Things I've learnt

So a few things I've noticed over the last couple of weeks:

Drivers around New York do not use their signals. This seems to be so much worse than back home. The worst is on the expressways with three or four lanes and cars just flying from lane to lane all over the place. With everyone driving so close too it's like a cycling peloton, everything is fine as long as nobody hits the brakes or goes down.
For the couple of times we've been on those roads going back and forth to the airports I've already seen a smashed up car in an accident on one of the expressway exits.

 

That the reason the roads through town are three or four lanes wide is that they need one lane to park in beside the kerb and another lane to double park in! You know, when you're just nipping into shops, delivering stuff, etc and then you've got the other lane(s) to move into when those vehicles pulls out (without signalling).

A sunny cold light breezy 10˚ morning temperature is not the same as a 10˚sunny cold light breezy 10˚ morning temperature back in Aberdeen!! I certainly don't miss that North-East wind when going for a morning run. Although I now realise I've not to put so much clothing on.

If I do ANY form of exercise that is not "normal" for me I ache for the next few days (well, I already knew this). Goalkeeping has left me with some strained chest muscles and achy wrists, triceps and quads. It's not old age, I'm just sensitive!

I miss the radio on in the background during the day. For mostly (new) music but also for news. I rarely read the news online but might have to as the limited tv channels we have are either rarely on or are purely centered on New York news only.  It's very easy to avoid all football results (if I stay off twitter) and I've manged to watch the highlights on Match of the Day2 three days after the games were played without knowing the scores! I even woke up at 7am on Wednesday morning (after getting to bed at 1.30am) in order to watch the Barcelona/Chelsea highlights as we were out the previous day when it was on.

I'm glad we have cats. One was crouching down beside the oven. We pulled the oven back and a tiny mouse ran back under the oven. Tis truly a different world I'm in now. A few spiders were the most I had to deal with previously.

That it really is a small world. We went out with Byron on his last day and were having lunch in a small cafe in SoHo. Just as we left he bumped into a friend who was just coming into the same place. The friend was also from Portland and she was just here with work for a few days! What are the chances that two people from nearly 3000 miles away would bump into each other in a city of over 8M people. When you think of factors like going to the bathroom before leaving or her cab getting lost on the way there meaning we just happened to be literally exiting the place as she walked in. Pretty amazing I think.

That I do enjoy the wide availability of cherry flavoured diet soda drinks such as Diet Pepsi Cherry and Diet Dr Pepper Cherry.

 That even though this could've been a stupid comment from anywhere in the world it didn't help dispel the American stereotype of not knowing what goes on outside your country. At the baseball in the row behind us some guys were chatting non-stop (loudly), as is the deal here. Then a guy called Ronaldo from Brazil and another friend turned up, so they began quizzing Ronaldo on various things. This included asking Ronaldo "do you guys get YouTube in Brazil" and "Is Facebook big in Brazil". Classic! One step short of asking if they get the internet in Brazil.

Is it a bird.....

This morning, the Space Shuttle Enterprise was flown on the back of the NASA jumbo jet from DC up to JFK in New York before it goes onto the deck of the Intrepid on the Hudson in a few weeks as an exhibit at their air & space museum.

The flight timetable given was a bit approx so rather than travelling and hanging around lower Manhattan we decided just to follow the news on twitter instead. As it was supposed to come back around for a second loop we climbed the fire escape up onto our roof.

Literally as we stood up and said how long will we wait (it is pretty cold and windy today) I said well what's that there?

Ha ha, it was right there flying past the Statue of Liberty and back up the Hudson.

Heather's 18x camera zoom in effect again (click the pics to see the detail):

Meet the Mets

Just a few pics from out and about on Tuesday. Heather's brothers last day so we wandered Soho, looked through a tiny door in a bigger door, oh, a cemetery!

Outside

Inside

Still doing our touristy stuff but it makes for long days. Out of the house for breakfast, into the city, few hours of walking, some random street sightings

some random shopping sights

then lunch. Then more walking, revisited the Highline - the elevated old railway line gardens

 

then all the way up to Central Park to visit Strawberry Fields the John Lennon memorial

back to Columbus Circle for a quick pitstop. The Tribeca film festival is on so there's a few events dotted about the city and we happened to see them waiting for some celebs or something.

 Couldn't wait as it was out to Queens for a Mets baseball game.

Get that marching band out there

Heather's camera has a good zoom!

CitiField stadium is superb and the pulled pork buns and frites are a shade better than the usual food on offer at a football game back in the UK. Unfortunately I don't have much luck seeing high scoring baseball games and despite a decent 8th inning Mets comeback win, I've seen two 2-1's and a 4-3 that took 15 innings to get to that score.

