The quickest way to blow $22

Rockefeller Center New York
Originally uploaded by Meesy

Order a beer and a dark & stormy at the Rockefeller Center Cafe. Sheesh. Never again. Lucky my $1 muffin for breakfast is balancing out these foolish tourist trap blowouts.

where the hell is Curacao?

Justin and I intend to find out. I do believe this is my first visit to a place with a cedilla in its spelling.

True to form, and inspired by Fi and Steve's adventurous travel destinations, Jus and I had to plan what we were going to do over our 4 day Thanksgiving holiday. Its not long enough to travel far away or 'do' a place thoroughly, its certainly long enough to get out of town and really unwind, and its bad enough weather at that time of the year to make us flee somewhere warm. And we wanted to go somewhere neither of us had been before. And it had to be cheap once we got there. And this was part of the bargain of living here: visit places that we would not normally consider. Or that I would likely have to visit for work. And it had to have cheap flights on a Oneworld airline and still have accommodation available during the busiest travel time in the US year.

So, Curacao it is. A tinsy Caribbean island in the Netherlands Antilles off the coast of Venezuela famed for its scuba diving. Is this where the liqueur comes from? Not sure. Is this the last time we will be warm until May? Quite possibly. Is this kind of reckless since we haven't even got a permanent place to live yet? Asbolutely! The next blog entry might be entitled 'where the hell are mia and jus gonna live?'

Summer Outing

Blog Shots 125
Originally uploaded by Meesy

Well it's traditional here for the firm to have a summer outing, and yesterday the agency jumped on buses and headed out to the set of Dirty Dancing, I mean New York Athletic Club in Pelham, for a day of sun, sport, swimming and socialising.

To prep us for the day everyone was given a towel, a water bottle, a mimosa and a swag of magazines. When we got there (think guest house from the The Shining without the maze) it was all you can eat games, bbq, tennis, frisbee and pool lounging with cocktails in hand. The English, Indians,Bangladeshis and Australians even got a game of cricket going.

I was a tad freaked at the prospect of being bikini'd in front of all my work colleagues and wondered whether people would actually be by the pool, but what was I thinking? This is America and it seemed that nobody cared about that awful prospect, and people went for it. So I flopped in a banana lounge, played a game of Scrabble (there are disciples everywhere) and sipped on dark & stormies til it was time for karaoke.

The highlight? For lunchtime dessert they brought out 5 types of pie, plus cheesecake, chocolate cake and brownies. And me having the sense to refrain from singing Billy Idol's White Wedding as my karaoke pick.

Mia the petrol head

Work has shifted focus to a new client: Ford Motor Company. I'm working on an upgrade to their Sync My Ride site, as vehicles with this new voice activated technology will be rolling off the production lines in a few months. Its a cool service where you can issue commands to the car and your media players in a Star Trek, "computer, lower defense shields" kind of way.

I've learnt more about "vehicles" (not just cars, have to be mindful of SUVs, crossovers (which i thought were SUVs) and trucks (utes)) in the last 3 weeks than my entire 33 years put together. I can now talk trim levels, dealer experiences, and models, which comes in handy not an inch in my car-free new existence here. I've learnt that, despite the horrendous traffic I witness every day and the snaking freeways and highways that clot the countryside, New York does not have a car culture because people here don't drive to work and are the highest public transport users in the country (fair enough). "There are 3 types of cars here," someone at work said, "yellow ones, black ones, and ones with flashing lights." California is car country, for example, because people drive everywhere.

I've also been highly amused at the way certain car, sorry vehicle, brands are pronounced here. And I've had to adopt these prononciations otherwise people look at me like I'm a freak:

• Jaguar = jagwah
• Hyundai = hundeye
• Mazda = mahzdah
• Nissan = kneesan

So I sit in meetings and decipher sentences like "But Joe Meatball isn't gunna trade in his kneesan for a Focus SEL front wheel drive with Sync just cos he's gunna drive from the beltway to the I90 5 mins faster unless we make this dead easy. are you feeling me?"

