Turks & Caicos - the rest

The remainder of our week involved a lot of sun-baking, tennis, eating (as one always does at Club Med) and drinking. In general, Laura was the tennis queen, getting up at 9:30 every morning for the tennis lesson without fail. I occasionally joined her when I could drag myself out of bed. My sport of choice (other than softball) was water polo, where I managed to used my netball skills to be the high-scorer of my team. Unfortunately, half way into the game, the other team had cottoned on to me and I would end up with at least 3 people defending me (no joke).

Laura found met a guy half way through the trip and that left me a lot of time at night to figure out who to hang out with. I wasn't too impressed with most of the guests but managed to find some friends amongst the Club Med staff and 3 cool Canadian guys. That's all I'm willing to admit on a public webpage :)

Turks & Caicos - Day 1

Our trip was to begin with a flight at 7:50am which unfortunately required a start to the day at 3:45am as we had to get to the airport just after 5:30am. When Laura and I proceeded through security we were separated as my ticket had been flagged for a special security check! Us Australians are very dangerous apparently. Ironically, I managed to get through security before Laura despite the detour of being felt up by a female security officer!

Anyway, even though we left on the very important American holiday of Thanksgiving where you might expect a lot of people flying home, the airport was relatively empty. You may wonder why this is an interesting enough detail to mention in my blog. Well the reason is, I felt I needed to set the scene for another celebrity encounter. (You know how I love those!). After clearing security, Laura and I had some serious time to kill, so we decied to explore the limited number of retail outlets at the airport terminal. In Australian airports I am used to the plethora of duty free purchases to be made and I had purposely not packed the camera I brought to the US because I was keen to get a much smaller one that I could fit easily into my handbag so I could take it out with me all the time in NYC. Imagine my surprise, when I discovered the absence of electrical equipment at the duty free store!

But I guess you aren't really all that interested in that, you are probably wondering about my celebrity encounter. It's not that interesting, really. It's not like I saw Madonna or Brad Pitt. Laura and I were walking through the fairly empty airport when I spotted a rather vertically challenged, lone white haired man that reminded me of Richard Dreyfus. So I said (loud enough for him to hear) as he passed us, "That guy looks like Richard Dreyfus", and in acknowledgement of the fact that he was who I said he looked like, he said " Hi". That was it. I know, I kinda built it up to something big. Maybe the Baby Boomers reading this will be more impressed.

Back to the camera situation. (Who would've thought I could write so much and we haven't even taken off on our flight yet!). As neither Laura nor I had brought cameras with us, we were now in somewhat of a bind, with potentially no photos resulting from our trip. So we went to the newsagent and bought a couple of disposable cameras. We continued to walk around and walked into a music store, surprised to see that they stocked digital cameras! I was even more surprised when Laura asked the man in the store about getting a bulk discount if we bought 2 cameras. Laura kept bargaining this guy down further and further to the point where I could see there really wasn't a great deal of margin left and I was starting to get a bit embarrassed by her relentlessness to reduce the price even further. I stepped in and said "that's a good price" which I was heavily chastised for afterwards. But I must admit, Laura is very talented at haggling in a way that the salesman feels obliged to comply in her favour! In a short time we had gone from no cameras to 4! We promptly returned our disposable cameras.

We arrived at the Club Med village in Turks & Caicos just before lunch and we were amazed at how turquoise the water looked. Perhaps that had something to do with the name of the country! I didn't realise that Turks was part of the British Commonwealth and was happy to see cars driving on the left side of the road again!

That afternoon we joined a game of softball. At school I played first base, so I made sure I played that again. One of the guys on my team, understanding the importance of the position of first base asked me if I could catch. He soon had his answer. I don't often brag, but I rocked that game! I got loads of people out and, at one point I was pitching and the batter hit the ball straight into my rib (I still caught it though). I happened to be batting not long after that and managed to come out of my injury-forced retirement to bat to a cacophany of cheers. Ah, Club Med - it's kinda like camp for adults, but with alcohol and nicer rooms (not too much nicer though!)

Doctors, Dentists & Cosmetologists

Last week I finished up my most recent contract (yay!) and I took the opportunity of the past three days before I go away to "fix" myself. Being new to the city, I obviously don't have a troupe of healthcare and service professionals that I normally go to, so as you would expect, I have had a mixed bag of good and bad experiences. As you will discover...

