Parklife

Another run in Central Park and we happened to stop and notice this guy just lurking in the undergrowth. We started running again as he started moving closer to us. He looked hungry!

Survival of Serena

Down in SoHo yesterday we stopped by to see this sculpture I'd seen on the news.

Nearly seven foot tall, made from bronze but with over 100 layers of paint, it was so realistic, even the droplets of water looked real. 

Stuff

Delays on the paperwork as I went to the health clinic in Brooklyn to get my required Varicella (chicken pox) vaccination (for free) only to be told they don't give it to over 18's.

So I'll have to go back to the doctors that told me to go there in the first place, and get them to do it for the $100 they said it would be at theirs.

But I do have a social security number and a working bank account so am getting there!

Something I've learned as a newcomer to cats is that if you find the cat(s) sitting staring at something then it probably means there's a mouse or in this case a big bug somewhere around that area. There are no poisonous beasties here though.... are there?

We have both entered the Army 10M race in Washington DC in October and this will be a good race to build towards, with the aim (probably weather dependent for me!) of putting in a respectable time. It's one Heather has done about five times previous and takes in some impressive sites including the Pentagon, crossing the Potomac River, Capitol Hill and the National Mall. The third largest 10M road race in the world apparently.

The laundry trip that took about 1 hour 40 mins out of my day was tempered by the fact I can walk back and forth in shorts, tee and sandals. Given the choice, I'd still prefer a washing machine in our own building. See, I'm not even saying our flat! Already I've seen that having your own machine is a REAL luxury item for apartments over here. As Heather continues to study, I am entrusted with folding the washing in my own particular style.... just.

Had a visit to Niketown. As they have the new contract for the NFL strips they had this pretty cool display in the main foyer including a tonne of white NFL footballs that they projected various images onto.

Finally if this link works then here are nearly all the various wedding day pictures.

Healthy Kidneys

Found out just before bed on Thursday night that one of our friends had to go to Boston at the weekend and was entered to run in the NYRR UAE Healthy Kidney 10K in Central Park on the Saturday. He said I could do it, all I had to do was pick up the race number on the Friday.

So I went to get the race packet when I was out at the doctors getting them to check all my vaccination paperwork. The UK doesn't vaccinate for chicken pox, or something like that, so I may have to get that here, they took a blood test to see if I'm immune, as I had no paperwork (or memory) to show I had already had it. Chi-ching £100 thanks.

Then at night we went to the Bowery Ballroom to see Rob Delaney, I reckon he's the funniest person I follow on Twitter.... and that's basically all I know about him. They did film the gig so maybe he has plans to release a dvd? The iPhone didn't take a good pic so here's the official one.

© Bowery Ballroom

We got home around 11.30pm and despite being in bed for midnight it was still touch and go whether I was going to run the next morning. But it's all still new & exciting to me, so of course I did!

From our house in Brooklyn to the corner of Central Park in Manhattan takes about an hour on the subway. Allowing extra time for the not-so-regular weekend trains and time to get my bearings at the race I left the house at 6.30am and got there with about 25mins to spare so had plenty time to check out my surroundings and runner/people watch. Didn't know how much time I'd have and the baggage area was 6 blocks north of the start so at least the weather was decent enough to just travel ready to run with a little SpiBelt to hold my MetroCard and keys.

Back of the tee

Sponsored by the United Arab Emirates there was big prize money, including $25,000 for 1st place so it attracted the USA's Marathon three man team for the London Olympics as well as some other top athletes. The winner, Daniele Meucci form Italy raced round in 28.28, ha ha.

© NYRR

There were just under 8000 competitors and I've never actually ran in a race with that many people for such a narrow roadway. If it wasn't for the fact it was all new to me racing a loop of Central Park, (in a clockwise direction), I don't know if I'd necessarily enjoy it, you really have to watch where you are for the entire race. Chopping your stride a few times to avoid running into people.

Putting my hand on some guys sweaty back as he ran in front of me and then decided to stop completely, without stepping of the course first. It really is just like the freeway driving!

My compartment syndrome in my shins has previously prevented me from partaking in pure road races at pace, but having switched to a lower shoe (Saucony Kinvara) and attempting more of a midfoot landing this has certainly helped reduce the pain, they got mildly sore within the first mile but never got any worse. Will be interesting to see how sore they are for the next few days though.

