Tour of the Boros

We relaxed yesterday. I know it sounds incredible, but we did. We had a lie-in until 10am, which is so late for us these days. Then we faffed about on the internet and on Sonos. The Boy went to play football in Brooklyn and I met up with someone from my old work, who is based in New York.

I've never met her before, but it was so great. Not awkward, really relaxed and just lovely. We walked around Brooklyn Heights and around Carroll Gardens, which are definitely the posh areas of Brooklyn. There's no way they can be any less expensive than Manhattan. Then we went to the promenade with views out towards Manhattan. Gobsmackingly beautiful and so close and clear and bold.

Post quick dash to meet the Boy in a pub that had the most dogs I've ever seen in any one location, we took a look at where we were picking up some second-hand air-conditioning units. (We've been so scared of bed bugs that we've not got any other second-hand stuff. These were a real bargain though, saving us $500 so we couldn't say no. Ever thrifty Chan.)

I thought she lived east of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, but no, she's way, way out in deepest darkest Queens. It took us an hour and half to get to her and then another hour back to Manhattan in a cab. Not sure whether the second-hand air-conditioning units were a false economy as we ate dinner at 9.45pm for about the millionth time this month, but at least I got to explore a bit more of NYC!

exploding fruit balls

Saturday was a good day in the end. I completed all tasks with a super sore head but we were productive. we finally got round to cleaning the whole apartment. no more crunchiness underfoot, which is a relief.



I also cooked for Simon, from Phil's work and his girlfriend, Amy in our tiny kitchen. it was a flat-pack dinner party. they built or media unit, I fed them Asian food. then we decided at 1130 pm that we needed frozen yoghurt so we went to 16 handles. there seems to be an obsession with frozen yoghurt here. even out estate agent - a man in his late 30s - was like, 'oh you're so lucky, you've a 16 handles right outside your apartment.' the place was heaving and I was overwhelmed by choice. I went in wanting a plain one with some fruit and came out with for flavours. fruit, nut sprinkles, cheesecake sprinkles, hot fudge sauce, and probably 10 other things I've forgotten about. they even had these exploding fruit flavoured balls. I only found out afterwards that 'euro tart' flavour is plain. of course, how stupid of me. the Boy also bought us Sonos. I just can't understand it. it's a speaker with music coming out of it and nothing else. where are all the other bits? amazing.

sore head

the stars and moon aligned for a good day yesterday. I was productive at work and found out I wasn't going mental and IT had forgotten to include the power cable for the monitor. it was the perfect temperature for a run. we then hooked up with team momentum for drinks at Otto's head tiki bar. they do not mess about with their alcoholic measures here. bloody hell. we brought back souvenirs (see below). we fragmented into groups and the Brits went for food. had delicious philipino food. they couldn't fit us in until 1030pm so I was all over the place by them. was dishing up the garlic rice and fell off my chair! oops! talking to Amy and Simon whilst sitting outside was great. I said, 'it feels like we're on holiday.' to which Amy replied, 'it still feels like that to me after 18 months.' I hope that I have that feeling in 18 months' time.
*
terry won't let me upload the souvenirs so will have to try a separate post for that.

I bawled

I felt lonely this morning.

Yesterday I was angry and today I was lonely. IT issues continued as I tried to set up my docking station for about 30 minutes, after which it still wouldn't work. I was so frustrated after the scanner escapade yesterday that I actually cried. What an idiot.

Then followed a mix-up with drinks with some people from my old work tonight - I only know one of them. They didn't tell me that they had planned to go for happy hour drinks at 5pm-6pm for one hour only! What kind of evening is that? So my work conference call at 5pm really interfered with my socialising.

What made me literally bawl my eyes out at my desk was tweaking the Boy's email to his HR person, asking her to reconsider letting me tag along to a work baseball outing in June. The words, '...She has come as a dependent...' and '...We know hardly anyone in Manhattan...' and '...She has no company infrastructure to support her...' just set me off.