A couple of weeks ago I had a deep tissue massage. Instead of improving my situation, it has caused me a great deal of back pain since, so I decided to get some physiotherapy. I found a "physical therapist" as they are called here, listed within my health network and called to make an appointment. The sports clinic was a few streets away from me and I was pleased to see that they didn't keep me waiting too long. I was ushered into an office lined with diplomas relating to being a doctor, and the lady talking to me introduced herself as Dr. Babie (pronounced Bobby). I was a bit confused as to why I was seeing a doctor of sports medicine instead of a physio, but it seemed that I required a referral in order to see a physio. So she did a few tests, and then determined that I should meet with both a chiropractor and a physical therapist. I don't even know of any clinic in Australia that would even think of having a physio and a chiro cohabiting the same space! But in the US, they seem to cohabit quite nicely and cooperatively as well. So, that same day, I was able to see both (which, again you wouldn't really experience in Oz without at leats a few weeks notice). I do have a feeling, though, that physical therapists in the US are not quite exactly of the same caliber as Physios, and perhaps that is why they coexist nicely with chiropractors.

This morning I went to see a Dentist. I had received a flyer in the mail for a chain of Dental Offices giving new patients a free appointment with the hygenist. However, there was one catch: I need to have a complete assessment of xrays etc to determine if I need other treatments. We all know how this goes, and Americans are exceptional at doing this kind of marketing. But I figured I didn't need to proceed with any program they suggested and could just get my teeth cleaned. So, I called to make an appointment last week as I wanted my teeth cleaned before I left on holidays. I was told that I could not have the appointment with the hygenist until I had had the assessment. Here we go...
Anyway, I figured I could have the xrays and then arrange the appointment for when I returned from my holiday. So I go and I have a much different experience than my doctor/chiro experience wait-wise and service wise. They get my name wrong, they leave me waiting for periods of time at different junctures; I am not happy. They took more xrays of my teeth than I have ever had before. Eventually I get to see the dentist, who sensing my annoyance, asks what is wrong. I explained that I was frustrated going through this whole process when all I really want is my teeth cleaned. He proceeded to inform me that he is an ultra experienced dentist and was definitely more experienced than any dentist I went to in Australia. A big call indeed, in my opinion, as he doesn't know my dentist! Perhaps he is of the opinion that Australia is just some backwater as far as dentistry goes, not unlikely given the ethnocentric attitude of many Americans. After all, the world series of baseball is comprised entirely of American teams. So I challenged that comment and he proceeded to reel off his list of admittedly impressive credentials. So I gave him that, but really, I still feel that I don't need the dental equivalent of a brain surgeon working on my teeth. And the result? My teeth are as good as any patient's could be and he doesn't suggest any further treatment, releasing me to book my appointment with the hygenist. So I then go to make an appointment, and as the hygenist only works on Tuesdays, I can't make an appointment until next year!!! Not good.

Yesterday, I had my hair cut & coloured. My new hairdresser is named Hector, a very camp Venezualan guy with the accent to boot. He is the ultra-stereotype. Unfortunately, his English not being quite as good as it could be means that we have a little misunderstanding between bangs and long layers and I ended up being not so satisfied with my haircut. I'm hoping to grow into it, pun intended.

There are a number of other professionals that I require in my troupe, but I am still in the process of trialling manicurists (yes - I actually get my nails done now!), waxers (they don't know how to wax here like they do in Australia, and I have sworn off Indian waxers from now on) and GPs (although here they seem to be called Internists).

Anyway, the point of my little tirade is, although I am having loads of fun here in New York, I still really miss my troupe from back home - my hairdresser especially!

Halloween and other gatherings

I never expected that Halloween was such a huge holiday here - but it really is! And it doesn't just go for one day. As with all holidays in the US, a one day holiday is stretched as far as it can possibly go. As Halloween fell on a Wednesday this year, many parties were held on the Friday and Saturday nights before. I made the mistake of going to a party for charity downtown. It was supposedly in a"ballroom" but was really more like a scout hall. Well, by the time the actual halloween came around I was totally over it!! Apparently there was a parade but I'd had enough. Oh, and if you didn't realize - I was a devil!

The previous Sunday I had a few girls over for my first gathering at my apartment. We had a great time and then we headed down to the games room in my apartment building. We played table tennis, air hockey and most importantly Wii!!! I'd never played it before and myself and all the girls loved it! Who said it's a boy's toy! To the left is a pic of most of the girls on my roof deck. Laura and Randi are missing because they are chicken!