C and the e train

C and the e train
Originally uploaded by Meesy

Jus getting used to the subway already, zipping around town like a professional. He has no jetlag - hasn't been out of wack at all - and has been working full 8 hour days like a trouper, or a workaholic, or someone who runs their own business. Me, I was dribbling with fatigue every afternoon for a week, with jet lag. Must be the same part of him that never gets sick and doesn't get hangovers.

Houston, we have a husband

Just in the nick of time for our wedding anniversary today, Jus flew into town on Sunday night. We celebrated with Veuve as he rifled through the I Heart New York kit I had prepared for him. Then we promptly went to a local diner for a hamburger, fries and lemonade and collapsed in a heap.

Last night he got a fix of Mexican and reality TV, while he set up his home office. Yep, we're living the American dream already!

Monopoly Mania

I was searching for Monopoly money this week (one of the sophisticated tools I use at work) and thought I would have a look on the FAO Schwarz toy store site as the first port of call. Well, that was stupid. It was like looking for a single plant tie at Bunnings. You would not believe the number of special edition Monopoly sets here. To wit:

• Atlant Braves Collectors Editioon


• Boston Red Sox Collectors Edition


• Cardinals 2006 World Series Championship Ed


• Detroit Tigers


• Disney Pixar Collectors - fight over being Woody or Buzz!


• Elvis - you can own Graceland!


• Family Guy


• Fantastic Four


• Golf Signature Holes


• Houston Astros NLCS


• I Love Lucy California Here We Come Edition - buy, sell and trade hilarious episodes!


• James Bond 007 - be Odd Job's bowler hat!


• John Deere - be a a L110 Lawn & Garden Tractor (this is for real)


• Las Vegas - tokens include playing cards, wedding chapel, roulette wheel, poker chips, slot machine, showgirl


• Lord of the Rings


• Major League Baseball


• Monopoly - The Mega edition - 3 dice, 9 new properties, and more starting money. Mwwa hahahahah


• Monolpoly First Edition - 1935 style


• My Fantasy Baseball Players edition


• My MLB Edition


• Nascar


• New York CityMonopoly


• NY Giants Collectors Edition


• New York Jets


• New York Mets


• New York Yankees


• Night Sky Edition - be the Hubble space telescope!


• Nintendo Collectors Edition


• Nostalgia Monopokly


• Pirates of thre Caribbean Monoploy


• San Francisco Giants


• Sesame Street


• Shrek Collectors Edition


• Snoopy


• Superman Returns


• The Simpson's Treehouse of Horror - glow in the dark tokens

I guess it makes sense that this celebration of capitalism is a franchise gone mad, selling out left, right and centre.

Microsoftees, Microserfs, whatever

Well, Avenue A Razorfish officially became part of Microsoft on Monday, when the acquisition went through. In true Razorfish style we celebrated with a party: balloons fell from above, Billecart was served, they gave away X-Boxes and Zunes and then played the Microsoft sonic brand signature (sound logo) over the speakers full bore, for comedy.

There have been a lot of jokes about having to wear chinos and chambray shirts to the office, and not to drink the Kool Aid, as these two disparate cultures contact. All the Mac designers are cagey, and Tech is concerned that eventually they'll have to restrict solutions to MS platforms but we've been assured we have nothing to fear.

I'm not concerned in the slightest. Razorfish will be kept at arm's length and we just go about our business as before. I'm not even used to Razorfish or New York or living alone yet, so what's a bit more change in Change City? Rock with it, then roll with it, as my dance instructor, Tweetie, says.

Things I learnt this week:

• Joe Meatball - aka Average Joe
• Straphangers - public transport users
• The MTA is cleaning up the subway system focusing particularly on the bad smells. 'bout time. Otheriwse would have to start wandering around with a lavender hanky like its the 17th century.

OMG BFF

If you want to know what it feels like to be a teenage girl right now, check out Flip.com. Its a site where you can put together a kind of scrapbook (called a 'flipbook') and set it to music. I felt like I stepped back in time as I read poems, musings about boys, photos of sleepovers and clumsy attempts at fashion posted by hundreds of US teenagers. Such a fun tool for teen girls' self-expression. If I was 15 I would love this. Luckily I have many other avenues of pointless fun.

