Archive for March, 2008

One Month On

{ March 26, 2008 @ 3:32 am } · { General }
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OK I know it’s been over a month but I couldn’t think of another title…

We’ve been here for nearly 6 weeks now, amazing how quickly time flies, and it’s all still going OK despite the odd attack of homesickness…

We’ve still yet to receive our sofa however, and the blow-up bed which we’ve been using as a substitute seems to have developed a puncture, which amazingly Alex managed to find. Thankfully we still have the fold up chairs our lovely landlord loaned us, and apparently our sofa should be here tomorrow…although they said it would be here last Wednesday too…

 Last week was the best week I’ve had here so far, there was a Search Marketing conference on in New York which a few of my ex colleagues attended so I managed to get out of the flat and have some fun. On Monday I met up with friends from Totaljobs; Jason, Nick and Dave and we had a few celebratory St Patricks Day drinks in an Irish bar, then on Tuesday Alex and I met up with the lovely Kate from RBI and we had many drinks and a weird curry (it’s very different here). It actually took me a couple of days to recover and I didn’t properly go back out until Saturday when Alex and I met up with Jason again and his brother in Williamsburg to watch more bands – Holy F**k and A Place to Bury Strangers.

Anyway – I haven’t blogged for a couple of weeks so instead of boring everyone with minute details I just thought I’d list some of the highlights…

Walking over Brooklyn Bridge
I’d read about doing this in one of my guide books and I’d really reccomend it – you get an amazing view of New York and the bridge itself is pretty amazing…I also visited Wall Street which apart from being heavily guarded,  has some pretty impressive buildings

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Finding Prospect Park
About 20 minutes away from our flat is an amazing park – almost twice the size of Hyde Park and the best thing is that they let you have BBQ’s in the summer and even provide grills for you to use.

Discovering Williamsburg
Many bars, gig venues and nice people – I will be spending much more time here! 

Finding out about KEXP radio
Seattle’s best radio station is now available in New York as of yesterday – YES! Not very interesting I know, but I’m finding the most boring things to be hugely exciting right now.

Drink, Drink and Be Merry – Part 1

{ March 26, 2008 @ 3:31 am } · { Drink, drink and be merry }
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I thought I’d do a post dedicated to my favourite kind of establishments – places that serve alcohol. As many of you know I am partial to a small tipple every now and again, so I thought why not write about good places that I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. At least that way I will remember them, and also use them to tempt visitors over (soon please, we miss you all!) Unfortunately the descriptions may not be all that good – alcohol kills brain cells and affects memory apparently,  plus I can’t remember everywhere I’ve been, and there have been some really good places.  Nevermind – here goes…

Fort Greene
First up I’ll start with the locals – luckily there are two bars within about 3 minutes of our flat…Rope and Vespa

Rope
Myrtle Ave
Fort Greene, Brooklyn
I love Rope, its definitely my kind of place – great jukebox, good selection of drinks including cocktails and ales and a really young, friendly crowd. Such a nice atmosphere and the bar staff were really friendly and the decor is great, this will definitely be a regular haunt over the next year. Oh yeah, and I hear that they let you grill your own food on a BBQ out the back in the summer…cool.

Vespa
Myrtle Ave
Fort Greene, Brooklyn
We visited this bar on a quiet Tuesday night and it was actually really pleasant. It was pretty empty but the bar staff and people in there seemed really friendly. The drinks were cheap, the music was good and we’d go back again although I’d rather go to Rope.

Park Slope 

Park Slope Ale House
356 Sixth Ave at 5th St,
Park Slope, Brooklyn 
We’d read a lot of great reviews about this place, especially the burgers, and we weren’t disappointed as the the food was great, and the service was really good too. The atmosphere was a lot more sophisticated than I’d imagined though, from the reviews I’d read I kind of expected a much younger crowd but was still pretty laid back. I think we’d go again, but just for the food and not a night out.  

Hmm, It’s quite difficult remembering all of them actually…I can’t remember the names of the ones I have been to in Williamsburg and I’ll post about Manahattan Bars another time, too much writing for one night I think!

Congratulations

{ March 26, 2008 @ 1:10 am } · { General }
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Alex and I would like to say a massive CONGRATULATIONS to Alex’s brother Loz and his fiancee Wendy on the arrival of their baby girl Nikki Gillian Ager who was born last Monday 17th March! We’re so happy for you both and we can’t wait to see you all in April! Love you loads xx

 Beautiful Baby Nikki     Happy Family

Save our Umbrellas

{ March 12, 2008 @ 1:53 am } · { General }
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The recent stormy weather has led to a disturbing amount of abandoned, broken umbrellas on the streets of Brooklyn. Just in the space of an hour last saturday evening we saw 15, yes 15 wrecked and discarded umbrellas which had been…

Carelessly run over….
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Dumped in bins….