At the end of next week my current contract will finish and on Thanksgiving day I am heading down to Club Med Turks & Caicos with my friend Laura for a week. Looking forward to it! After that it will be back to New York and looking for my next project!

Bon Jovi and other Celebrities

Well, it took me three months, but I have finally had my first real celebrity sighting! (Apart from a couple of minor celebrities from Top Chef and Andrew Shue from Melrose Place). "Who was the celebrity I sighted?", you ask. Well, it was none other than Bon Jovi! On my wait out last night as I crossed 5th and Broadway in front of the Flatiron building, I noticed some lights and then some cameras and then Bon Jovi. I was late to meet my friends uptown so I didn't really stop to figure out what was going on. But as I returned after my night out in a cab, My cab was blocked from going past the Flatiron building as Bon Jovi was sitting on a bed with a girl right in the middle of the street! So I got out of the cab at that point and decided to complete my journey home on foot(1 block away). There was a moment there as I headed to get out of the shot, that Bon Jovi looked my way - I think we had eye contact! I asked a cop what was happening & he told me that Bon Jovi was filming a new music video. So the next time you see a Bon Jovi video where he is on a bed in the middle of a New York street - just know that I was there!

On Thursday night this week I caught up with a girl named Sybil. A few weeks ago I ran into her as she accompanied an acquaintance we had in common to a gathering of Australians. I was shocked to see her as it had literally been more than 15 years since we had seen each other last. Sybil and I went to school together until the beginning of Grade 6 when she moved to LA. It seems she has been living in NY for a few years now and is a director of Documentaries. So it was very nice to catch up. I was also impressed to find out that her boyfriend is the manager of one of my favourite bands, the Black Eyed Peas, among others! So I expect to be going to a few good music events in the future! Funnily enough, one of the guys I was working for on my first contract happens to be a friend of Fergie, the lead singer of the Black Eyed Peas.

You may have noticed that I said "my first contract". Well about a month ago, my project finished up, at least the first phase of it, and despite the fact that my boss was keen for me to finish on the project so she could get me working on some other projects of theirs, apparently, there were some hold ups with those other projects. So I wasn't working a whole lot. Luckily something else came along. I am now doing Business Process Re-engineering for the Health & Pension body linked to the Union for Television and Radio Artists. So, once again, I am surrounded my celebrities, actually more like their records. Obviously, I can't divulge names, but typically, if you know of them from TV, film or if you have purchased their Album, then I have access to their records. It's surreal.

I expect to start back working again with the other guys from my first contact, but in the meantime I'm working at the health & pension fund. I may end up working for both of them concurrently which would probably work out well for me and give me some diversity in my work.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie....

Last week I had a bit of an "Australian" week. As you can probably tell from my picture, I went to the baseball. It was my first baseball game and I had a lot of fun. I went with another expat Aussie and two of his friends visiting from Australia. If you've watched any baseball movies, you'll know what a big deal it is to catch a foul ball that ends up in the stadium.

The boys I was there with got very excited every time a ball headed our way. Of course, it's something that happens once in a lifetime so the chances of either of them catching one of them is pretty rare. But guess what - the guy that was visiting from Australia actually caught one! It was pretty impressive.

And of course, as you all know, it was the AFL grand final last weekend. The Aussie contigent in NY doesn't miss a chance to gather for an Australian event and there were a number of venues around the city televising the game live, which started around 12:45am our time. I went to an Australian bar called the Sunburnt Cow down in Alphabet City which was far too small for the crowd that turned up and it's not the greatest setup to watch a football game. But I wasn't that really interested in the game anyway, so it didn't matter too much to me.

On the Saturday night I went to yet another Australian get together for an Aussie guy that had decided to move back to Australia. I took an American friend of mine, Dana, who had never been exposed to so many Australians in one go - I think she had a lot of fun and appreciated the sense of fun that Aussies have. I think I've had my fill of Australian events for a while. But I must admit, it is very nice to hang out with people that know how to relax and joke around, and don't take themselves too seriously!

Shana Tova (Happy New Year)

I've been informed that my next blog post is well overdue, so here goes.

I had a very nice Rosh Hashanna, spending the first night with my Israeli cousins who are living here and the second night with Australian friends.

My cousin Eli and her husband Bris hosted a dinner for about 12 people, 10 of whom were Israeli. It was a lovely night, and I also had the opportunity to see Eli's sister, Michal,(both pictured right) who I had not seen since she was in Australia at my sister's wedding. As I was only one of 2 that were not native Hebrew speakers, I was a little bit out of the conversation,

but I managed to pick things up here and there and even managed to offer the salt when someone requested the "melach".