2 sleeps til Jus gets here.

Thank god for yoga

Luddite Hipsters
Originally uploaded by Bob Maynard

Restored my balance through 1.5 hours of sweating, stretching and gasping for air. My arms were shaking and the mat was sticking to me by the end of it, but ah, the sweet sensation of muscle soreness after a solid workout. Today I can barely walk.
When you visit a new studio or have a new instructor yoga can take on a completely different experience. During the 5 minute relxation and breathing exercise at the end I almost laughed, as the instructor's soft voice and gentle words competed with police sirens, taxis honking and the general hullabaloo of New York's city streets. Usually the yoga class competes with the clang of weights being dropped in the gym, or music from a body pump class. But here, you're trying to destress in a noisy busy epicentre. Its testament to the 'power of the breath' that you can actually achieve a certain zen, despite it all.
I'm thrilled that the studio is 2 mins walk from work, so I've bought a 10 class thingo and I'm gonna go for it.
(Pic care of Bob from Florida, who is lucky enough still to be in posession of his iPhone.)

4 more sleeps til Jus gets here

F1020008.jpg
Originally uploaded by Meesy

Off to a yoga class tonight to distract myself from Scrubs and Will & Grace (its like I only have 2 channels on my telly, instead of 1000+) and to get some exercise happening. Have been doing nothing except walking to work and the odd dance class, and I'm starting to feel like boneless chicken nuggets.
Which reminds me that KFC have started to market 'boneless chicken wings'. You can actually get a Boneless Variety Bucket. Mmm mmm. Some finger lickin' science fiction. Straight out of Oryx & Crake.

well i'm finally on Facebook...

...but I'm not sure how many of these virtual identities I can support. I'll end up spending so much time online updating my various profiles that I'll have no extra-curricular activity to update them with.

Facebook's applications are compelling though. I just spent an hour trolling through a world map clicking all the places I've been, for the thrill of it, and because Trip Advisor made it so easy. There are so many little widgets and tools that each need an hour to configure...I can see how time just slips by on this thing.

Interesting pics people post as their profile shot. Just as fascinating as the avatar images.

Anyway, 'friend me', or whatever the term is to invite me to be another notch on your Facebook belt ;)

Guapo alert

My pal, Shivani, blew into town on Friday night for the weekend, fresh from a Contiki 9-countries-in-10-days tour of Europe and a week in London. She's packing a lot of luggage on a 3 month holiday, and we managed to find some additional items to squeeze in after wandering around Soho and dinting our respective credit cards big time. I convinced her to buy some rad (there's no other word) Burberry gum boots, which all the fashionistas wear on their way to work here when it rains. She's going to be the most stylish thing in Melbourne's puddles when she returns home.

We changed gears, changed gear and met up with Simon to head to a contemporary art museum called PS1, an offshoot of MoMA, that holds a dance event called Warm Up on Saturday afternoons during summer. They have DJs and everyone sips beer and dances in the sculpture garden. It was suprisingly fabulous: people were really getting into the house music in a novel drug-free way. The whole thing is over by 9pm.
Shiv's trip so far has focused on collecting photos of hot guys "guapo" and getting friends to pose ostensibily to take the picture of the hot dude a metre to the right. It was full of the best looking people I've seen in one afternoon, so as you can imagine there was a lot of photo posing. Shiv talked our way into the VIP section where we could dance with space and free drinkie poos, and take unobstructed photos of guapos in the crowd below. Check the photos on Flickr.

We caught the train back to the Lower East Side and had dinner (one of those dinners where you don't really remember eating because its 10pm and you're 3 wines and 3 beers in) then Shiv got in a taxi to get some sleep (this is when I should have made an exit also) and Simon and I went out for a boogie in a sweaty little gay dance club (that was quite an education. i have now seen frottage in action, for example), which ended up with me in a cab mourning my iFriend.

