A New York Birthday (and the curse of the free pour)

We lived it up this year!   It was more like a birth-month than a birth-day – I was very spoilt as the parcels from home started arriving a week before the big day.  Thank you to everyone who sent something, it was much appreciated and made me feel very loved.  I now have enough Australian chocolate to last until Christmas, and thank goodness, because I think I’ve mentioned already how limited the local options are!

I was lucky enough to have Chez here from Aus for a visit and it was her birthday only a week earlier so her, Ash and I went out on the town to celebrate – here's the photo evidence of the evening:  

First bar – the Peninsula Hotel, Roof top bar with views over 5^th Ave.  The weather wasn’t promising with some spitting clouds but we persisted and sat outside to enjoy a cocktail and some bar nibbles – 3 drinks plus a tip = $100!

Onto the next one – around the corner to the Plaza Hotel Champagne Bar, 3 drinks and some more bar nibbles (popcorn!) in opulent surroundings, another $100!

Finally, a taxi ride down to the Standard Hotel roof top bar, otherwise known as the Boom Boom Room!  (google this to get the idea…) .  This time the bar is inside with floor to ceiling windows reminding me of the Shangri-La in Sydney, and you feel like you need shoulder pads in this very lavish décor, leather seats and chandeliers that look like the 80’s.  There is even a spa inside the bar! This is a great spot with views of the Hudson and Manhattan skyline – the best view of the Empire State building is from the unisex toilets, when you sit you are facing a floor to ceiling window 1m in front of you.   Another 3 drinks, and you guessed it – about $100!   I think we all agreed these won’t be regular haunts for us here in NY – or we would be broke pretty quickly – but we enjoyed ourselves.

So here is where I should tell you that in NY (I can’t talk for the rest of the States) definitely has no liquor laws about the measurement of alcohol into drinks, ie/ a shot of vodka at home is a shot of vodka.  Here the drinks are, or at least taste like, at least ¾ glass of vodka!  It makes for a very strong drink, sometimes not even pleasant in taste, and well, lets just say you don’t need many to feel very light headed!  So on this night, having only snacked on the hotel provided, and really not very nice nibbles, by now we all had the munchies!

It was about 11pm on a Tuesday night and the evening took a downgrade (at least in average price) as we headed to the Corner Bistro (www.cornerbistrony.com), which happens to be right across the road from where we live and many people say has the best burgers in Manhattan, for a late meal.

The small hangover the next day (after only 3 cocktails!) made for a long day at work, but it was worth it - a night to remember - thanks Chez and Ash :)  I’ve set the standard high to celebrate all my future birthdays!

PS.  My birth-month continued the weekend after my birthday when Ash and I flew to Bermuda for a long weekend – the blog to appear soon.   And my pressie from Ash was a glider flight when we are in Vegas later this month – I’m very excited, there isn’t many adventure activities I haven’t done, but this is one of them - I’ll share the photos and story of that too!

A NY weekend - II

Today was Labor Day and a public holiday in the US.  This is the weekend that signals the end of summer for the locals and we had stunning weather all weekend -  in the mid-20’s - that we were determined to get out and about.  As much as I am looking forward to a white Christmas, I don’t know how I’m going to cope with the winter here and we are making the most of the outdoors while we can.

On Saturday we wandered around the West and East Village stumbling across a street art fair near NYU where we bought one piece to decorate our walls.    On Monday we took the subway to 53rd St and walked 50 blocks north along Madison Ave as we had heard it was a good walk through the Upper East Side.  I hadn’t been this far north outside of Central Park and it was like night and day to the West Village where we live.  It was very high end shopping the whole way.  Jimmy Choo, DKNY, Ralph Lauren – I lost count, and interest to be honest, as we wandered past shop after shop.  It’s a different life up there!

Ash had fun claiming some pieces of wood for one of his art projects at home from a dumpster outside a building site which he then carried through the Upper East Side – I wish now that I took a photo!

