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.