But as with all things here, lunchtime onwards has been great. I got to speak to Bethan on Skype. It was great to see her smiley face and to plan her trip here next month. I had a great meeting with someone who works just opposite the Boy's office, so I got bonus hugs during the day. We sat in the beautiful Bryant Park with its amazingly tall trees and I walked home through Union Square, in the sunshine, surrounded by cherry blossoms.

I reopened my inbox to suggestions for drinks next week from one of the girls I met at the conference in Chicago; a walk and a coffee on Sunday with one of the girls who I don't know from my old work; and potentially a drink next week with my only colleague in New York, who I haven't been able to catch up with yet.

I am going to treat myself to 16 Handles' frozen yoghurt. Things are good again.

If this isn't culture shock, then I'm just a very angry person

I am SO pissed off today.

It took me five hours to do my expense claims for work today. That included going to buy a scanner so that I could scan all my receipts; connecting it to my bloody laptop; waiting seventeen hundred hours to download the software; checking on oanda for the exchange rates for the day that I made whatever insignificant purchase; downloading my credit card bills as evidence; numbering the receipts for my $6 breakfasts; filling in the ridiculous claims form; and identifying the correct codes for each of the item purchased. No wonder I'm skint, my work owes me £800.

THEN

I try and do the hateful laundry again. On Sunday I tried to do it, but the machine was out of order so I had to call the company up. The woman told me that it had been reported and was a priority case. So today, I try and do laundry again, and again, the machine is out of order. When I ring them up again, the woman says, 'it needs a new part, which won't arrive until Friday, probably.' So then I say, 'OK, so what do you suggest I do?'

Her answer was, 'Well, you can purchase one from me now and I can post it out to you. It'll get to you in 10-12 business days.' I was absolutely LIVID. Do you really think that I want to buy a card from you and wait another two weeks before I can do laundry? No, I don't! Are you really offering to allow me to buy a card off you for $5 so that I can put credit on it to pay $2.50 for a wash? How extraordinarily kind of you.

Land of service my arse.

By 10.30am...

I had already had a two-hour conference call; paid the handyman, who I had neglected to pay yesterday for putting up our blind; received a furniture delivery; and been told that I wouldn't be paid on Friday.

Fortunately, my boss waded in and kicked some ass so I will get paid on Friday after all. Thank God.

Just three more sleeps until payday...

huzzah!

Not much to report except this, which made my bleeding day:

Tiny's

a few weeks ago I went on an enormo walk and trundled through Tribeca where I saw this cute little bar/restaurant. I was raving about it when I caught up with Jo and bishop at gyu kaku. it turns out that the wonderful Bethan Thomas bought us a gift certificate for that very place and suggested that we go for our six month wedding anniversary. the food Q's absolutely delicious, particularly, the burrata, which they had drizzled with honey and a date glaze and stormed with pistachio nuts. I want more. we also met some very friendly Brits, who had been here for six years. apparently they live on the 37th floor in the penthouse of a fancy building and have parties every weekend in the summer. bring it on! I loved tiny's, just the whole vibe of the place. then we went to a bar called immigrant, which was laid back and friendly. it's my new Mr. L's (wine bar I go to back home 'just for one' most weeks). a

nd for something completely different, not sure whether this is a good deal or not:

the inevitable...

we have internet! I went for the lamest mini jog on Friday afternoon around alphabet city. it was humid already, God knows what it'll be like in July. bits of the area are super trendy - too cool for me or the Boy - but other bits are dead ropey. I even 'ran' in those bits.


 in the evening we faced a weekend without friends so the Boy and I went on a two- bar crawl. the good thing about not having any friends is that you spend more time chatting to your beloved. also it feels like you're on a long weekend somewhere, as you don't know anyone else, you're someplace new and you can walk home at the end of the night.