Sunday was my favourite day.  We had been planning this for a week or so and I was excited and keen to get out of the house in the morning.  We hired bikes at the shop nearby and rode along the Hudson River Park south to the ferry that took us to Governors’ Island.  In NY Harbor, this Island was once a Naval base and Coast Guard community with many buildings including schools and swimming pools.  These days most buildings have been left to fall apart, including one building the fire dept had done a test through and you can see the fire damage through the broken windows.   The return ferry is free and the Island is now a public park with bike paths all around it.  My idea of a lazy, quiet day relaxing in the park was a naïve one, as we determined as we queued for the ferry with hundreds of other people.  It is NY, a city of 20 million people, and it is free, and it is a beautiful summer weekend – of course it would have been busy!

We circumnavigated the Island and then as we arrived at the ferry dock we managed to cycle straight onto a departing ferry and crossed back into Manhattan.  What we hadn’t planned, but decided we had the time and the energy, we cycled up the East River to Manhattan Bridge, across to Brooklyn, picniced under the bridges at Dumbo and then back across the Brooklyn Bridge.  It was such a great day, the streets of Manhattan weren’t too scary with bike paths most of the way and we wore helmets, even though it is not the law here.   All up we rode for about 5 hours, needless to day I have a sore rear end for a few days  :)

Catch up – more NY moments

Another way too long between blog updates – we’ve been busy!  Back by demand from my friends at home here’s what we’ve been up to…

We’ve been so lucky to have many visitors, arriving with lots of Aussie chocolate (not “candy” as I educate my colleagues) for me and sweet chilli sauce for Ash.  We’ve had a great time exploring new restaurants and bars with our friends while sharing some of our favourite spots too.  Below are some of the things we have done together.

Staten Island Ferry with Ang

The round trip is free and you get great views of the Statue of Liberty along the way.

Yankees Baseball with Tina and Neil

Another hot one out at the baseball!!  Who won??

Back to Broadway – “Promises Promises” with Louise

My third show – yep, I’m keeping count – and this one was like a ½ musical and ½ a comedy play.  Starring a Broadway veteran, Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes who you would recognise from Will and Grace, it was set in the 50’s NY, was light hearted and the couple of great dance numbers were the highlight.

www.promisespromisesbroadway.com

Times Square 

A must see for all our visitors – I think the photo says it all…

Top of the Rock with Ang

With great views of the Empire State Building and Central Park we think this is the best vantage point for seeing Manhattan.

The High Line

Another thing I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned previously, it is a regular outing for our visitors.  This elevated, disused railway track that has been recently converted into a public park is only a 5 min walk from home.   Walking along the High Line gives a completely different perspective of NY and is a great place to view the Hudson and the Manhattan skyline.

Other things we have been up to:

4^th July Independence Day Fireworks

Not sure how these missed my last blog but we have some great photos so thought I would include here.  We joined 5 million other locals (literally) on the West Side Hwy, which was closed to traffic, to see the Macy’s Fireworks display over the Hudson River.  A great family occasion, most noticeably comparing to Sydney NYE is that no alcohol is allowed, the 27 min display was fun and while it is pretty hard to beat Sydney Harbour as the backdrop, we had a great time.

MOMA

The Museum of Modern Art is a high priority for many visitors to NY and we have become a member so can visit regularly.  I had not been, saving the visit for when the weather turns cold but we had a rainy day recently so decided to visit.  There is a temporary exhibit on Matisse which was worth seeing but my favourite section was definitely the impressionist area where I found Van Gogh’s Starry Night and one of the great Monet Water Lilly canvases that matched those we had seen in Paris earlier this year.

US Open Tennis

I had bought tickets for this as soon as they went on sale and dragged Ash to Arthur Ashe stadium last Thursday night for a night of top quality tennis.  The line-up was a little disappointing – Sharapova and Djokovic – I would have preferred a Williams / Clijsters / Stoser and Federer / Nadal, but the atmosphere was brilliant and definitely worth going.  In the upper stands, you are so far away from the action that, unlike any tournament I had visited before, there is no control about people moving or noise throughout points.  During one point, a fight broke out in the opposite stand that caused the play to stop!  The only other sporting event I have been to is the baseball and I thought the patriotic tunes between innings was just a baseball thing, but apparently it is a sporting event thing, as, between matches, an 8 year old girl came out and sang ‘America the Beautiful’ in a rendition that, if you weren’t looking you would think was a 30 year old, nearly brought me to tears!