I managed to contribute to the conversation much more on the second night with my friends Dani and Tom Hersz, but sorry, no photos were taken.

Workwise, things have slowed down a little as I finished my project. I have not worked very much this past week and I am hoping things will pick up again this week as I only get paid for the hours I work!

I took the opportunity of the time off to go shopping and acquire a good portion of my "fall" wardrobe. Despite what it seems like when you first get here, there doesn't seem to be a huge variety of options when it comes to clothing stores here. Either you go for the chain stores of Club Monaco, Zara, Banana Republic etc who have decent to high prices or you go to the various boutiques around the city and pay exorbitant prices, like $350 for a sweater. Another alternative is Macy's, the equivalent of Myer which has some ok stuff, but when I was on my way there I discovered a great store with really cool clothes for very reasonable prices. I bought 4 jackets there! And they get new stock in 3 times a week, so I imagine I will become quite a regular there.

If you're interested, I have started to build my own Google Map of my favourite places in NY. I will keep adding to it as I find more cool places to shop, eat, drink etc.

View Larger Map

New Apartment, New Job, New Life

I know it has been a long time since my last post (except for the one that I just posted) and my only excuse (but it's a good one) is that I have been flat out arranging and starting my new life. So just to backtrack from my blog post a month a go, I returned to the consulate the next day to collect my passport that contained my visa inside. Yay! I am now officially a resident of the US. It's a relief that you may never really grasp the magnitude of, unless you yourself had packed up your entire life to move overseas on the possibility that you might get a job and a visa to live in a foreign country. But I did it. Phew.

So now I was all set for my new life, with a new job and a new apartment. I spent the weekend arranging the furniture for my new apartment. I found this company that allows me to buy everything at real wholesale prices but the catch is that I have to wait for the furniture to come directly from the manufacturer, which can take anywhere between 2 and 12 weeks, depending on the manufacturer. So I decided that my two mandatory items - a mattress and a TV would have to be purchased at a retailer. At this point, my apartment consists of a mattress, a TV and a few other items I purchase online such as an accent chair (right).

Once my apartment is fully furnished, I'll take some snaps and post them up - it's going to be beautiful.

Now on to the new job. It's funny, I've spent more time with my client than I have my employers. They are waiting on moving in to a new office so until then, I spend my time working from home or at the client's office. Did I mention I have next to no furniture in my apartment? So, when working, I sit on the chair (above) and put my laptop either on my lap or on a makeshift table I have made out of the many cardboard boxes I have accumulated.

Anyway, the job is good and has potential to be great with lots of opportunity to do some creative and entrepeneurial things. And my bosses are cool 30-somethings of the tribe and we all went out a couple weeks ago and had a really great time.

The last few weekends I have spent out in the Hamptons. I was meant to go this last long weekend, but I had some issues getting out there and then decided it was probably a good thing that I stay in the city and chill out. The last 6 weeks have been quite a whirlwind and I really need to slow down and rest so that I could focus on work when I needed to. I think I was suffering a bit from exhaustion the last couple of weeks. Despite what you may think -the Hamptons is by no means relaxing. So I was going from working and playing hard during the week as well as organising my apartment and putting together furniture to just playing hard on the weekend and I really needed a break.

I ended up sleeping most of the day yesterday! I think I am almost recharged now!

Australian Connections

It amazes me that in a city as large as New York City that I have managed to run into sooo many people that I have a connection with in one way or another, whether I know them personally or we know people in common. Here are a few scenarios:

1. One night, while I was still in my Gramercy (Curry Hill) apartment, I decided to walk down to the store and get a snack. As I was crossing the street in front of my apartment, I see a familiar face. It was the face of a guy I went to primary school with (Bialik) and I had seen him around the traps in a social setting after high school but had not really had much to do with him apartment from watching him sing in a band at Chevron night club way back when. You may know him - Jeremy Meltzer. Anyway, if it had been on a street in Melbourne I most likely would not have bothered to stop to chat to him because of the tenuous link we had, but on a New York street, it's not that often (at least I thought so at the time) that you run into a face from the past, so I stopped him and said his name. He looked at me like I was familiar but as I expected could not place me. After some chit chat "What are you doing here", "how long have you been here" on either side another person walks up that I also recognize. He is here to meet Jeremy. This face I recognize from my time at another school - Mount Scopus, and I had actually heard that he was here but, again, my association with Gavin Kolt at school was rather tenuous, not enough for me to make the effort out of the blue to contact him. Again, he recognized my face but struggled to place me. After the same old introductions and pleasantries that go along with seeing someone from your past in a foreign city, they invited me to dinner and I joined them. If you know me at all, or at least from this blog, you will know that I am really not a fan of Indian food, and they were going to eat Indian. Well, I figured it was worth suffering through it considering the amazing coincidence! It was a fun night.
2. Almost a week after I moved into my new apartment in Chelsea/Flatiron, I still had no internet or tv so I went down to the common lounge area to connect to the internet and watch some tv. There was a group of guys in there playing some poker and after a while I started chatting to them. One guy said that he had family in Melbourne, and as he looked distinctly Jewish, I figured there might be a good chance that I knew them. He told me there names - "Harry & Gloria Lew". I said, "Yeah, they lived in the street next to me" - and they did, when I was still at home with my parents in Hawthorn. Small world.
3. Last week, as I walked out of a club in the MeatPacking District (I was hanging out there with my new employers), I heard someone say "Oi!" It was David Harris, a friend from Australia. He was visiting from Australia with two other friends and in the bar next door (which I had been at earlier in the night). Then, that weekend, entirely by coincidence, I run into him again on the Saturday night at a bar out there. Freaky.
4. This morning: I decided to take advantage of the slow pace of NYC on a long weekend and went for breakfast in my favourite street in Gramercy Park - Irving Place. Not long after I sat down a group of 4 people sat near me with an accent that I recognized - Australian of course. Now, this is not the first time I have heard random Australian accents around the city, but then I overheard from their conversation that they were Jewish and from Sydney, and I was a bit bored on my own so I spoke up and started talking to them. It turns out one of the guys is a good friend of some people I know from Sydney, so we name swapped for a few minutes and then I discovered that the guy and his girlfriend were visiting from LA and he works for Westfield. They plan on returning to the city once a month so his girlfriend and I swapped numbers and we agreed to stay in contact - who knows?

And there are a few more organised Australian connections happening:

1. I have joined the Manhattan International Netball Club. It's made up of Aussies, New Zealanders, British and a few others. Of course when I mention to Americans that I'm going to play netball, all they hear is "nipple". For this reason, when I say netball now, I am forced to elongate my vowels to avoid the confusion. Anyway, I train with them for an hour and a half every Monday night and this Saturday I'm playing in a tournament in Brooklyn, no doubt against some Jamaicans and Trinidad and Tobegans that can jump much higher than I can.
2. Next Friday night, Bryfy (David Bryfman) has organised a Jewish Australian gathering at an Australian establishment in Nolita, "Eight Mile Creek". I'm sure I'll run into countless people there that I didn't even know lived here.

Time out from New York

"Unsolved murders mounting" read this morning's newspaper headline, with the first paragraph as follows:

"Calgary cops are working endless hours after a spate of violence and carnage in
the city has left six people dead in less than a week. With four fresh
murder cases since Friday, police now have six unsolved killings on the
books since August 1 in the wake of last week's shootings, beatings and
hit-and-runs."

It reminds of an alert that might pop up in my favourite game, SimCity, requiring more police stations to be placed. (I know, I'm a geek!)

For a city about one quarter the size of Melbourne, this is somewhat disconcerting and explains the feeling of unease I felt as I walked around the deserted downtown area yesterday passing mainly vagrants and youths hanging out in the city on the public holiday.

Of course, if I lived in Calgary, I'm not sure I also wouldn't have violent tendencies at times. It is somewhat of a non-entity with very little to differentiate itself from any other Canadian city except perhaps the absence of landmarks and attractions. The nine years that have passed since my last visit have not done much to enhance it's appeal. In fact, I don't recall the downtown area being so seedy.

But tourism is not my purpose for this visit. I am here for one and one purpose only - to get my US visa. You may ask why Calgary of all places to obtain a visa? Well, it was the soonest appointment I could get.

So, I went to the consulate and after an arduous 2 hours I think I got my visa. They didn't tell me anything, but apparently when then send you away and tell you to return the following day to collect your passport - your in! I must say though, that for an American consulate, there didn't seem to be too many people working there that were born in in the US, judging by the thick accents I heard.

A week is a long time in New York!