 Saturday was all kinds of boring, but the evening was amazing. will blog about that separately. today, the inevitable happened; we got twatted in our sleep by the cardboard curtain. I was unfazed, pulled down my eye mask and plugged my ear plugs in a little tighter and rolled over. the Boy, meanwhile, got up valiantly to do battle with it, half-asleep with the sun trying to poke his eyes out. then the Verizon Internet people came for about three hours. classic, stereotypical Italian-American with a booming voice. the doorman initially told us he couldn't put the cables in, as there's no work in the building during the weekends. thank God the Verizon guy sweet talked his way in. who knows if we tipped him enough. brunch with Jo and bishop in Brooklyn at flatbush farm. nice.

one for the ladies

ridiculously, the instructions on tampons tell you to open the package up tampon end and not string end here. So stupid I dropped the first one out of sheer surprise and confusion.

cb2 and China town and taka taka

The doormen in our building must think I'm a lady of leisure because every day i leave the place for a few hours and come back armed with bags. Yesterday was China town. I was going for the express purpose of trying the best congee in town,  but by the time I'd gotten there,  I was too hot do had chopped duck on rice. Still, it was worth the trip as i was able tobuy lots of cheap spices and coconut milk that doesn't cost £2.50 a can.

Then an epic shopping trip to cb2 where we spent even more money than in Ikea. we rounded off the day by going for Mexican Japanese fusion at taka taka. Some of it worked,  some didn't. The best was the plantain and cream cheese deep fried croquette. Delicious. I don't have a picture of that because we are it too quickly but here's some cheesy sushi.

take that, lights of Brooklyn bridge!

IKEA came on Tuesday and filled our living room with boxes. More safe advice from yours truly: if they offer you an assembly service for $40, take it and offer them even more money. Is would be worth every penny. As I'm a tight arse, we did no and so we've spent the last two days in flat panel hell. It took me 1.5 hours to put together my step ladder.

One of the funniest thing was calling up Ikea customer services to complain that there was already a hole in one of our sofa armrests. The campest guy on the end of the phone made it seem like my dog had died. I thought he was going to send me a condolences card.

The boy has come up with an ingenious plan to ward off the lights of the Brooklyn bridge. You will see below that it looks like we're startin squatting but at least it's effective.

Moving in day!

Yesterday was moving in day. This sounds funner than it was, as I rocked up with a mini wheelie, a bag of open condiments, my laptop and my day bag.

I proceeded to work for the next four hours using a box, which contained our spare duvet and two pillows (delivered from Amazon that morning), as a table, waiting for Sleepy's to deliver our bed. And when they did, it was well posh.

Then I had additional dramas with my drug dealer phone. As 'avid readers' will recall, I went for a budget, pay-as-go reconditioned phone, which Ann-chan kindly bought for me. I waited all day until it was fully charged to activate it and then when it tried it wouldn't work. Oh FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's working now though after numerous phone calls.

We had twice as much stuff as when we came to the US, so we had to hail two cabs to transport our stuff. Neither of the drivers spoke particularly good English and they just couldn't work out whether we had mistakenly called two cabs or not.

We slept fitfully, mainly because we have NO furniture apart from our bed, including curtains or blinds. Still, you can't really complain that you're being kept awake because of the lights of Brooklyn Bridge. Incidentally, they do get turned off at some point in the night.

Back to our gorgeous bed. It looks like a proper grown-up person's bed with posh(ish) white sheets and everything. We're so going up in the world.

Just waiting for IKEA to rock up with our other budget furniture now... No more box desk for me.

salumeria rosi

amazing farewell dinner at a salumeria tonight. the meat plate was incredible, particularly the fennel seed and black pepper salami. which contrasts nicely with the 50 cent hot dog - note the 'not actual size' notice - at IKEA.

farewell upper west side

 we spent our last

Sunday packing our stuff back into the five suitcases as tomorrow is moving day. farewell upper west side. you've been a great introduction to Manhattan. convenient, but not too crazy and in your face, allowing us to come to terms with our new live. we leave our studio flat with twice as many bags as we came with and spent or last evening at an amazing salumeria. will post about that separately.

an incredible trip to IKEA plus ferry!