Today has been tres low key (I haven't left the apartment yet and its 7pm) and I need to eat some fruit & vegetables to get rid of that awful feeling that I have trashed my body and am too old to do so. When will I learn that particular lesson?

This time next week Jus will be in my arms once more :)

On no, my iPhone got stolen!

The irony is that earlier in the day I took a photo of a street art poster declaring 'oh no i lost my iPhone'. And then someone helped themselves to mine. It was in my bag in a bar and when I popped to the loo I forgot to take the bag with me. Or I may have left it in a taxi. (I called taxi lost property and apparently last night "Nothing was handed in, in the whole city." Amazing: can you really imagine in a city this size that nobody forgot something in a back of taxi?)

This supports my theory that nothing worthwhile happens after 4am on a night out. I should have been tucked in bed. Stupido! Expensive mistake :( and I was in love, too.

So the Filofax is back. Perhaps its was seeking revenge and plotted this all along.

I think I'll save up and get another phone once we have a new apartment and friggin contents insurance.

7 days til Justin comes!

One of these things is not the like other...

Those lobbyists pack a powerful punch here. There is no messaging on the cigarette packets, no lurid photos...and all of the quit campaigns are funded by charities and non-profits, not the government. Though you can't smoke anywhere inside, which is one step in the right direction.

One thing I've noticed with outdoor advertising here is that there are many billboards that are completely in Spanish. Whole subway carriages will carry an ad campaign for say, Budweiser, and all the ads are en espanol. Spanish truly is the second language of this country, though a lot of senators seem to be in denial about it. My Coffeebreak Spanish podcast lessons continue, though slowly. Hasta luego, amigos.

Lunch heaven

I have discovered a blog that is all about lunch options in Midtown, called, wait for it, Midtown Lunch. A guy dedicates his lunchtimes to visiting every street stand, cafe, hole in the wall, restaurant and everything in between to report on where its worthwhile filling your tum in your lunch hour.

Today I ventured into a very Tokyo place, full of Japanese=good sign, where I got a salmon bento box for $6, and happily discovered that they have the cutesy, ends-cut-off ribbon sandwiches and choux pastry that Jus and I fell in love with earlier this year.

Most lunch times I have been visitng the local halal street vendor cart where I get 'chicken rice salad' for $4. It's huge and hot and tasty. There are street vendors selling hot dogs which you'd be familiar with, but you can also get giant pretzels, baguettes, curry, ribs, cakes & bagels, nuts, ices, gyros, wraps...pretty much anything. I don't know the halal dudes cook chicken in the sun on an open griddle without everyone getting Bali belly, but so far so good. Did I mention its $4? Ripper Rita.

Next door to the office, and coincidentally next door to my apartment, is a 24-hour mega cafe called Cafe Duke that serves everything you could ever want for lunch. The first time I went in there, with Bob from Flordia, we span around like children in a candy store oohing and aahing. You can get wraps, panninis, bagels, sandwiches made fresh or ready to go, udon, ramen and pho, sushi, pizzas, salads made fresh or ready to go or from a DIY salad bar, bain maries full of hot stuff like mashed potato, turkey, noodles, ribs, chicken, roasted broccoli, bok choy, any drink you can think of, any chocolate, cake, pastry, muffin, icecream you can think of, there's a carvery, burritos and quesadillas, burgers...the choice is overwhelming. It has all the options of a food court but in one restaurant.

Having it close to my apartment is dangerous as they have oversized cupcakes, with cute frosting that lures me to relive childhood birthday party bingeing.

The point of doormen

Apparently when it snows they shovel snow but apart from that I'm not sure what their purpose on earth is. Mum can testify to this.

Sometimes (read: when they're bored) they get up from behind their counters and spin the door for you (why do they have so many spinny doors here?), which is maybe useful if you have a broken arm or the strength of Mr Burns.

But then, when you are most likely to need their help , when you're laden down with groceries, or trying to hail a cab in the rain, or need to leave something at the desk for someone to pick up, suddenly they are very busy with their clipboards, or having loud conversations about building politics or the handymen and janitors who don't do their jobs properly.