In the last week, I have got a job and signed a lease on a new apartment! Things can happen very quickly here if the stars are aligned and such was the case for me this week. I had been starting to despair as the recruiting arm of my visa sponsor had failed to produce even 1 interview for me to attend in the 2 weeks I had been here.
When I arrived in New York I contacted a former Australian I had found through LinkedIn ( a business networking website) who said he could recommend me to his contacts but would need to meet me first. He finally returned my call and we made an appointment to meet last Monday.
We spoke for half an hour and he explained that he was a CTO (Chief Technical Officer) and had established a CTO club with about 70 members CTOs. He was happy to forward my resume to those CTOs but had a few other avenues he wished to try. The first was a role with his company. He sent me immediately downtown to a colleague to speak with him. However, it was not a role that I was too keen about so we both decided that it was not the best fit.
I then emailed the CTO and asked him to send my resume to others. He sent it to 2 people, one who contacted me that evening and the other contacted me the following day. The first to contact me was Amy, who loved my resume and had the most perfect role for me. She described it, I agreed and we arranged to meet the following day (Tuesday).
On Tuesday I met with Amy and her two partners. Together, they comprise the entire company. Small, yes, but ideally suited to me as there were about 5 different projects they reeled off the top of their heads that I could get involved in. They all come from a marketing background but the company has a distinct online focus which is ideal for someone with my background. I can provide the technical complement to their expertise. At the end of the interview it was clear that we were all keen to proceed. Yay!
I half expected I would need to take a job that I was really not excited about, but this job has the potential to be better than anything that I could have gotten in Melbourne so I'm ecstatic!
On the housing front, I decided now that I had a job, I would spend the remainder of my week looking at places just to get a feel for the housing market. But after being shown a sequence of overpriced crap and then seeing an amazing apartment in a fantastic building for less than the overpriced crap, I figured it was an opportunity too god to waste. In New York, you need to take a place as soon as you see it or tomorrow it will be gone, so I took it! Only later I found out the reason it was so well priced was it was in a rent-controlled building, Brilliant! I had to make an arrangement with my existing (subletting) landlord to end early, but as I said, when you find a good place, you don't mess around!
My apartment is in this building www.thecarolineny.com and I move in in 2 weeks!

The Hamptons

I have now been out to the Hamptons on two separate occasions and have had some great times and met some really great people. Before I arrived in the States, I booked into two different Hamptons share houses.
A Hamptons Share house can vary with what is offered and how it works, but typically, the House is shared over the Summer which comprises 16 weekends, and people often purchase a quarter share (4 weekends) or a half share (8 weekends). I purchased a quarter share in a house on Millstone Road in Bridgehampton and 2 weekends in a house arond the corner on Noyac Path. The second house (a bit different to most houses) allows for any number of weekends to be booked.
I spent my first weekend on Millstone Road and my second (this past weekend) on Noyac Path. The two houses could not be more different, and each has its pros and cons. People that stay in the house on Millstone Road are screened to ensure that they fit with the remainder of the house, which tends to be fairly cool, outgoing (dare I say) good looking people, whereas the other house allows all sorts of people. To be somewhat politically incorrect, the Noyac Path house is referred to by the Millstone House people as allowing "Freaks and Geeks" to stay there. And ther are not entirely wrong. Having said that, I did meet some nice people and even some good business contacts there. I also spent most of my time last weekend hanging out with the people from the cooler house even though I was staying at the "Freaks and Geeks" house!
On the positive side for the Noyac Path house, they have maids that cook, clean and make your bed and there's loads of food and amenities that you take for granted like hand towels and hand soap in the bathrooms and lots of lilos for the pool. The Millstone house has none of that, which tends to make you feel like you are staying in a dorm.
Both houses organise outings to the local night spots of THEIR choice, as they get kickbacks from certain places for bringing a lot of people to the club. If you want to go somewhere else, you are likely to get loads of discouragement from the house organisers. I even heard a story about some people that booked a cab to go to an alternate nightspot, and then the house organisers turned around and cancelled that cab! Obviously the house organisers don't go to the trouble of organising a share house for the love of it, they need to make money out of it, but not at the expense of free will!!!
Not having been to a club in the city yet, I can't compare the Hamptons experience to the NY experience of clubbing, but to my mind, as is the case for many things in NY, night clubs are all about creating products that have differing levels of eliteness in order to extract more money from the punters. Most night clubs offer bottle service, which means, if you want to sit at a table you need to purchase bottles of alcohol which can tend to cost upwards of $300 each. On my first weekend, there was a guy that dropped about $1500!
Fortunately, being of the female persuasion, it is entirely possible to get away without spending any money on drinks, but one has to be fairly careful that the acceptance of drinks does not imply another type of obligation... True, this is a universal concern, but New Yorkers tends to be that much more aggressive and crass when it comes to these matters. Further elaboration is probably not suitable for this audience :)
My most recent Saturday night in the Hamptons involved a visit to a club called Pink Elephant, check out the link for photos and a description to get an idea. Outside are poolside-type cabanas surrounded by sand that you have to purchase bottle service for. You need an orange bracelet to go inside and outside, or a yellow bracelet just for outside. I was *lucky* enough to score an orange bracelet. It was a fun night, if not a little over the top!