And, on a final note, its been a great summer in NY and we've loved having all our visitors and enjoying a beer with them on our NY terrace:

NY Moments

I’m sorry it’s been a while – I have all good intentions to update this blog and have plenty to write about, but finding the time is tough! We had Ash’s parents here for a few weeks and had a great time exploring the city with them.  Also, we have joined a gym (need to counter the affects of Ben and Jerrys!) so I'm trying to fit that in along with spending way too much time at work.   But we are still living it up in NY - here are some highlights:

The Guggenheim – the architecture is the main highlight but showing in the main rotunda was an exhibition of modern art themed ‘Haunted’. My favourite exhibit was the collection in the impressionist room.
http://www.guggenheim.org/

Central Park – more exploring on a very hot day, we discovered the Hans Christian Andersen statue, the remote control toy sail boat lake, the boathouse and lake with row boats and gondola’s for hire, the fountain you recognise in movies - eg One Fine Day and Ransom - and the mall, a lovely long straight walk through the middle of the park.  We may have snacked on a $2 hotdog with mustard from a cart which we thoroughly enjoyed - we’ve decided that even tofu would taste good with mustard!

Back to Broadway – saw Memphis, a musical tackling the difficult topic of inter-racial relationships in the 50’s but the music was fantastic and once again there was a packed audience who enjoyed the show.
www.memphisthemusical.com/

Ground Zero – wandering around this site for the first time and the size of the construction is awesome. The missing twin towers are still very prominent in NY popular culture and they are often mentioned in the media or reflected in art. In what I would consider to be a real sign of defiance, one of the six skyscrapers to be rebuilt on the site will once again stand well above the NYC skyline – called the Freedom Tower – due to be finished in 2012:

The Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station – loud and busy, there’s seafood a plenty, and for those of us that don’t eat oysters the salmon was lovely too! We enjoyed a champagne (thanks Michelle) while the soup was literally slapped down in front of us.

The Gay Pride Festival and parade which concluded right near our apartment in the West Village. There were crowds of people colourfuly dressed (or not) enjoying the atmosphere.  Ash enjoyed the sights from our ‘terrace’ (fire escape) and as you can imagine there were plenty!

Strand Hotel Rooftop bar - perfect views of the Empire State Building while you sit back on a lounge and sip cocktails

A walk from Jersey City to Hoboken – we headed on the “Path” train under the Hudson and 1 stop later we were in Jersey City, New Jersey. As the sun was setting on Manhattan we wandered down a new-ish waterfront walkway 30mins to Hoboken where we had a surprisingly good meal at the Clam Broth House – I ate a boar bolognaise – we plan to go back there with other visitors if they want the trip to Jersey.

The weather has been very hot, much more than I expected, reaching 40deg some days, and the city tends to hold the heat in the buildings and especially the subway stations which I had described to me today as like walking into a giant mouth (hot and moist!).  We are making the most of our air-con and received our first electricity bill yesterday which (thankfully) didn't send us broke :)   Tomorrow we are taking our first trip out of town to the beach on Long Island, about a 1 hour train journey.  I'm sure it will make its own blog.

We have visitors regularly now until September and I’m very excited to explore more of NY with them all.  Our next friends arrive on Thursday and their visit will include another afternoon at the baseball - it looks like I’m becoming a Yankees fan!

The Cable Guy

One of the first things we organised when we moved in was connecting our cable. This would allow us to stop stealing wireless internet from the café downstairs (which was fine, until they closed at around 10pm and we lost connection) and also give us nearly 1000 channels to watch on our 2 new tv's.

(yes - someone wanted 2! - well it does make sense when one of us wants to watch "So You Think You Can Dance" and the other one wants "The 10 deadliest military weapons used in Vietnam", and tv's are relatively cheap here… but I digress).

