A New York weekend

We have had such a great weekend.  It is the Memorial Day long weekend and we have had our first visitors from Aus here to hang out.  And hang out we have!

Friday night
We meet Ash's friends, who have come to us in the East Village, in our favourite local bar.  Quite a random, small bar that attracts a diverse custom, they have happy hour and a buy1 get 1 free drinks offer - definitely the cheapest drinks we'll have all weekend.   We then went on to a restaurant on the lower East side called Freemans.  Ash and I had eaten there a week ago and enjoyed the food and atmosphere and thought the boys would like it too.  (Not to mention that Ash thought they would also like the waitress!).  A great night of catching up and red wine :)

Saturday
Yummy brunch including hamburgers and fries for the boys,  I went the cream cheese on bagel option but with some home fried potatoes on the side.  This was followed by the boys going for an old fashioned blade shave that left PJ a bit bloody.  Then we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and wandered around the area called Dumbo on the other side.

At 5.30 we met at the Port Authority bus station for our journey into New Jersey to see the Bon Jovi concert at the newly built Meadowlands stadium.  We almost needed oxygen tanks we were so high up but what a great atmosphere with 70,000 plus fans enjoying some classics like Dead or Alive.  It was  strange to see many people in the car park with deck chairs, eskies and bbq's, they had obviously been there all day, I'm not positive but I wonder if they actually just stayed outside and listened to the concert from there?

Sunday
Another yummy brunch, this time a little more gourmet, only one of the boys went for a burger and fries!  I had the most scrumptious lemon and ricotta pancakes smothered in maple syrup.  It all went down very well with our 2 jugs of sangria!

Brunch was just the warm up, this time we got on the subway and went out to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium for an afternoon of baseball.  I learned loads about the game, by the end of the 9th inning even knew most of what was going on.  The beers nearly killed us cheap aussies at, wait for it, $10 a beer!!  We had great fun sitting in the bleechers (I didn't know until now that this means sitting on long benches as opposed to individual chairs - probably the equivalent of the old hill at the SCG - the cheap seats), bought the caps, met some locals, tried the really awful chicken tenders and fries that were cooked 6 hours earlier and cost me $10.50, and best of all, in the 7th inning, the Yankees scored 5 runs and won the game to the cries of the ecstatic crowd.

I left the boys at a beer garden for a bit of quiet time and met up with them later for dinner in China Town.  We completely overate but enjoyed the meal including a whole duck being delivered to us for peking duck pancakes.  We wandered for a bit afterward into Little Italy which was pumping and then into a dodgy street fair that included alley games where you win cheap stuffed animals.  We got roped into what turned out to be the most dodgy stall which was a complete hustle - you had to roll some small balls onto a board of numbers which the guy would add up and would correspond to another number.  After the 2 first free rolls he tried to tell us our results were mega lucky and that we would win an xBox or playstation if we kept playing but after spending $15 we all agreed to walk away...

Monday
No time for brunch this morning, we grabbed a bagel on the run as we were meeting at 9.30 to go on the Circle line 3 hour tourist cruise around Manhattan.  It was a perfect sunny day and we slapped on the sunscreen as we waited to leave the dock.  What a great way to see the sights including the best views of the Statue of Liberty and get a comprehensive commentary on New York.

When we finished we were right beside the massive USS Iwo Jima, a US Marines aircraft carrier so we took the opportunity to join the queue and go aboard.  We couldn't see the whole queue and we didn't know it would take us nearly 2 hours until we reached the gang plank in the heat, but it was worth the wait.  In town for Memorial Day and the associated Fleet week we were able to climb over tanks, missile launchers, harrier jets and helicopters.  You can imagine Ash was in his element and as a regular watcher of the military channel was able to provide all sorts of details along the way.

It was great to meet the Marines, they were very polite and very particular about answering any questions with full detail.  It also occurred to us as they showing off the million dollar toys that they were so very young and had already completed multiple deployments including Iraq.

Phew - what a weekend - I'm exhausted!
I have left the boys alone for dinner tonight as I have to be at work for a 7am call in the morning!

The search for an apartment - Part I

I had a week to find an apartment for us before I had to start work.  I was expecting it to be tough having read and heard stories about the real estate market in NY but this was even harder than expected.

The thing is they have a intermediary level in the market called brokers.  And brokers charge a commission (around 15% annual rent, sometimes negotiable) that can equate to thousands of dollars - literally.  This is in addition to the upfront costs of 1 months rent for security, 1 months rent in advance, and because we were foreigners I was told that sometimes they need an extra month deposit.  Rounding figures but that could realistically be $20k we needed to hand over in a few days...