 multiple lessons learnt yesterday. don't try and apply for a credit card online without credit history. you will brew declined. don't then go into a bank to apply for a secured card. you will not be accepted and instead will have to supply then with endless more bits of information.

 another lesson was don't try and get lunch in the financial district at the weekends. you will walk around for hours.

do go to IKEA in red hook on the bright yellow ferry and do go with a game plan. it means you're only there's for 5.5 hour. they had a special offer yesterday where if you spent over 150 you got a frees dinner. after spending $1,850 we went to claim our free dinner. 'oh, you're supposed to have the cost of the meal taken off your final bill.' not happy. i know it's the cheapest meal we've had in new York yet, but still, it's the principle!

more new words and cultural insights

what a rammed weekend. Amazon would not process my order the other day even though I paid with my us debit card. the only reason for this, I think, is because I put n/a in the drivers licence box. so annoying. on Friday I then spent about 2 hours trying to buy bed linen. not as easy as you think. a comforter is not the same as a duvet. they have duvets too but in the winter. they seemed very impressed with mine back home, which Velcros together for the winter months and separates in the winter. the sales assistant was like, 'oh that's a really good idea.' yes, it is. sell me one. also pillow covers can also be called shams. what's with all the random words. barcade was excellent. very chilled, loads of old arcade games everywhere, and endless lists of beer on happy hour. we got home about half one after a 45 minute journey home from Brooklyn. to our new place, it would have only been 2 stops on the train but up to the upper west side was also a change in trains I.e. a normally tube journey. not sure how we're going to cope with our commute back in London once we're back. and that'll be after a year!

armpits

I've also noticed that I smell more in new York. why is that?

day off

 after working 10 days straight I have my first day off. that didn't stop my brain clicking into overdrive at 7am and me turning on my laptop to sort something out for work. then spent an hour buying the cheapest appliances known to mankind online. 170 dollars later I have just a duvet, two pillows, a kettle, hairdryer, iron and toaster to show for my efforts. it's going to be a boring day. plus the weather is awful. it's raining like it used to in Cardiff. uck. but what I do have to look forward to tonight is Barcade, which is a bar with loads of old arcade games. roll on pacman!

Fahrenheit

real conversation between me and the Boy. 'so is 66 degrees hot?' the Boy tells me again that, for the billionth time, no it isn't hot, and tells me to get a conversion thing on Google. I find one and see that 1 degree equals 33 degrees. I think this is strange as 66 degrees is so cold because I've been led to believe by google that 66 degrees should be double the amount and therefore two degrees Celsius. exasperated, the Boy tells me to bookmark a conversion chart. I study one for a bit and then decide that my sweet zone will be 70-85 degrees. those will be the magic numbers from now on. the trouble is I keep forgetting what the numbers are so now the new question i keep asking the Boy is what my sweet zone? I'm also wondering whether 85 is actually too hot...

coming home

arrived back to new York last night to 28 degree heat and sunshine even though it was 6pm at night. I checked our account and the transfer had worked; we hasn't massively been scammed by crooks and we now have more than 100 dollars to our name. I had managed to get on an earlier flight and bumped into Phil at the subway station. on walking into the apartment, I found that he had decorated the Wooler place with welcome home bunting and balloons. I settled down to a big glass of wine, hugs from the Boy and then my first sushi session in America just two blocks from ours. uni that doesn't taste fishy, hamachi that isn't a fiver for a pair. delicious.

nd one of the best things was feeling positive and energetic about being back in new York; the endless opportunities, the new lifestyle, feeling pleased to be coming home and no longer in a sad Travelodge by myself in Chicago!

King Spa

I spent my Saturday in a windowless hotel conference room from 8.30-5pm. It was pretty good and I met some nice, interesting people. There was also an interesting 'speed networking' session, where you literally talk to someone for 4 minutes and then get shoved along.

In the evening I went to Gyu kaku and then King Spa with Erin and Victoria from back home. It's my second outing to Gyu Kaku in two weeks after not having it for eight years. So strange. I decided to become a member and have become a meat points collector.

