illustrator to be in the 20th century.

We are in Stockbridge Museum of Norman Rockwell in Massachusetts – the place where the artist lived and worked for a long time in his life. We only were planning to stop here for 15 min, due to the long trip ahead to Niagara Falls. But the staff had charmed us with the attention and such an eager will to guide us through the place that we couldn’t resist and stayed.

Bewitched

Today the road brought us to Salem, MA – famous Witch City of the USA. It is old, it is pretty, it has its charm. Here in 17^th century locals accused a number of girls of being involved with black magic. Later the ones who survived got an official apology, but this story had become the main attraction of the town. Now an old lady on the broom’s image occupies many souvenirs-stores.

Get creative in New York

You can never get bored in New York! Just stand up, go and there are always a pool of things to do, to see, to participate. It is Tribeca Film Festival has just ended this weekend.  Art exhibitions right in the artists’ studios in SoHo, workshops from entertainment industry professionals and even family street fair are open for each New Yorker and an aware visitor.

Ready.Steady.Go!

We are on the road again - Dorothy-Katia is heading to Moscow and then to NYC tonight! Wish you a safety trip, Darling! 

And we are checking things off in our to-do-lists, packing our bags and looking forward to see Katia at the airport of New York in 7 days!

Here is the crew, ready for new adventures:

Here we go again!

Hello, our dear readers! We announce that here we go again! Back to the USA, back to our blog.

This time we have our 4 friends to travel with us! Why? Since it isn't them who is writing this post we are able to say the truth: they just LOVED our blog and couldn't resist when we've decided to go again))). They are all pretty amazing people. Ilya is an excellent photographer and has a heightened sense of fairness. Katia is a born negotiator and knows way out of any life situation. Stepa is a kind man and always ready to help. Igor is a truly gifted guitar player and has a pretty unique sense on humour. So that is our team - get accuanted!

Northern states of the US are fresh, green and chrystally beautiful in their very special way. This time it would be them to roll our big car in the land which is breathing with history, legends and scenic views. And we are already looking forward to the adventure of a lifetime!

Thank you notes

When the trip is over and you look back on all what has been done and seen you often realize one important thing. All this time not only you have been traveling from place to place, from experience to experience, you also were handled from one good pair of hands to another. And the people you meet and who help you, and who take care of you, and who worry for you are what actually give your memories that bitter-sweet taste. Bitter because they are not around anymore and sweet because they were. It is time for another good American tradition, we’ve experienced – “Thank you notes”:

Treasure Hunting

Before finishing our adventure, we wanted to play pirates a bit. After a month of being taken by flows of American roads here and there we finally ended up in the the island. Local tribe calls it Manhattan. Right in its center you can find a huge green park. It is so lovely there, we could not resist and placed a little "surprise" under the root of a tree there. Let us know when you find it - bet you gonna enjoy the quest-gift we have hidden for you!

Lets get it studied!

The first thing that strikes a visitor about Stanford University is bicycles is a lot of bicycles. And it is not only students who are using this kind of transportation, but also very respectable professors prefer a two-wheel ride.

Grand Canyon

The mood of the Hollywood

Situation comedy or sitcom is a series taped in front of the life audience (you know like “Friends”, “Nanny”, “Alf”). Those light and up beating comedy recordings are free and open pretty much for anybody. A five hours lasting entertainment you get for as simple thing as laughing OUT LAUD. Crowds from all over the USA are coming to these events in Studio City right by the Hollywood. Sometimes people from Russia come too.

Chip'n'Dale rescue rangers

Mr.Fritz is an angel. Golden Gate Bridge angel. He is a part of official Bridge Patrol, who talks with people on the edge. In several years Fritz talked off jumping hundreds of people. Everyday he is riding his tiny three-wheel vehicle along the main symbol of San Francisco. He says the people who want to jump - jump, the others just really need to talk with someone and that what he is there for.

Googland

It is 10 years since the word “Google” quite fast turned from proper name to a verb. All over the world people use it as an invitation to look for answers in the Internet. The search may take you pretty much anywhere. But we took it to the Google village ourselves. So welcome!