The first thing you learn about brokers is that they are generally unreliable and untrustworthy.  From what we had learned we wanted to try and skip the broker altogether and get a 'no-fee' apartment.  This seemed easy enough as we had seen plenty advertised on a website called craigslist.  They are typically the landlord advertising directly or the landlord is paying the broker fee for some reason.  So I set out to find some of these.

We had discussed what was important to us in a property, knowing that we would be signing at least a 12 month lease.  On the list were natural light, 2 bedrooms or enough room to comfortably fit us and the many visitors we are hoping to have,  internal washing machine, decent kitchen (oh my goodness, they use the word 'kitchenette' loosely here) as we planned to cook regularly, not too many flights of stairs.  We had also decided where we wanted to be - either in the East or West Village.

Here are some words to describle properties in NY that would have an impact on price:
Walk-up (no elevator in the building and sometimes you could be on the 6 or 7th floor)
Elevator buiding (obvious)
Doorman building (concierge on site - handy for parcel and dry-cleaning deliveries, as no one does their own laundry)
Loft - Im still not really clear, but usually has large windows and an open mezzanine type level
Duplex - 2 stories but within a large hotel style building

I must have seen 20+ properties, and only a few were what we were after, some were too noisy, in large soulless blocks, terrible location, tiny, 6 flights up etc.  I spent an hour with a guy who had advertised a no fee apartment only to ask me at the end to sign something to say that I would pay him a commission.  I learned that most of the advertisements on craigslist are by brokers who advertise no-fee, but as soon as you phone, that apartment is not available but they had another to show me, with a small fee.  I became very clear in my initial conversations over the phone that we were only after no-fee.

I spent 2 days with a lovely girl traipsing from east to west and back again to see no-fee apartments, but none that we would live in.  Then came "well, we have I think what you are after but there is a fee", I went to see them, and they were lovely but the fee wasn't negotiable in this instance.  It was so frustrating.

We learned that leases in NY are generally only available on the first day of the month (sometimes also on the 15th) so that the earliest we would be moving would be the beginning of June.  The competition was tough and brokers were putting the pressure on as they could lease apartments within a day of them being available.  We also learned that coming into summer was the busiest time for rentals as all the graduating students from college were losing their student housing and needed new accommodation.

I registered online to a website called "skipbrokers.com - New York's number one community for no broker fee apartments" - sounds too good to be true? I thought skeptically as I registered to get further details.  It was very slick, I received an email saying "we have found a property for you" Then I get a call from another friendly girl who wants to meet me to show me an apartment - great I say.  I then go and see the most amazing apartment that I have seen all week which turns out is outside our max price (by $600!) and has a fee.  Skip brokers, my *ss! I was so dejected at this stage that if Ash would have been able to stand in the bedroom I would have been tempted...

I was getting more frustrated and worried that we wouldn't find something before I started work and searching had been a full time job.  On the Thursday night I received a call from someone who I had emailed a few days earlier about an ad but not had a response.  They had another apartment that was available and being shown that night.  I was exhausted, Ash and I had just seen a some in the East Village, one of which we were very close to taking but I must have had a feeling because even though it was an effort to get back to the West Village we decided to go.

To be continued...

Arriving in a Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of

Like the words from the Alicia Keys song "Empire State of Mind" that was released around the time we made the decision to come to NYC and I've been singing ever since, I have come to this city full of excitement and anticipation for the adventures that lay ahead.

Arriving for the first time late at night, I was nervous that for some reason Immigration wouldn't let me in. The nerves were lessened by multiple signs in the Immigration Hall that read something like "Our Pledge to you" and went on say they promise to be polite, friendly, professional and will treat people with respect etc. The Officer, when I started to talk too much about my situation was like "No problem, you can come and go as you like with this visa" - Phew that was a relief! I'm in!!

It was also a great relief to find Ash waiting for me in the Arrivals Hall. We hadn't seen each other for 6 weeks and were excited to finally be together again.

Taking a cab to the East Village where we have set up temporarily until a more permanent arrangement is found, my first impressions of the City was wow, I expected it to be busy but this place is pumping! Block after block there are people everywhere and the later it gets on a Saturday evening (and I have since learnt, any night of the week!) the more people are out and about.

I had a couple of days to wander about before our NY adventure was paused as Ash and I headed to Europe for a pre-planned holiday in the UK, France and Spain. During those days Ash was working so I was left to find my bearings in the city - which you think would be easy, being a grid design - but my usual good sense of direction disappeared with the massive blocks and massive buildings that were surrounding me. Thankfully armed with a good handbag map I was able to explore. I even mastered the subway (I have been on it twice so far!) but on my second journey, to Central Park for a run, I even changed lines and made it home without any wrong turns!

Now, after a brilliant holiday, we are back in Manhattan - yes, they let me in again, with a work visa no less - and the real adventure has begun.  Stay tuned for the first hurdle....  finding somewhere to live.