In what seemed a much more efficient process than ordering pay tv at home, we ordered online, provided 3 possible time slots for the 'guy' to come and hook us up, then we received an email confirmation that 'he' would be there in one of those suggested times. It was one of the least painful experiences we have had in our relocation, hassle free, 'he' turned up, connected everything and it was all done.

We now have more tv viewing options than you can imagine. Scrolling through the guide list to find something of interest takes about 8 mins! And sometimes, believe it or not, I still can't find something worth watching. More and more channels are getting an 'on demand' option and we have the DVR option so can record as well and have a backlog of movies to catch up on when we have a moment. I have always enjoyed a dose of reality tv trash and one of my new favourites is called "The Millionaire Matchmaker" - classic! I'm addicted :) Another one, not sure if you have at home yet, but you probably will get is "Losing it with Jillian" (trainer from the Biggest Loser) - I cry in every episode… and if its on, I will always watch "the Bachelorette" - Poor Ash, I hear you say, no wonder he wanted a second tv! But it works both ways, with his favourites are usually located on the Military or History Channel… I mean, really, how many black and white WWII docos can one watch??!!

We have been in our lovely little place for a month now and we went through a week of watching films each night but I was exhausted as they became late nights by the time we finished dinner and put the film on, so that wasn't a sustainable habit. We have also been in the right timezone to watch the World Cup soccer and the French Open and Wimbledon so I'm in my element and loving the cable. Ash is not so into watching sport - another good reason for that second tv - this weekend is the start of the Tour de France - bring it on!

The Pain of IKEA

In theory, the concept of IKEA is such a good idea.

In practice, however, I believe most customers leave there many hours after they expected to, frustrated from the system, and not completely satisfied with what they are leaving with. They do that because the thought of going back is so horrible they walk away with what they can.

If you have never been to an IKEA superstore the set up is something like this. Wander through the display showrooms along a designated route through living areas, bedrooms, kitchens picking out pieces of furniture you like along the way. This is the whole top floor of the warehouse and is a massive maze of every product IKEA sell. Then go downstairs through the ‘marketplace’ where small items are collected, everything from saucepans to picture frames, lamps, cushions, storage, rugs, coat hangers, linen……….. Then you hit the warehouse where, if you have recorded all the details correctly upstairs, you should find the furniture you are after, mostly in flat packed boxes which you place on specially designed trolleys and go to the registers. Sound simple?

We spent our time choosing the pieces we were after in the display section. We were fitting out most of our apartment and diligently wrote down the locations where we would find the various products in the warehouse. We actually went through this section twice, the first time to get an idea and the second time to lock in our choices. Each piece was discussed (sometimes with zeal) and decided upon. There were very few staff to assist throughout this area and they weren’t exactly friendly, knowledgeable, or particularly helpful after you had queued to see them. 3 hours later we hit the marketplace and filled a trolley of goodies..

Then we made the warehouse. We had 12 items to collect and as we learned quite quickly, this was a game of pot luck. Navigating through the busy warehouse with an already laden trolley trying to find the correct aisle and location was a challenge in itself but 6 of our items were out of stock – even a couch that when they had given me the code upstairs was ‘available’ was probably already on someone’s trolley. How frustrating! We were ready to just walk away. By this point you can’t just choose a slightly different colour or model, you would have to go back into the upstairs maze to find the details you needed – at this point, that was not an option!

Another consideration - delivery from Ikea Brooklyn to Manhattan is $100. Could we pay for what we had, and order the others for them to be delivered together – No. Could we pay and you store what had taken us 5 hours to put on our trolleys until we came back for the others – No. Could we order online what was not in stock. Only limited pieces are available online. And any delivery ordered online is $2/pound, which could easily be $200+ for the pieces we had remaining.