My building is 21 floors, and over 1000 people live there. You have to say hello to them every time you leave and enter the building, and they give you a vacuous smile and you know they have no idea who you are. They tell you off when delivery dudes don't do as they are told in reception and ask you to order your food from another place in the future (you have to be kidding!). And you tip them at Christmas time.

I'm jack of 'em.

A weekend in the Hamptons

Ben, an old pal of my friend from work, Simon, (who worked at Optus with Freya - small world!) was kind enough to invite me out to his play pen in East Quogue in the Hamptons, the NY equiavelent of the Mornington Peninsula basically.

It was divine to swim, lay in the sun, and meet a whole bunch of French people (Ben's from Brittany), eat distinctly un-American food (all you can eat moules, chevre, and real bread!) drink rose and embrace a European sensibility for 5 minutes. I even ventured a few words of French after several wines.

The house was the classic Hampton's limewashed pad, which slept 16, had a tennis court and pool and was fitted out entirely in Ikea. (That must have been one helluva shopping trip. Fun!)

We went out on Ben's roommate's boat and I attempted to wakeboard and water ski, both of which i was completely unco at. The water was suprisingly, deliciously, warm, because we were in a bay, so I didn't mind spending most of time waiting for the boat to circle back to me after a spectacular crash. I pulled leg and arm muscles left, right and centre, and today, still, I can't grip a pencil properly and am limping. Its nothing like kneeboarding, which spells the extent of my being-dragged-behind-a-boat skills!

I couldn't have asked for a more restfful, rejuvenating weekend to recover from my my dash back to Australia and the shocking head cold that resulted from 50 hours on planes. (You should have seen the stuff coming out of my sinus. Flashbacks of Nam, Jus...) More photos on Flickr.

Mini me

I didn't see her face but I bet she was cute :)

Steam pipe, schmeam pipe

A few have asked 'where were you?', 'did you hear it?', 'did you see it?' when the steam pipe explosed several weeks ago, causing traffic chaos, injuring quite a few people and causing someone to have a heart attack and die, I imagine, from fright.

I didn't know about it until later that night when I was at my Scrabble thing and someone mentioned it, and I looked up the news on my iPhone (see how all the posts are tying together?). I realised I had heard the explosion, but I had thought it was thunder because it was a stormy day and there had been rolling thunder throughout the afternoon.

Steam coming out of the street is no strange occurrence here. It seeps out of cracks in the bitumen, there are orange tubes channelling it in some streets and vapours are constantly wafting up from the manhole covers. The photos above were from my walk to work this morning in Midtown.

I like to think that under the city is this crazy mix of the toxic water pipes from Batman Begins, the pink pulsing plasma that thrives on evil from Ghostbusters, ancient rusting steam pipes that melt people from The Bone Collector and molten lava from Dante's Peak.

Lawn Closed. The grass is drying after recent rainfall.

It rained 2.5 inches in 2 hours early this morning when i was tucked up in bed (actually more like peeling off sweaty sheets, the humdity is insane). There was lightning and thunder, so loud and so close that I actually got scared for a second and allowed myself to wonder whether I would stop to find my passport and 'if you don't have one you may as well not exist' social security card etc if I had to run out of the building as it started to burn.

The morning news was 100% weather: trains from Long Island and New Jersey coming into Grand Central were cancelled due to flooding on the tracks, trees came down in streets in Brooklyn, 5 subway lines weren't running due to flooding on the tracks, cars were being stranded in waist deep water in Newark where the streets became rivers. Someone died!

Commuters were stranded and got in their cars, which clogged up all the beltways/parkways/turnpikes, and flights were delayed for hours due to storms. People surged to the bus stops, spilling off sidewalks trying to jostle onto packed buses, while officials recommended people avoid the subway system (which transports millions of people into the city each day.) Then the Mass Transit Authority website crashed, as people were trying to find alternative transport options.