So "cruised" round comfortably-ish in 46mins, would have been a lot worse if 95% of the route wasn't shaded by trees. Even about 16° feels warm for me in a race, especially with all the concrete and so little wind. At least the walking afterwards heading to the 20°'s feels nice, no after-race sweats/jackets required!

©Brightroom

On the way to the subway in Manhattan I came across some filming for The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty. Heard the "Action" call and watched two guys run up the street while they filmed for 30secs before letting the traffic back through. Will now wait until 2013 and see whether that makes it in the film!

Interestingly, there was no medal today, not that I'm bothered, but they did hand out bagels at the finish.... soooo New York. 

Bagels everywhere

Well, I said the driving here was abysmal.

Getting ready to go for a run yesterday and heard a bang out the front. Looked out the window and this Bagel Delight van had crashed into the tree directly outside our building's front door!

These old trees are hardy though and there's nothing left but a couple of slash marks. The van's bonnet, or should I say, hood, was smashed up causing the tire to flat.

When I left 5mins later for my run, the houses next door have little porches/stoops and oooh, the neighbourhood was all out in force, ha ha.

Aside from mechanical error, how can you crash into a tree on a one-way straight road? Luckily it was late afternoon, every other time of day there are cars parked both sides.

Just as well I didn't leave 5mins earlier. I don't know if it would've been scarier with or without my headphones on!

Sadly, the only thing missing from this story is the road full of helpless bagels with their cream cheese innards splattered all over the road.

Just another manic Monday

The weekend in the hotel may have been somewhat relaxing but Monday was another full-on day.

Up at the back of 6am to head back out to JFK to pick up Heather's cousin who was on a 12 hour layover from the Dominican Republic back to Portland. Rather than sit in the airport we thought he could use a walk around DUMBO (down under the Brooklyn Bridge) after he had been up all night :-)

Had a wander through the really leafy brownstone area of Brooklyn Heights, past the area where Gabriel Byrne has his house in the second series of In Treatment (that only I watch?). Actually, Heather's cousin Sergio watches it as he is doing psychology at Uni, in between playing basketball for a living and they made them some episodes as part of his course.

Then down onto the area overlooking the ongoing redevelopment of the piers on the Brooklyn side of the East River, looking across to Manhattan.

Looking across to Manhattan

Then you can walk along and come out under the Brooklyn Bridge area. This was the original intended location for our quickie marriage ceremony until we discovered it cost $400 for a permit.

Since last year there has been this big carousel situated there, and it would make for some great photographs if we could come back at night when the area is all lit up.

Jane's Carousel

It was Heather's birthday on Monday and although the overall feeling was kinda lost amongst all the busy stuff we did, including dropping her cousin back at the airport mid afternoon, it just happened that back in March she had registered us for two tickets to the taping of The Colbert Report!

This guy AND this girl!

So into Manhattan we went and queued up for nearly two hours to get into the studio. They only had an audience of about 100 or so, and we were given instruction by some "super" enthusiastic staffers on making noise, laughing loud, etc. "We can't hear smiles on the tv, people".

They have a comedian to warm the audience up for nearly 30mins and he was really funny and interacts a lot with the audience particularly when learning there were two (separate) people from Iraq in the crowd.

It was interesting to see how the studio and cameras and stuff all worked and as the show is pre-taped to go out later that night, how they make last minute script changes during the breaks and how they re-shoot a couple of the video comments to substitute for the previous ones.

Monday May 7th episode if you can find it

We didn't get out until about 9.30pm an hadn't eaten for ages so we had dinner at a local Afghanistan restaurant. Ironically, only in the USA (or, maybe only in NYC) can I spend a night in the company of Iraqis and Afghanis!

So again, a long and tiring but fun-filled day.

I'm still waiting to see whether when I get employment I'll get to have some kind of regular daily/weekly schedule? I think I might spontaneously combust if this is actually the regular NYC way to live life.

Vacation?

Thanks to our friends Stephen & Kim, we spent the weekend in the TriBeCa neighbourhood of Manhattan as we "redeemed" their wedding gift! A short stay in a very, very nice hotel, The Greenwich. It's Robert De Niro's hotel (one of them?) and one of the top 10 NYC hotels on Tripadvisor. There were Robert De Niro films on every channel on the tv.... not quite.

