NFL sunday

This weekend was busy with a 6am work shift on the back of about four hours sleep but on Sunday I finally got to attend my first NFL game. Heather's cousin plays for the San Diego Chargers and ever since he signed on at the beginning of this season I had scouted the fixture list and marked down the 23rd in my diary as they came to town (actually 18 miles away in New Jersey) to play the New York Jets.

We managed to get three tickets and invited one of our friends (that has a car!) while her husband and two of their friends came along after picking up tickets online. Normally the games are hard to get tickets for but as the Jets are doing so poorly and it's the end of (their) season they got some online the day before. So at halftime we switched seats to sit all together too.

Three tickets and wristbands to get into the family meet and greet the players tent afterwards.

It was also my first time on a yellow schoolbus as we didn't buy a prepaid parking permit to park in the stadium grounds and so followed the non-permit signs to a couple of miles away and got the shuttle (school)bus there. Got to see all the Jets fans tailgating in the car park with their BBQ's and drinking away.
If you look closely in this picture you can see some have just laid the BBQ coals directly onto the pavement.

Walking to the stadium there was already a sense of a more loud, had a drink type fan than I've experienced at the baseball or other sports I've been to here.

The heavily sponsored Metlife stadium, we entered through the Pepsi gate.
I am still just awaiting delivery of my winter clothes so this was the warmest clothing I could muster, combined with my handwarmers and hat it was just enough although I did need the blanket our friends took as once the sun went down it got really cold just like Pittodrie, ha ha.
Luckily the game wasn't Saturday as that was the coldest day since I've been here as the winds were strong and really cut right through you, much more than back home.

Sunny but cold

Unfortunately we just got in as the game kicked off and before we found our way up to our seats the Chargers returned a punt to score in the opening minutes! I just got over to the back of the first level of seating to see the big-screen replay and them kick the extra point.

View from the posh seats

View from our (free!) seats

You get a good view from anywhere though, we were higher up but you could see more of the player movement etc although the Jets in particular were really really poor. It was funny listening to the fans moan as they got called for a couple of penalties and especially the really stupid one for a player not signalling to fair catch a punt correctly, a rare in-game penalty that the fans were laughing in disbelief. The other crowd spectacle was listening the them chant "ass..hole, ass..hole......" to some guy who was escorted from the crowd by security for upsetting the fans around him in some way.
There still was very little bad language compared to football back home, amazing considering they are downing beer from glass bottles too!

Heather's cousin 88 in action

The ladies arrive at halftime with my food

Wishing I had a heated seat like the players

Action shot

Ffffffreeeeezing at the end

The 'luxury' post-game tent

Dante Rosario and Heather with our gift of some baby clothes for their recent new born. There were about 40-odd people, friends and family, waiting in the tent for a handful of players to see them while they're in NY. A couple of players came in wearing sweatpants and hoody, the rest were dressed as above or jeans and jumper but one guy was so funny as he was in a suit, diamond stud earings and a full length fur coat, apparently made from chinchilla fur..... as he stood eating the same battered chicken and fries we had at halftime.

It's Christmas

On Saturday afternoon we took a trip to Rockefeller Centre to check out their famous Christmas tree. I didn't force her, but Heather had never seen the tree in the ten years she has lived here, probably because locals hate touristy crowds!
And it was completely mobbed around the whole area and walking down 5th Avenue, where a couple of luxury retailers were using projectors to display Christmas scenes on the side of the buildings thus making people take up the whole sidewalk while they stood and watched. Damn tourists.

Radio City Music Hall

The Rockefeller Tree

Cleaning the rink

People watching the projections

We walked down to Bryant Park to see some of the Christmas market stalls and they have an ice rink set up on what is normally the lawn.

In other news, I have occasionally been cycling to work when I have been starting late morning, leaving my bike there, and then cycling home when I've been finishing the early shift while it was still daylight so I could get used to the route. After a few times I felt confident enough to tackle it in the dark armed with my super new bike lights (good work discount) and then having layed everything out the night before I cycled in just after 5am one morning.

I stopped on the Manhattan Bridge at about 5.20am to take a picture as there is a water tower that is unusually covered in a stained glass type material and in the dark it was lit up and flickering away as if there was a candle inside.
You can tell you work in a healthy workplace when out of the 8 or 9 staff that started work at 6am that day, at least three of us cycled in!

Columbus Circle

A couple of Sundays ago on a foggy winters morning we went up to the Columbus Circle monument at the south west corner of Central Park to see a free exhibition, Discovering Columbus.
This is what the monument normally looks like:

A Japanese artist (Tatzu Nishi) had turned this into a living room with the statue in the centre of the room!

Even after seeing all the scaffolding surrounding the monument and climbing the steps, when you stepped inside it was so weird to think this was the top of that statue you see so many times when we visit Central Park for a run.

With the misty morning there were some good views from the door when we exited too.

Upon leaving, we also spotted another random piece of metal down one of the streets so we photographed that too.