I was meeting Natalie for lunch today but she's stuck in Brooklyn because none of her local subways are running. Women are wearing wellington boots to work. The city has almost come to a sweaty, puddly, sticky stop. There is talk that NYC is due for a hurricane: they do come this way apparently, there hasn't been one for 70 years and the city has stockpiles of food and first aid supplies ready to go. If 2.5 inches of rain can cause this much mayhem, then a hurricane would turn this place into Thunderdome.

We deliver anywhere

I just remembered as I paid my Chinese takeout guy who has been banned from the building now for leaning his bike against the doors and infuriating the doorman...the other week when I went to see an outdoor film in Bryant Park there were people picknicking who ordered delivery to their rug. There were delivery dudes, tiptoeing through the crowd of thousands, on their mobile phones being talked in, plastic bag swinging. I couldn't believe they would take that order.

BTW my favourite TV commercial at the moment starts, "Obsessing over celebrity is wrong. Unless that celebrity is bacon." Its an ad for Wendy's. Hee hee.

You'll never guess where I've been

I've had a very fast, surreal 4 days.

I got on a plane on Saturday night and winged my way home to Perth, via LA and Melbourne, to attend my nanna's funeral. After all the times nanna had been there for me and welcomed me into her home every time I was in Perth, it was the least I could do to be there and bid her farewell from this life.

I went from the airport straight to my grandparents' house, where my mum and aunt were staying. They had no idea I was coming (I'd only told Jus and Allan that I was going to come) and my uncle happeneded to be there when I arrived. There was lots of clutching of chests and hugs when I rolled out of the taxi in pouring rain, bags in tow. They were shocked to see me but glad I made the effort.

Jus flew in from Melbourne at 2am (no rest for the wicked) and it was bliss to see him again after 2 months apart. Instant solace. We whisper-talked for a couple of hours before falling asleep (although by this time it was the middle of the day for my bodyclock).

Nanna's service was marvellous: mum was the MC and gave an overview of nanna's life and remembered her as a wondeful mother, their 'soft place to land'. Sue, Jan and Graeme also spoke, and painted a picture of nanna that went beyond her roles as wife and mother. I left the service with a new appreciation of her, and missed her even more. I also went to the burial, something I had never experienced before. Its so confronting to watch the casket being lowered into the ground: its so final. There's no return from that. Nanna and grandad are buried together and I like that there will always be somewhere to visit them.

There were signs from nanna and grandad that they were around. On Tuesday night, after the funeral, the family went to a restaurant for a low key wake. It was quiet and empty in the restaurant, with some soft musak playing. Just the tempo we needed. Graeme mentioned how he had asked nanna to give him a sign of some sort if there was some kind of afterlife, and she has promised she would, and he was waiting for a sign. The next song that played in the restaurant was 'Moon River', which was a favourite of my grandparents, and a song that we had played at nanna's funeral earlier that day, and at my grandad's funeral a few months ago. We all sat stunned. I think Graeme got his answer.

Janine and Mum also mentioned that 'Moon River' and 'Far Away Places' played on the radio in the room when nanna was dying. 'Far Away Places' is an old Bing Crosby song that my grandad's mother had made a vocal recording of, and it was played at my grandfather's funeral. (Bing Crosby was his favourite singer.)

I also think nanna visited me when she died. Last Wednesday night I was typing away on my laptop at home, around midnight, when my TV and DVR spontaneously turned on. I sat there, spooked, staring at the TV, hands floating above my keyboard trying not to get freaked out. I noticed it was around midnight, and I had to talk to myself out loud saying 'its just a power surge or something' and promptly shut down my PC and went to bed. This is just the type of thing you don't want to happen when you live by yourself! I found out at the funeral that nanna had died just after midday on Thursday, which is midnight Wednesday in New York.

I imagine some of you are raising your eyebrows at this, but anyone with a faint interest in the spirit world, anyone who's watched John Edwards or Medium even!, will know that these are the types of signs that dear departed ones can send to let you know they are there.

I'm looking forward to many more years of lights flickering and their favourite songs playing on the radio when we're reminiscing about them :)

I'm back in New York now. Its 34c, I'm guzzling VitC, and I have the attention span of a fly.