© The Greenwich Hotel

Even just taking one bag each and being away from our house from about 11am on Saturday to about 2pm Sunday felt like a mini-holiday, mainly as it was in parts of Manhattan we don't know that well.

It was nice to have a wander round a different area, especially as Tribeca still has a few cobbled streets, old, almost British style houses and lots of (mostly converted) loft buildings leftover from the textile years... as I read in the hotel.

The room on the 5th floor was super comfortable and airy with a great window ledge you could sit on and and watch the world below in action.

The staff were super nice and dressed quite casually but this added to the homely feel for such a posh hotel (at least compared to what I'm used to). The free snacky snacks and various mini bar juices always help!

It's complimentary... can you resist?

We used the hotel's location near the west side of lower Manhattan to go for a quick run round the piers. This area is really nice as it's been heavily redeveloped since 9/11 with things like a skate park, mini golf, various playgrounds, boat docks and the westside greenway bike path.

Back in the hotel heading to the lift we passed four girls all dolled up heading out for their Saturday night in town. We both had a little snigger when we overheard one say to the others "now, are we getting a cab or walking, it's two blocks". You know you have more money than sense when that's even a thought in your head.

As part of the trip we also had $100 spa vouchers to redeem. Once we had scanned the spa menu and seen that massages and treatments were priced around $200-300 we decided on the 30min detox bath, costing $95 (plus tip!).

© The Greenwich Hotel

The water was so hot it took a good run of the cold tap before we could even delicately get in. The room was Japanese style and super relaxing with the jingly jangly chirpy bird music in the background.

Once we'd cold showered and recovered sufficiently we headed downstairs to eat.

The attached Locanda Verde restaurant gets excellent reviews and as a result was fully booked but they served the same menu in the hotel courtyard which had some heaters up and was super quiet compared to the main restaurant.

© The Greenwich Hotel

We were told the specials and the Rib Eye steak for two sounded superb.

This turned out to be possibly the tastiest steak I've ever eaten and had about six slices, two end chunks, two other longer pieces with the burnt crunchy edges and one piece on the bone.

Suffice to say, we had to get about a quarter of it "to go".

We tried to guess the price when the bill came based on the fact the chicken for two was $25 per person but we were just a little off. The total for the steak was $115, ha ha.

That's not including the starter, drinks and lemon tarte to finish and tip. But when we added in the free hotel stay, spa and all the hotel room sweets and juice we consumed, the meal was justified in our heads and we returned to our room happy... although not before taking a 30min walk. B-l-o-a-t-e-d.

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In other news, we went to the Brooklyn SS offices last week and I expect to get my social security number during the coming week. Now I have to book a doctors appointment to get them to verify my vaccination reports from the UK before I can file the adjustment of status paperwork and pay another $1000+ in what is hopefully the last load of paperwork on the journey to becoming classed as a resident instead of the conditional resident I am now.
This includes filing the paperwork that allows you to work until you get your actual green card in hand. So the honeymoon period will most definitely be over and I'll be fine tuning my resume, learning how to spell words with z's instead of s's and o's instead of ou's, etc and firing out those job contact emails I arrived with.... before getting a job in McDonalds. Although I hear dog walking pays $25 an hour.

Tuesday night run

Ventured into the city (as they call it) for a couple of errands and took our running stuff with us. One of the running stores at Columbus Circle, at the corner of Central Park, has boxes to store bags etc for runners heading out for a run in the park.

Enjoyed a 55min run around Central Park which included a few stops for photos as I've never seen all the park as there are so many paths and hidden sections.

Who knew there were statues to both Walter Scott and Rabbie Burns, both made by a sculptor from Aberdeen!

The bard... in the park

Also stopped at Cleopatra's Needle (erected in 1881) with the Met Museum in the background.

If only I'd made a point (geddit) of seeing the London one, then along with the Paris one we visited in 2009, I'd have had the trifecta.

Cleopatra's Needle

There is also a cool castle type building (Belvedere Castle) surrounded by an area known as Shakespeare's Garden.

No clouds, and the moon

I also raced around the reservoir dirt path in 11mins as I felt quite good, ha ha.

The view back across the reservoir

Then jog walked back, trying to make a mental note of the location of the softer dirt path I could see for future running. The road loop we started on is always busy, there are cars cutting through between 3pm and 7pm, overtaking the tourist horse carriages on one side and fighting with the cyclists for space. So if running at that time, it feels better to get off the main road and onto the smaller paths.