It's Mr Met, it's Mr Met.....

Thanks for coming

Then as we were coming back through Manhattan at about 11pm we stepped out for some street cart halal food then back home and asleep just after 1am. Then I woke up at 7am to watch the Champions League highlights! Knackered again. Should be getting back to normal now though after we took Byron to the airport on Wednesday morning.

The Monday after the day before

Had a relaxing wander about lower Manhattan today with Heather and her brother.

Diner brunch followed by a bit of sweet shopping and some local sights.

Flower on a museum

And into Tokyo Toys, I might start a collection of homies.

my homies

And some typical New York humour.

nice

Finished the day with the tastiest steamed buns I've ever eaten (I've eaten Japanese food once before I think) and some duck and some ramen. And my first taste of sake ever, it was alright actually.

I've drunk more alcohol in the last four days than I have in the last four years!

The Big Day

So the anticipated rainstorm arrived during the night but it was just drizzle in the morning.

Byron & Tom met up to visit the Brooklyn Museum but I thought it would be tight for time so instead I enjoyed a 37min run to get rid of last nights double cheeseburger.

But.... I then picked up the Monte Crisco from the bagel shop on my way back:

Yummmmmmm

But hey, I only ate half cause my new wedding shirt is a slim fit :-) That's one way to watch what you eat.

Heather met up with Sheryl for their own run around the park then later, being a modern man I helped arrange Heather's flowers for her while Sheryl did her hair.

Plumeria

Then we headed across to take shelter in the local coffee shop across from the park while we waited for everyone. Of course Byron & Tom were late back mainly because they don't know the area, Heather just about maintained her cool but I was just glad I didn't go with them!

By this time the rain was hammering it down, the good thing being the park was now empty.

We had our lovely little ceremony under a tree. I think we will find it even more memorable because of the weather and the way my new friends gathered around under their umbrellas.

Our paparazzi

 

Plus I guess we can both look forward to going through the park and running past "our" tree every once in a while.

I do!

The ceremony was really nice & personal, the Judge did a great little speech about love and marriage which was so good and we both just had to say our "I do's" do the kiss

and then a quick march over the road to the bar where the first task was to sign the marriage licence.

Sign it!

then more friends showed up and we had our drinks and food and cake!

The Double Windsor

One of the waitresses at the restaurant came and read a surprise email from Murdo, Anne and Steve, very sneaky but clever. And a stranger at the bar who got married two weeks ago wanted to share his joy and bought us both drinks too.

In true New York style our reception contained people with backgrounds from Scotland, England, various US states, Brazil, Colombia, Taiwan, China and probably more. Three Scots, a total of five Brits along with some typical UK weather helped make me feel at home!

Pablo was official photographer so there will be heaps of pics to follow soon.

Smile!

Too much sun

While my future wife spent time with her friend Sheryl, the boys went off for some tourist stuff.

The intended plan was to do the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island but the line was crazy long so we decided to head to the World Trade Centre memorial instead.

Then the sun came out and it got super hot and especially with the concrete all around I ended up getting sunburnt!! Jeez, I am sooooo white.

South Pool

Then we headed through the quietest mall in New York complete with recycled plastic chandelier and up the West Side greenway.

And then beginning to sound like some little kids..... we saw a statue

and some big boats

The Norwegian Jewel

and some boats with guns

The coastguard +

Then we met up, had some Shake Shack burgers & fries. Then Some Momofuku salted pistachio soft serve (ice cream type thingy) and back to Sheryl & Tom's hotel roof top patio for a couple of drinks.

Sheryl & Tom

Byron

Early riser

Today Heather's friends arrived at JFK from Portland and we hired a Zipcar to go pick them up. This meant being up at 5.30am, yawn.

(Motorway) Sunrise

But it did mean I got to see another part of Brooklyn that I've only seen in darkness before, when I've previously been heading to and from the airport.

Verrarzano Bridge

We had an hour left on the car so used the opportunity to head to Costco and I got to experience the amazing escalators that take the carts up and down to the next floor.

Woo hoo - Costco

Then later we did a little touristy stuff and walked the Brooklyn Bridge.

Brooklyn Bridge

The view

A quick visit near the Supreme Court for people interested in Law & Order... the tv show.

Supreme Court - Manhattan

Now off back in another hired car to pick up Heather's brother from JFK!

A normal day in NYC

Today we went to this place:

Office of the City Clerk

and went through the simple process of completing an online form then waiting just 5mins to go up to the counter and get our wedding licence.

 
Then uptown to pick up my wedding ring and back down to meet Heather's Judge who is doing the biz for us on Sunday. A very nice man, and as a lawyer, full of questions for me. He did pay for our lunch in the court canteen though, so that's okay.