I have to point out also, I don’t think we saw a friendly or helpful staff member. I mean it must really suck to work there because they were all miserable. The friendliest people were the delivery guys, but that is outsourced to another company. One poor customer we saw in the warehouse section had been collecting multiple trolleys of flat packs. Obviously shopping on his own, he went to collect something leaving 2 other full trolleys up against a display. When he returned they had been removed and all the stock was being put away! Knowing how long he must have been there already, I nearly cried for him…

As our day turned into night, we decided to take what we had as otherwise it would have been a total waste of a day. Our experience was extended further when the sofa we had to collect from another window after check out arrived and was the wrong one. It was 9.10pm. Can you swap it? No, you need to go (and queue) to the returns window and process an exchange. The returns window was suppose to close at 9. Before we exploded, they did allow us to process our exchange and we managed to get out of there - relationship in tact!

Would I go back? Well, I can’t quite believe it myself but the next weekend we did. As we thought about it during the week, we really wanted to get the pieces that we missed out on so we went back with a plan. This time we were wiser.

Lesson learned – go early, beat the crowds and access the stock they have brought down from the massive shelves overnight. Lucky we did, with 2 of the items, only 2 were available, ½ hour later and they could have been gone.

I’ve decided it’s a love/hate thing people have for IKEA - while people dread going there, they go because it’s cheap. I think the sheer number of people that pass through there everyday means that they don’t need to care about their customer service. Shame on them.

Author notes:

1. My rant is over, but it feels good to have shared it!
2. This relates to my experience at IKEA in Brooklyn, NY.
3. Prior to writing this blog I did write to customer service at IKEA to explain our displeasure – it would have been nice to receive complimentary delivery the second time round. Surprise surprise, there has been no response.

Different to Home

Ever since my first experience in NY, leaving JFK in a taxi that has a touch screen tv for the passenger seat full of useful information, news and entertainment, I knew this city was going to be nothing like what I was used to.  Sensory overload.  I thought I would keep a record to share with you the little things that are so different here and when all added up make me really feel a million miles from home.

• Taps turn different way
• Keys turn opposite way to open/lock
• light switches are up for on and down for off (seriously!)
• Food portions are huge
• A can of coke is $1, cheaper than water which can be up to $6 in bars/restaurants
• Bagels for sale everywhere including most street corners
• They don't know what a toasted sandwich is.  Toasting something means warming in an oven.
• Tampons are generally applicator only
• The chocolate kind of sucks - my favourite so far is Hersheys Cookies and Crème.  Apparently they have Mars Bars here, but I've not found where...
• Spanish is almost as common as English
• The Ben and Jerry's rocks - I'm still working my way through flavours I'd never heard of.  Really is worthy of own blog, stay tuned!
• Bacon - is only what we call the rind and is best served really really crispy.  By chance we found some 'Canadian Bacon' hidden at the back of a supermarket which is more what we are used to but at $9 for 5 pieces it is a weekend treat.
• Still sorting out the phone numbers - sometimes you put a 1 in front, sometimes you don't, very trial and error.  I asked the locals who couldn''t explain it, they just learn to know when you use a 1.
• Banking - checks are still common way to pay for bills etc
• Cell phones - you get charged to receive texts and calls by the min
• They call it ham, but we really know it as spam

Lastly,  the environment - huh??
I've never considered myself to be a 'greenie' but I guess in Australia we have slowly changed our ways to be subconsciously aware of certain environmental issues.  Water conservation. Recycling. Phasing out supermarket plastic bags.  In Manhattan, an island of 8 million people there is no such consciousness.  A plastic bag (usually twice the size of what you are carrying) is given away for every purchase, even the smallest toiletry, a can of drink or sandwich for lunch.  Clearly no need for water conservation, where we were living in the East Village, the taps had to run for 5 mins before the hot water reached us.  And recycling is few and far between.  At my office in Sydney I was used to recycled paper, double sided printing, and recycling bins at every desk.  The office I'm in now has one recycling bin near the printer that I think I'm the only one who uses it (it is conveniently placed behind my desk) and the amount of one sided printing frightens me - maybe I am a closet greenie!

I am trying my best to embrace these differences, not to complain but it has been really difficult... I guess when I stop noticing these things I will have become a true local - there's clearly a long way to go yet!