I saw the very cool Maurizio Cattelan exhibition at the Guggenheim last weekend. Tons of details catch your eye as you make your way up the spiral.

We had the nicest weather between Christmas and New Year’s  and I went for a walk at Brighton Beach or, as it is also called, Little Odessa. You really feel a bit like you suddenly are in Russia.

Paulus Hochgatterer: Caretta Caretta
Xiaolu Guo: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers
Helle Helle: Rødby-Puttgarden
Paulus Hochgatterer: Das Matratzenhaus
Morten Ramsland: Hundehoved
Nick Hornby: Slam
Tatiana de Rosnay: Sarah’s Key
Haruki Murakami: Gefährliche Geliebte
Dirk Stermann: 6 österreicher unter den ersten 5
Paulus Hochgatterer: Die Süße des Lebens
Marlene Streeruwitz: Das wird mir alles nicht passieren. Wie bleibe ich FeministIn.
Lisa Genova: Still Alice
Sue Monk Kidd: The Secret Life of Bees
Siri Hustvedt: What I Loved
Stieg Larsson: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
Stephen Chbosky: The perks of being a wallflower
Janet Hobhouse: Dancing in the Dark
Anthony McCarten: Show of Hands
Erich Segal: Love Story
Justin Kramon: Finny
Alice Hoffman: Local Girls
Augusten Burroughs: Running with Scissors
Siri Hustvedt: The Sorrows of an American
David Leavitt: The Page Turner
Jonathan Coe: The Rotter’s Club
Jane Smiley: Moo
Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger
John Haskell: Out of my skin
Nicholson Baker: The Everlasting Story of Nory
Chris Cleave: Incendiary

Books in bold are the one’s I would recommend. My favourite of the year: The White Tiger.

Merry Christmas!

I like Williamsburg. The waterfront looks very different now than it did the first time I went there a couple of years ago during my first visit to New York. You have a great view of the skyline – and you can even see the building I work in!

I had a pretty perfect Sunday last weekend (which is good because ever since Monday it’s all work work work):  I went to the gym and bought a Christmas tree on my way home, went for a little walk through Williamsburg and finished reading Out of my Skin by John Haskell sitting in the sun, browsed around a thrift shop called Beacon’s Closet where everything is organized not by size, but color, bought a pair of old-fashioned tights with a seam in the back and had dinner at my favourite Venezuelan restaurant – the combination of plantain, avocado and cheese in an arepa is just unbeatable.

Today I bought my own little Christmas tree for the first time in my life – feeling very grown up right now!

It’s only since I live here that I have started to notice how often you see New York in TV shows and movies. It’s fun to recognize all the places where the stories are set – I enjoy watching old Sex and the City episodes again, as they usually tell you quite precisely where in the city they are. This week they were shooting some scenes for Pan Am, the only series that I am currently watching, right here in my neighbourhood. Unfortunately I didn’t see any of the action, only the trailers of the crew parked on the streets.

The last two years in Copenhagen I had two fixtures in my pre-Christmas season: baking cookies with friends and watching Love Actually. On Saturday, the two traditions were combined into one somewhere in Bay Ridge (wow, Brooklyn is big, it took me forever to get there): first the baking, then the movie. I made my favourite Austrian Christmas cookies, Vanillekipferl – a crescent shaped cookie with walnuts (or almonds) covered with a mixture of powdered sugar and vanilla sugar (turns out they sell Dr. Oetker Vanillezucker at my supermarket). You can find a recipe here. The other highlight was a Pac-Man shaped cookie cutter a friend got at the Museum of Moving Images. Aren’t the monsters cute?

It’s a little depressing how early it gets dark every day now, but luckily this is New York, so there is still a lot of fun stuff to do. Last weekend I went to an improv musical called “Baby Wants Candy” at the Soho Playhouse. The audience suggests a title (the night I was there it was “Desperate Housewives of Colonial Times”) and the actors and the little orchestra take it from there, complete with a storyline, songs and a little choreography, all made up along the way. Pretty damn hilarious!

I really enjoyed my first Thanksgiving. Instead of getting up early on Thursday in order to see the big Macy’s parade I went to see the blowing up of the balloons the evening before. It was very crowded and a little cold, but the sight of a huge Snoopy, Mickey Mouse and lots of characters that I didn’t recognize made up for that.

I also went to a real Thanksgiving Dinner, with a turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, butternut squash and stuffing. I baked a pumpkin pie for the dinner and we also had Glühwein, mhm. I have to say  I like Thanksgiving food!

A couple of weeks ago I watched the New York City marathon. It was a lot of fun, with people cheering not only for the runners they knew, but everyone who participated. A lot of  runners wear a T-Shirt with their name or their home country on it, so people would just take a look at that and then shout “Go Bill!” or “Come on, Italy, you can do it!”. Apparently I got inspired, because I went running in Central Park this weekend – and I usually never run.

Tomorrow I will visit the suburban world of New Jersey for the first time, where I am invited for brunch at a friend’s house. Other than that I don’t have any weekend plans, except a bit of reading (The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga), skyping with my family in Austria (which is much more complicated now than when I lived in Denmark, because of the time difference) and watching the newest episode of Pan Am on Sunday.  Have a nice weekend everyone!

I had fun visiting Coney Island – loads of unhealthy food, fake palm trees, old roller coasters, girls playing softball and sand under my feet.