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