New Digs - and just in time!

On Tuesday I went to see a place that was advertised in Gramercy, on the second floor in a walk-up building (no elevator). To us Australians, the third floor is actually the second floor. So, I got there and while the apartment he showed me wasn't quite right, there was one on the next floor up that was more suitable, quite spacious and really quiet as it wasn't facing the street. So I took it on the spot (I was so sick of apartment shopping) and moved in that day, checking out of my hotel a day early.

The apartment is actually on the border of Gramercy and Murray Hill in an area nicknamed "Curry Hill" ie. Little India. Ironically, Indian is the one cuisine that I absolutely refuse to eat and here I am living right in the middle of a couple blocks filled with Indian Restaurants! My door is indicated by the arrow in the photo to the right.

That night I decided to walk around my neighbourhood and explore. I am one block away from Park Avenue South and a short walk to Madison Square Park (not to be confused with Madison Square Garden). On my walk I had my first (minor) celebrity sighting - Ilan, the winner of last season's Top Chef!

My first morning in my new apartment there was flash flooding, but I had an empty fridge so I had no choice but to brave the wet and head out to get some food. Despite having an umbrella, my shoes were soaked right through and I could feel the water sloshing in my shoes.

Later (the rain had stopped), I was walking home from the grocery store and I noticed a whole lot of people standing in the middle of the street, most on their mobile phones, looking northward up Lexington Avenue (my street). I wondered what was going on and turned to see huge clouds of smoke billowing from the ground 15 blocks away on 41st and Lexington.

Being in New York, I automatically assumed an act of terrorism had occurred, as was feared by most New Yorkers. I checked to make sure that the smoke wasn't getting closer, (ie. it wasn't a building that had collapsed). I tried to call my friend, Dani, who lives 4 blocks away from the site of the explosion, but all the phone lines were jammed. I went upstairs to my new apartment to see what the local news channels were reporting but it was a good 25 minutes before anything was mentioned about it! (Isn't that bizarre?)

Anyway, it turned out to be a steam pipe explosion underground and one person died (of a heart attack) and there were a significant number of people injured, mainly with burns from the steam. It disrupted the public transport system and they cordoned off quite a number of blocks surrounding the blast site, where no-one could go in or out due to the risk of asbestos in the air. I was quite lucky I had checked out of my hotel early, as my hotel was in this cordoned off area!

First few days in New York City

I have now been here 3 full days and I am having an "awesome" time, as the yanks say.

I arrived late Wednesday night and was exhausted after 24 hours of travelling. My hotel is pretty cool and I recommend it if you want something new and funky if not a little compact. Check it out at www.thepodhotelny.com

Thursday morning I went for breakfast at a diner near Times Square and had challah french toast, I love that challah appears to be a fairly standard bread in New York! After some exploring, I met for lunch with a friend from Australia, Dani Hersz, who has been living here with her husband for the last 3 years. Suffering jetlag still, I went back to my hotel for a bit of a nap. That night I went out to a cool bar in midtown called Rare View, which is on a rooftop and has a great view of the city. The drinks were held by the people running my share house in the Hamptons, so it was great to meet some people that were in the house.

I had heard that dating was a little different in New York; it's more like a hobby here, I am getting the feeling that the way it is done here, it could almost be categorised as a sport. I met one guy at these drinks who had two dates lined up that night after he left drinks and he was contemplating how to end the first date to get to his second date.

That night I had an experience that I don't believe I have ever had in my life - someone told me I needed to be more aggressive! I was standing at the bar and was not being served and one of the guys I was with told me I needed to be more aggressive. I laughed (internally) as those words have never been uttered to me in Australia and one day in to my time in NY I get told that. I think I am definitely in the right city for my personality!

