Winnie The Pooh in New York

Some of you might know that I'm fairly into Winnie the Pooh - I've had my Pooh Quotes and Pooh's Poetry Corner sites up for about, oh, almost 10 years now!, and when I came to London in 2000 I made sure I went out to Pooh Country and played Pooh Sticks on the original bridge. And I'm planning to go back sometime soon, now that I'm actually living here in London.

But first, I'm going to New York next weekend. And something that I knew but had forgotten until I started looking for things to in New York over my one free weekend, is that the original toys are over there in the New York Public Library! So of course now my mission number 1 is to go and visit them and hopefully take some photos. Here's a photo of them from my Pooh Quotes page:
Even though I don't really maintain the sites any more, it'd be really nice to be able to put up my own photos of the toys. In fact, I could probably put up some photos of the Pooh Sticks bridge too, if I went and took some... hmmm :-)

I always thought it was a bit odd that the toys were in New York rather than Britain. Reading a bit on the net, I came up with some interesting things. From the wikipedia page (near the bottom), "Many people in Britain feel strongly that this crucial part of Britain's cultural heritage should be repatriated. There are strong comparisons between the toys and the Elgin Marbles and the matter was raised in Parliament as recently as 1998". I should think so! But the Americans don't seem to think so: "the response from the Big Apple to Mrs Dunwoody's request was: "Get stuffed!""

So that's my first mission in New York (apart from seeing the Statue of Liberty, and all that, but my hotel is right around there so I don't think I'll be able to miss it). My second mission is to somewhere that I barely realised was a real place, never mind in New York: Coney Island! I've read so many fantasy stories set there, that it'll be relally cool to see it in person. I imagine it as a run-down, seedy kind of amusement park, with bendy mirrors and giant clown faces, a big wheel, lots of candy floss and hotdogs, and freaky sideshows. Very much a past it's time, nostalgic for a different era sort of place. Hopefully it's maintained some of that character, and hasn't been remade into a slick disneyfied theme park. But I'm really excited about going. And even it isn't anything like I imagined, I'm way overdue for a rollercoaster ride! I went on a bunch of really cool rides in Florida (actually, Georgia - we went to Wild Adventures, and I went on the Double Shot and almost all the roller coasters, totally amazing myself), but I haven't been on any in the year and a half or so since, and I'm starting to go into withdrawal.

So it should be an awesome trip. I'll try to post some photos when I get back, but it's impossible to post them all, and very difficult to select just a few!