While we were up picking up my ring, we passed Rockefeller Plaza and amazingly the rink is still up.

Then literally as I turned my back Alec Baldwin passed by me on his phone. 30 Rock is filmed there and we heard him mention talking to Tina on the phone, very cool.... if you watch the programme.

Went to the Greenwich Village (apparently I give my newcomer status away by not just calling it the village) and bought a steak and kidney pie and some baked beans from a UK grocery store ha ha.

Along with an appropriately humorous sticker you'll see in use at the wedding.

And although I only seen the back of his head, we then walked past Alan Rickman coming up out of the subway. I was distracted by the black trainers with fluorescent yellow laces his colleague was wearing, damn you running shop obsessions!

The first week

Greetings from New York.

Enjoyed my flight upgrade last Sunday through my BA points to the next class of travel and was pleasantly surprised to receive a menu and actual metal cutlery!

Plenty of bags......

but also plenty of leg room

Immigration was easy enough, handed folder to the guy and afterwards he directed me to a room filled with an African couple and a few Asians. A 20min or so wait and I was stamped and ready to leave.

Although I've been here enough times I'm still a long way from being a local!

The facial expression and the "really?" said by the airport guy after he received my original tip for the big baggage trolley he pulled to our car was the first sign that I still have a lot to learn. There are no prices, how is anybody supposed to know?

I have to get used to the lack of space in our new apartment. Heather did well to clear a whole dresser for me and although it took a while to unpack we're getting there!

Have to get used to new things like storage facilities (for winter clothing). At least the weather should be a bit more consistent. Hell, I've already been sweating in my shorts and tees in 22˚ weather. Sitting with the windows open past 9pm right now although it's supposed to cool down a bit for the next week at least.

So aside from family (ha ha) I am probably missing my regular tv & radio routines. Hopefully when we're employed we can get proper cable tv. I miss my tv sport so much :-(

Then again I'll need something to record tv as the "proper" sport is on at stupid times.

Was awake just before 8am on Saturday to find a stream of the Scottish and English cup semi-finals.

Couldn't get up in time to see the first half!

It will probably change when we get jobs (Heather hopefully will start her job in the next couple of weeks) but we've been going to sleep quite late especially as I've just arrived and when we're out and about.

For example we went to see Snow Patrol last Friday with a couple of Heather's friends (that I've met before) and both of their husbands are also Scottish!

© Heather Sina!

But afterwards Heather and I had a walk down to Times Square at midnight. If you're a local this is the one place you avoid like the plague so it made a change for her to be here.

Crazy busy for midnight and still some shops open!

Times Square

So when you add in the fact you need a drink and another bite to eat and the subway train and short walk home etc it's near 2am before you get to bed.

Saturday night a couple of Heather's friends organised a little hen night drink and eats for her so one of their husbands (he's English - I've yet to meet any actual Americans!) took me out for some food and a few hours of pool. So I didn't get home and into bed until nearly 3am.

Now for the fun part!

Before I left, I had entered a little duathlon in the local park, a 20K bike ride and a 5K run.

The trouble with these New York events, I guess to get the park while it's quiet and partly for weather reasons in summer, is that they start super early.

So out of bed I rolled at 6.30am, a slice of toast and cycled the 5mins to the park. Once outside I felt fine and wow, I wish I had my tri-bars (was on a borrowed bike) as the park loop has the smoothest roads I've ever cycled on.

Was a good event, even the weather was getting a little warm for me by the end (salty lips) and probably as it was a smaller event for New York I finished 27th out of about 190.

Not bad for a very tiring week and less than 4 hours sleep the night before. Of course I was then shattered by about 4pm.

Great freebie post-race snacks, and a pre-race pack, of course supplied Brooklyn style in a green recycle tote bag. Maybe the best quality finishers medal I've ever got too. Feel the quality of that ribbon.... nice!

Brooklyn Bun, like Bike & Run, geddit?

Other than that, I have made enquiries about a phone, was trying to get a sim for my iPhone but might have to wait until I get my social security number as they seemed to require that for setting up a monthly plan. But I did manage to open a bank account earlier today. Progress!

Totally different to the UK in that a lot of small shops and some restaurants only take cash so you tend to use more cash than in the UK where I use my debt card for everything. But the trouble is you get charged a fee for withdrawing money from any ATM that doesn't belong to your bank!

So I went with one of the banks that has a tonne of ATM's including one in all the Duane Reade chemists you see on nearly every street.

Then we went to Katz Deli for lunch. Heather had never been so once she checked that there wasn't a line of tourists waiting outside it was deemed safe to eat. The pastrami tasted a million times better than the couple of times I've had that in a pack from Sainsburys.

4 seats from Where Harry Met Sally