On Friday I did some more exploring, I have been walking all over the city, and I even took the subway once. I looked at a couple of places to rent, discovered I never wanted to live in Midtown West and that I love the Gramercy Park area and that is ideally where I want to live. It is quite an expensive area though and there are not a lot of furnished rentals available, so we'll see if I end up there.

That night I was invited for Shabbat dinner by my friend from Australia, Doron, who has been living here for 10 months. It was being held by one of his friends. Doron lives on the Upper West Side in the West 90s which is quite a religious area. Doron's friends are quite observant Jews and keep Shabbat and kosher and it was interesting to see that aspect of New York.

Yesterday (Saturday) I did a little bit of shopping on 5th Avenue (okay a lot) and tired myself enough to have a nap for a few hours. I'm still adjusting to the timezone here - I think I'm almost there now. Last night I met up with Dani and we were heading to birthday drinks for an Australian friend of hers on the Lower East Side. The birthday girl was a girl I didn't know but as she and I were walking to the bar I realised that I did have a very bizarre connnection with this girl, even though I had never met her....

Let me go back to a few days ago when I was on skype and a former client of mine from Australia who is now living in the UK, Daniel, sent me a message asking how I was. I hadn't been in contact with Daniel for about a year, and Daniel and I had always had more of a business relationship than a social one. I tell him that I have just arrived in NYC and am moving here. He says he has some Australian friends living there and could arrange an email introduction, which he did. His friends Rachel and Marty then emailed me and introduced themselves, but I hadn't had a chance to respond as I had been quite busy.

Well, it turned out that it was Rachel's birthday drinks that I was attending that night! Talk about Six degrees! Well, maybe 2 degrees! We went to a bar that is quite hidden away and used to be a bar during prohibition, where they would serve drinks in tea cups to disguise the fact that there was alchohol in them. They still serve the drinks in teacups, which while cute, is somewhat impractical. Anyway, there was a whole gang of Aussies there, there seems to be quite a contingent of us here.

At the drinks I also met an American girl who was nice enough to let me stay at her place for a week and a half once I check out of my hotel as she will be away for most of it. Her place is on the Upper West Side so it'll be good to get a feel for that area and give me some breathing room in terms of finding a place to live!

Well that's all for now. I am going to see a place in Gramercy park today that is available for a month.

Second time is the charm

For those of you that don't know, I finally arrived in New York this week!
This is actually the second time I have tried to get here and I'm glad to report that my arrival has occurred without a hitch this time.

The first time I tried to get to New York was a month ago and I had decided that on my way to New York, to break up the trip and avoid having to go through LA airport, I would visit my friend Todd in Tokyo for 6 days and then head on to New York.

A good idea in theory. A couple days in to my stay there I was wearing new & unstable shoes and walking down some escalators at Shinjuku train station with my friend Todd and I lost my footing and slipped and fell back onto the escalator. I ended up with a few teeth marks on my legs and arms and an extremely painful hand.

It was 11pm at night and Todd and I had been heading home. So we get on the train back to his place (about a 45 minute ride) and I am sitting there in considerable pain thinking that the uncharacteristic lean of my middle finger to the right was probably indicating structural damage.

A word of advice - if you are ever in Japan and happen to injure yourself - make sure it's not at night, because if your not requiring an ambulance, it's going to be very hard to find a doctor on duty at a hospital at night! Todd's Japanese-fluent friend tried 2 hospitals before she found a third hospital in the area with a doctor on duty!

So we went to the hospital, they took some x-rays and I had a rather distinct spiral fracture on my third metacarpal - not good. The english speaking translator/nurse said it was possible I would require an operation. They gave me a splint on told me to come back in the morning to get a cast.

They next day I came back, got my cast and my x-rays. They were very reluctant to part with my x-rays as they apparently needed them for administrative pruposes. I thought this was strange, as I have always been able to take my x-rays with me when in Australia. They were nice (and honest) enough to offer us to take them and get copies made at the local copy shop. We thanked them and said we would return them soon....you figure out the rest!

That day I flew home to Australia to seek treatment. There was no way I could travel on to NY with 2 huge suitcases and 1 working hand and I was not about to subject myself to the medical system in either Japan or New York. Without openly disparaging other countries, it's in stuations like this where, flawed as it is, you do really appreciate our health system in Australia.

So when I returned home and saught medical advice, it was suggested I required an operation. I had 5 screws and a plate inserted into my hand! 3 weeks later I was given the go ahead to head off again, but my hand still has a way to go before it is totally healed and functioning.