We then went to King Spa, which is the Korean take on an onsen. Oh my.

http://www.kingspa.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=e_g_Chicago

We arrived at 8.30pm and we didn't leave until 12.30am. It was a completely surreal experience where you bathe and soak like in a traditional onsen (all naked) and then you put on these giant pyjamas, which reminded me of the convict prison uniforms you see in Chinese TV series except pink.

Then you proceed to the unisex bit where there is a cinema, a charcoal sauna room, a gold sauna room, a salt room, an amethyst room... the list goes on. There is also a restaurant fancy eggs that are cooked in one of the sauna rooms (where they light an 8ft fire).

All completely surreal.

Got home about 1.30am and then woken up about 8.45am by the Bank of America 8km run outside my window. Bah!

Second day of conference here I come...

The Original Playboy Mansion

It's weird to get on a plane, fly two hours, be in a different time zone and still be in the same country.

I am in Chicago and have liked what I've seen so far. It's not called the Windy City for nothing - bloody freezing and there are so many tall buildings.

I went on an epic walk and somehow ended up on an DIY architectural tour of Chicago, including the first ever playboy mansion up in the Gold Coast. My favourite building was definitely the Tribune. Absolutely gorgeous. Photos on the Boy's Samsung phone won't do it justice so I have kindly googled it for you all:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=chicago+tribune+building&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44770516,d.aWM&biw=1012&bih=479&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=N1JfUYyTBZLiqAHtyYDAAg

Enjoy!

Off to an evening reception in a bit. Must not show myself up; must not show myself up; must not show myself up...

admin hell

another day of admin hell. we can't get an internet only package with the provider that has super quick fibre optics because... we have no American credit card. we can however go for the phone/internet package or the triple bundle of cable/internet/phone. I had to give up because it was driving me insane and I couldn't find a phone number anywhere, just the chat function with this guy who kept asking me, 'are you ready to purchase yet?' so annoying. the boy and I are also having cash flow problems still. we have a grand total of 110 dollars in the bank and my HSBC UK account was refusing to let me withdraw any cash out. I made a transfer but it won't get to us until Tuesday. fortunately my other account finally let me get cash out so I treated myself to a manicure. small things pep me up these days.

Furnishing our apartment

I have spent the evening working out exactly what items we wil be purchasing for our new place. I have a floor layout and know eactly where each item of furniture will be placed. 'How much does it cost to kit out a whole new apartment?', I hear you ask.

The answer is $6,300, which includes everything from curtains to potato peelers to air conditioning units, though this doesn't include Phil's sound system. (Eek!)

I've done well and I've done it cheap and it's not because I'm a geek, but because I have no friends so have time on my hands... Plus Phil was working...

trattoria dell Arte

last night went to dinner at this posh-ish Italian restaurant. it's worrying I'm starting to think that 14 dollars for a glass of wine is OK. the restaurant has the largest antipasti bar in new York. I had a delicious lobster risotto. normally never east risotto out,  as it's usually dodgy but this was so good! we went with Phil's colleague and her husband, who is a well known music lawyer. it was strange to be with purple who are clearly regulars somewhere. the service was amazing and the complimentary items kept on a coming. also learnt you're supposed to tip the cloakroom assistant. is there anyone in new York you don't tip?!

strange day

the last few days have been better than the first ten. first thing this morning we went to our me place to measure up for furniture and was back in my studio again by 945 to start work. way later than I've been used to so that's a little odd. felt super excited; the sun was streaming in through the windows, the view was spectacular and the kitchen is a vast improvement compared to what we have now.

then I came home and saw an email from my uncle, which made me shed a few tears. it made me realise that we must be far away as we never email, just pick up the phone. it was also good to hear that there are people reading my blog so that we know it's not just the two of us here. things will definitely get better soon.

a good day

 all round good day today. saw some beautiful furniture. cooked some tasty food, including tofu and kimchi stir fry, braised beef with cinnamon and star anise, and spinach and ricotta cannelloni. love being able to commute to town in 20 minutes door to door. and just missed the downpour of rain. good day.