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(there are 3 umbrellas in the above picture, there is one in the bin top left corner, just out of shot)

Abandoned near, on and over fences…

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Randomly discarded on the street…

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This baby umbrella was left at the bottom of our steps so we rescused him and will be hand rearing into a fully-grown adult

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  However, after all of our umbrella rescuing we realised something – we’d left our own brand-new umbrella lying on the floor in the pub…ooops

Vintage Queen of Cats

{ March 7, 2008 @ 3:18 am } · { General }
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So the week started off pretty boring – we’d been promised a Monday delivery for our bedroom furniture so I waited, and waited and waited..and well, it didn’t turn up. A phone call later determined that our order had in fact not been processed and so they’d ‘try’ to deliver on Thursday…we didn’t hold much hope. Tuesday was another uneventful day although we did go to the pub but I’m saving pubs for another post.

 I felt like going shopping for some vintage clothes on Weds and did a bit of research to find out best and cheapest place to go and turned out that there was a highly recommended, gigantic Salvation Army store up in Queens so off I went. It was pretty good, much bigger than I imagined, but I knew straight away I’d have to hunt for ages or be really lucky to find anything as it was a similar standard to UK charity shops – a mix of many recent years with the odd vintage gem. I spent about 2 1/2 hours rumaging and managed to find a few things so I was happy, even though Alex said my 60s coat looks like something a ‘granny’ would wear - I love it and I’m going to wear it every day to annoy him (I wrote that bit after he proof read this post ;)

What was a simple journey on the way to Queens turned out to be a nightmare on the way back (I have rarely managed to use the subway without getting it totally wrong since getting here). Instead of 2 trains back down into Brooklyn I somehow ended up going all the way into Manhattan, down through the middle and back over the river into Brooklyn and it took about an hour. Still, I didn’t really have anything better to do and it meant that I got a fantastic view of the adjacent Brooklyn Bridge as I travelled over the East River.

Today, Thursday, our shipment of personal items arrived from the UK and just as I was giving up hope of ever seeing our bedroom furniture it showed up so I was pretty happy. Starting to feel a bit more at home now that we have more than two borrowed fold up chairs and an ironing board (which we’re currently using as a table). Looking forward to our TV, sofa and dining table arriving next week - we’ll feel much more settled in then.

I have found a local animal shelter which is looking for volunteers to help brush and play with cats and I’m really excited about starting work there as I’m missing my cats terribly, and it will help with making some friends here hopefully. Well, as long as there are people there to make friends with and not just cats as that would be weird…I keep getting really excited when I see cats lately, trying to coax them over so I can stroke them (there are a lot of stray cats round here which is really sad). I’ll end up like my mum who walks around her Spanish village with a pack of stray dogs following her because she decides to feed them all every day.  

I’m glad the weekend is almost upon us as this means we shall be visiting more pubs. We’re going to be exploring the neighbourhood as there’s meant to be a lot of good pubs around and I shall write about them next week to try and encourage some visitors.

Until then, have a great weekend!

Heaven in a cupcake

{ March 3, 2008 @ 7:20 pm } · { Feed me! }
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Last Friday I had the immense pleasure of being taken to Magnolia, the Greenwich Village bakery made famous by Sex and the City – I was actually rendered speechless by the perfection of this tiny little cupcake…never before have I eaten a cake so light with such perfect vanilla icing…I have found my new addiction, expect me to be 2 stone heavier on my return to the UK.

So here we are…

{ March 3, 2008 @ 6:28 pm } · { General }
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Three weeks into our big New York adventure and, despite the initial nightmares (the loss of a couple of suitcases and trying to check into the wrong hotel, miles away from our actual accommodation), things are going pretty well!

Alex has been working and seems to be settling into the American office way of life…I’ve been on a few exploring expeditions but it has been pretty cold so I haven’t really done as much as I should have!

We have found an apartment and have been very lucky with our landlord – he is the most kind and helpful person who has done things like take Alex and I out for a meal and even provided us with a US mobile phone. The flat is located in the Fort Greene area of Brooklyn – a small, diverse, kitsch little neighbourhood with a large amount of young/arty residents. This is largely due to the presence of the Pratt Institue of Art (notable ex students include singer/songwriter Patti Smith, Disney animator Eric Goldberg and the guy who created the concept of the Pillsbury Doughboy!). Also nearby is the Steiner Studio where several major films have had scenes created, such as Spiderman but more importantly where they filmed parts of our favourite comedy – Flight of the Conchords! Add into the mix a seemingly never ending supply of bars and restuarants and it would seem that we have certainly found the ideal place for us to settle down for the next year.

The local architecture is amazing,  there are some beautiful buildings around and our apartment is a typical Browstone which is really common in Brooklyn…renowned for their large staircases from the pavement to the 2nd floor, these buildings have been popular with real estate developers who have renovated them, converted into flats and rented them out. This has assisted in the gentrification of many parts of Brooklyn, including Fort Greene.

 So overall, aside from missing our friends, family and cats we’re both really happy and looking forward to spending the rest of the year here. The next step is to make some friends and get some kind of social life!