A couple of weekends ago, the Countess's brother swooped into NY-town from London to run the New York Marathon. Since the ol' jog was on Sunday, we had Saturday to kill, and started out the day downtown trying to visit the Statue of Liberty. I lived there for years, but never made a visit to our Lady of Freedom, but was dismayed when told the ferry would be a 45 minute wait (on top of a $15 tab). Instead, we basked in Freedom's glory from dry land.





Apparently, hotel rooms cost a *fortune* during the marathon. So the Countess and I crashed rambo style on the Eug and Art's floor Saturday night. Rudy had actually booked a weekend room at a hostel on the Upper East Side, but after a horribly awkward roommate experience involving those with little discretion (and too much booze) he opted to floor camp with us on Saturday eve.

On Sunday morning, the whole NY crew came out to support Rudy down in Brooklyn- an event catered by Uli which involved a mountain of Salmon and bottles of bubbly. This got everyone in good form to go out and see Rudy take the corner in Greenpoint surprisingly early. He was moving fast! And he actually ran out of the crowd to hang out with us!



Tons of people were running- some in costumes, some in business suits- Lance Armstrong had a team of "handlers" urging him on (which was kind of funny).



After another pit stop at Uli's, Team NY migrated up to Central Park to see Rudy finish the race. It turned out he had to work the next day. In London. So, in true weekend marathon style, he actually got in a cab to the airport FROM THE FINISH LINE OF THE RACE. Now that is true German work ethic.

By the way, don't let architects take photos...