And as Heather went home I headed north to Van Cortland Park again to do another cross country but a 15K course this time. I wasn't looking forward to it that much and it took all my energy not to head home with Heather but once I got going I really enjoyed it. Back home doing any kind of hill race I am decidedly middle of the pack when it comes to descending (albeit steeper hills that this) but here I was passing, flying past, everyone else until the very end when I must have caught up with a couple of guys my pace.

In other work related news I am still getting used to the hours. Deciding which ones I like (or hate) most, ha ha. The shifts run for 8½ hours with two 15 minute breaks and one 30 minute break. All other time is literally spent on my feet and with a lot of warehouse type work reaching for shoes and on some days unpacking footwear and hats, gloves & sock boxes it is quite tiring work. When you throw in a typical really busy Saturday or Sunday and (occasionally Mondays) it can be pretty hard going and warm through the back of the storeroom!
The shops staff hours run from 6am to 9.30pm or even a few upcoming 10.30pm's when we open late until 10pm in the run up to Christmas and therefore I have worked a variety of shifts:

6am to 2.30pm shift - getting up at 4.40am which isn't early morning, it's the middle of the night has got easier and this shift passes the quickest and allows me to cycle home in the daylight but with limited sleep the night before and surrounded by other working days means I feel like falling asleep by 5pm.
1.00pm to 9.30pm shift - the later start means you can run an errand or go for a run beforehand but it also means I'm not home until about 10.20pm and you don't feel like eating that late and going straight to bed but I'm often hungry for a snack as it's difficult to eat a full 'normal' evening meal in 30mins and be able to move about comfortably afterwards.
There are some in between shifts too and as I'm classified as part time I have had two or three days off per week but I did just work seven days in a row, all various shifts and by the time it was the last day of those I really was just destroyed and shuffling about but as I said before at this moment I'll take anything as I need cash money $$$.

Last week I was also the victim of credit card fraud. I got an alert after $300 was debited and it was from some website in Florida. Probably not connected but it's still weird that unless you select 'debit' and key in your pin it goes through as credit and you have to sign the slips where nobody ever checks the signature on the back, EVER.

My first Thanksgiving

Thursday November 22nd was my very first Thanksgiving here. I started the day at 9am with a couple of thousand runners doing a 5 Mile race in Prospect park, one of many "Turkey Trots" going on around the USA.

 
Then straight home, showered and we raced off to Grand Central Station where we took a Metro North train about 70 miles north to the Connecticut border where some of Heather's friends have a lakeside house and had invited some friends for dinner. By the way, $49 for two return tickets shows why the trains are used so much here too.

Due to the time of year and lack of foliage the journey was quite cool, being able to see some more American towns and scenery. Some of the roadside rocks reminded me of the Inverness to Aviemore drive.

We got picked up from the station. The town had a nice little clock that when I showed Steve, he said made it look like something from Back to the Future, ha ha.

Ball Pond lake was quite small with houses of varying sizes dotted all around.

Looking across to where the house was

We had a wander down the garden to the water and I took a panoramic photo showing their nice little jetty. I hope to be invited back there in the summer so I can make use of their canoe.

Heather and I had a wander along the road while the cooks were busy and some of the houses were quite ridiculously large and a few had their Christmas decorations up already.

Then back for the main event:

Most of the food is just like our Christmas meal. Turkey, stuffing, sweet potato but in some nice bourbon sauce, brussels sprouts etc. It was more the desserts that were a first for me, pecan pie and a sweet potato pie that was actually really nice.
The company was interesting. As the owner was Heather's piano teacher when she grew up in Hawaii, their friends were slightly older too. I'll have to wait for next year to take part in the traditional television viewing of the NFL Thanksgiving games as this crowd were more into theatre, ha ha. But everyone was super nice and as usual there is always someone eager to tell you about their Scottish ancestry, which normally happens to sound more like Ireland instead.
The tiring part was the train home, getting to sleep around 2am and then going in for work the next day which was the infamous shopping day Black Friday and was incredibly busy for a few hours.

Fred Lebow XC

Now that it's into Winter it's cross country season and I spotted a 5K XC away up in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. In the true tradition of cross country it was only $15 to enter so on November 18th we set off on a 1 hour and 45 minute journey for a race that lasted under 22 minutes!
With weekend subway work this meant a shuttle bus to the nearest subway stop that was open and then three separate trains all the way up to 242nd street, the furthest north I have set foot in New York City.

There was a field of about 250 and the course was some grass then some gravel paths up through some little hills. It was only 7 degrees but sunny and little wind, maybe with some rain it would've been a bit more like proper cross country conditions but I did enjoy competing in shorts and t-shirt in the middle of November!

The small field made a nice change from the thousands that have been in most of the other races I've done here. Maybe it was the location, the fact it was cross country or the fact for your $15 you get... a cup of water at the finish. Excellent.
Souvenirs are nice but when it costs $50 to run a local 5K it kinda makes you think twice entering.

I'm working!

After receiving my work permit a couple of weeks ago I had been looking and applying for a couple of jobs. Heather had suggested getting back in touch with the REI store, the one I had to turn down the job offer a few weeks ago, to see if they had any openings. I resisted because they had nothing showing on their website but after about 10 days of reminders I left a voicemail.
And Heather LOVES telling this story of how the guy called back that day and told me they were really busy and did in fact need to take on board some more part time staff and could I start tomorrow! So November 9th was my first day of work in the USA.

REI is an outdoor sports store. The SoHo store in NYC is in the Puck Building which was apparently the exterior for something in Will & Grace but more known for it's initial use as a printing works and REI has kept the original large water wheel and stone lithographs on the exposed brick walls which is pretty cool for visitors. The store is set over three floors but I am limited to the footwear department, ha ha. They have different zones so footwear covers that along with hats, gloves and socks.

One of the biggest benefits is that it is "only" a 40 minute commute involving no train transfers. I must be used to being a New Yorker when I consider 40 minutes good, especially compared to my previous under 10 minute commute back home in Scotland.

REI is national and also a co-op, so we are expected to sell their memberships which are actually a good purchase being only $20 for a lifetime of discounts. The staff seem super nice and obviously outdoorsy and cover all different ages. The customers have been nice enough so far with a massive variety what with the store location and being in NYC there are lots of tourists. I've served a few from Australia, a few people that recently visited Scotland, one guy that worked with Simple Minds in the 80's, one guy that played the Trump golf course in Aberdeen in August and the usual characters that love to chat.... for 30 minutes, exactly like The Running Shop, except I just don't recognise these people yet in order to avoid them.

The parts I'm finding it harder to adjust to are the hours. Different shifts such as 8am to 4.30pm and then this week some later ones such as 1.30pm to 9.30pm. I don't enjoy the getting home late.
And this week especially on Black Friday and the Thanksgiving Saturday weekend it was so busy for some parts that it's difficult to do anything other than get and give shoes to customers. Certainly not the one-to-one running shoe analysis that I'm used to

.....but then I got a paycheck!!

So close yet so far

After the postponement of the Brooklyn Nets basketball first ever home regular season game during the week the rescheduled game went ahead on Saturday.

One of Heather's friends was coming into Brooklyn from New Jersey to see her and we went out for dinner. Her husband is French and his parents and cousin just happened to be visiting from France and they all had tickets for this game which was cheaper as it was against poorer opposition and would initially have been game two of the season so they got real lucky with that!
So we met her outside the stadium and in a funny situation I got to travel on a subway and stand outside while all the fans piled into the arena for the game.... while we met and went for a burger.

Then I got to stand outside the arena and watch the last minute of the game on the giant scoreboard which you can see from outside due the the sunken design of the court and see all the fans exit while we waited for her family to come out.

They all had their "I was there for opening night" t-shirts on and I got to see the issue No.1 Marvel comic style programme before handing it back :-(

Pretty cool but kinda disappointing to be so close to this (I'm guessing) historic action but yet to be standing literally watching from the outside!

The Aftermath

A couple of days after Hurricane Sandy, they restored power to parts of the subway. For us, this meant we could get to downtown Brooklyn by subway and then catch a shuttle bus into Manhattan. For once, I was glad I wasn't working yet and Heather's work had no power so at least we didn't have to join the rush hour(s) commute as apparently the long lines for buses and time spent in congested traffic meant some people were saying allow up to FOUR hours to get into Manhattan from Brooklyn.

©Brownstoner

©Brownstoner

We waited until Friday mi-morning and ventured into Manhattan to visit the New York Marathon Expo. Apart from the buses being packed to capacity there was no real wait and they had separated bus lanes across the bridges purely for these buses so we moved reasonably quick.

The Expo was massive and rammed with runners from all over the world and although neither if us were taking part it was still good to wander the stands and sample the giveaways!

To get home we decided to catch a regular bus further downtown and then we got off and ran down the west side a little and along Canal Street through Chinatown. This was all in the area of Manhattan still without power and as this particular street is normally one of the most congested at all times of the day and night it was spooky to see it eerily quiet. There were only a couple of tourist gift shops  using the available daylight to open.

We ran over the Manhattan Bridge and then once back in Brooklyn hopped on the subway home.
Something else I'm not used to is being in an apartment where you have no control over the heat in the building. We can't really complain considering the situation of so many people in NY & NJ, but our heating is not on yet so it is freezing inside our apartment, I've never worn so much clothing to bed before!

As the MTA carried on with their cleanup they posted some photos and this one taken around the South Street Seaport area shows how high the water level reached.

©MTA

And then there were the photos of all the garage forecourts and the stories of people waiting hours for gas both in cars and with gas cans.

Even after the buildup of people commenting (negatively) on the fact that the New York Marathon was still going ahead it was still a shock to hear it was cancelled especially after we just came back from the Expo that day and with the vast majority of runners already here or on their way.

In the end, the amount of negative publicity (mainly online) that the Marathon organisers and runners themselves were receiving forced them (Mayor Bloomberg) into cancelling the race at that very very late stage. I'm not going to comment on some of the frankly stupid comments some people (obviously non-runners) were making but in the end nearly 1000 runners turned up at the Staten Island ferry to go over and help out there on race day. While A few thousand also turned up at Central Park and did various distances in the park also raising money for the Red Cross and no doubt their own charities.

©Saucony