BIRTHDAYS IN NEW YORK

A HOT JULY?

Tim and I were both born in July, which makes us winter babies.  Each year we celebrate our birthdays with family and friends in the not too cold Brisbane winter.  For us, birthdays are all about Splendour in the Grass (music festival) celebrations and enjoying the opportunity to wear our winter best for the two short months that it is actually cold enough to wear them.



Tim & I in our typical winter birthday attire



July in New York couldn't be more different, as it is the peak of summer.  It is weird to get your head around, but it is every bit as hot and humid in New York as it is in Australia.  How can a city that gets snow for six months of the year get so freaking warm?  The past couple of weeks have been between 90 - 100 degrees fahrenheit each day (approx mid to late 30's in celsius).  The main difference is that the peak of the heat is between 4pm and 7pm and not 11am and 3pm.  Here the sun doesn't set until 9pm, which means the heat continues to punish you well into the night thus making airconditioning a must for sleeping.

Us in New York - its too hot to wear anything
more than tank tops, shorts and raybans

Fortunately we have aircon in our little Chinatown pad.  The bad news is that the system is twenty years old, sounds like a small plane landing and uses copious amounts of electricity.  I kid you not, the cost to run airconditioning in our tiny one bedroom apartment is a whopping $200 per month.



The world's least energy efficient air conditioner



TIM'S BIRTHDAY
Breakfast - We kicked off the day with brekky at Fiat Cafe.  Our fellow tart, Dave discovered this local gem during his stay in NYC.  On more than one early morning visit, Dave was lucky enough to spot actor Gabriel Byrne.  Fiat Cafe, true to its name is adorned with pictures and ornamental baby bambino cars. 

The cover of the menu

Strangely it is one of the only cafes in our neighbourhood that opens before 9am.  The eggs benny at Fiat Cafe only cost $6.50 - wow!!!!  In fact, the eggs benedict and iced lattes were so good, we even went back for my birthday breakfast.

Cash only - no credit cards

Dinner - That night we went to Butter at Astor Place.  Both Tim & I are fortunate enough to have birthdays that fall during "Restaurant Week".  Twice a year, in January/February and June/July, there is a unique opportunity to experience some of New York City's finest restaurants for a fraction of the usual price. Throughout the city, restaurants participate in "Restaurant Week" where they offer a three-course lunch for $25 and dinner for $35. "Restaurant Week" is a great opportunity to try out a restaurant that may usually be out of your budget.



The main dining room where the back wall
is a glass image of a rainforest

The corridor leading into the main dining room



Weekend - Tim's birthday fell on a Wednesday this year so we kept it PG-13 on his actual birthday, then ripped it up with the rest of the NYC crew that weekend at the Bushwick Walkabout Festival.  Fellow Aussie Paul A told us about the Bushwick Walkabout.  For only $10 we got entry to the event and free beers and vodka until it ran out, which was about 8pm at night.  Bargain!!! 

The Bushwick Walkabout Festival was held at the Brooklyn Fireproof,
a large gallery and cafe/ bar space in Brooklyn http://www.brooklynfireproof.com/

Note the picture of Ayers Rock on the poster. 
Makes you think this is an Aussie festival, right?  Wrong.

Lucy & Paul



Tim, Yosie & Les

This is either Arpline or Grandchildren (I think)

1+1 = 2 but calling your festival a "Walkabout" and using a picture of Ayers Rock on your posters doesn't mean that the event is in anyway affiliated with Australia. The bands were local, the booze was american and the organizers were from Brooklyn.  Go figure!

The "tooth" incident - For those who don't already know the story... Tim and Les kicked on after the festival, with disastrous results.  After one too many free-pour shots Tim and Les were horsing around and a drunk hug combined with a poorly timed sip of beer resulted in Les loosing half of his front tooth.  To Les's credit, he remained freakishly calm in light of becoming a snaggletooth.



Oh ow spaghetti-o!
To this day Tim still doesn't remember doing this to Les.



Thanks to the talented team at the student dental college, Les's tooth
was fixed the next day and his dazzling smile was as good as new.



Bek's Birthday

The day - Mum and Dad, oh how I love thee!!!  Thanks to online shopping and the internet, your parents can spoil you just as much from the other side of the world as they can at home.  At 1030am I received a hamper containing fruit, cheeses, biscuits and of course chocolate and then at 2pm another delivery arrived, this time containing a dozen balloons including one that sings happy birthday.

My desk at work adorned with gifts from my parents &
my workmates from the Women's Prison Association.

 

My workmates spoiled me too.   They surprised me with flowers, Hershey's chocolate, a hand-made card and Pommes Frites for lunch.  Pommes Belgian Frites in the East Village is a NYC institution.  It stays open till 330am on weekends and sells nothing but hot chips.  They make up for the lack of variety in food items with what they offer in the way of sauces.  They sell over 30 different types of sauces and dressings, which range from vietnamese pineapple mayo to irish curry.  My favorites so far are wild mushroom mayo and ketchup (layered together). 

www.pommesfrites.ws/

The night - I had been itching to try out the tasty delights of Mexican Radio since we lived around the corner on Mulberry Street.  Mexican food is my favorite cuisine and I truly needed the frosty goodness of frozen margaritas on what ended up being the hottest July day in the last forty years.

www.mexrad.com/

Despite our stretched finances Tim still spoiled me too.  To supplement my extremely limited footwear wardrobe, Timbo bought me two new pairs of shoes.  Its hard to go from having access to forty different pairs of shoes at home to living on seven pairs here.   

Owww, sparkly!

I got into the bad habit of wearing haviianas to work (an office no no).
Now I am just as comfortable and fractionally more dressy.





JUST BECAUSE.....

Thank you to Mel B for gifting the most ingenious birthday present, in the most hilarious package.  Mel very generously purchased a years subscription to Time Out magazine which will be delivered to our apartment each month.  And being the graphic design goddess she is, she photo-shopped Tim & I into an image that was previously Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schreiber.  What more could a girl ask for after being given the body of Scarlett Johansson for her birthday?

What a dapper looking couple we make

IT'S GOOD TO BE GAY IN NEW YORK

AN IMPORTANT DAY IN HISTORY

A bill permitting same-sex marriage was passed by the New York state legislature yesterday (June 24).  This historic vote now makes gay marriage legal in the state of New York.  The bill was passed 33-to-29 votes shortly before midnight and the law will come into effect in 30 days.

THE MERMAID PARADE

June 21 was the first official day of Summer, but a few days beforehand we celebrated early at the annual Coney Island "Mermaid Parade".  http://www.coneyisland.com/mermaid.shtml

Thanks to Walt Disney every little girl dreams of being a mermaid.  For some, that dream never dies and once a year this dream becomes a reality.  There may be glitter where there should be scales and paper mache where there should be fishtails, but the participants put on a good show.  The simplest way to describe the Mermaid Parade is to think of the Sydney Mardi Gras, without the 6-packs abs.  Where Mardi Gras is mostly gay men, the Mermaid Parade is mostly women of all shapes and sizes.

Shirts are optional but everyone wears pasties and a smile.

Pretty in Pink



Kill Bill fish-heads



My favorite mermaid

Best-dressed couple

As a girl who sometimes suffers from her own body-image issues
(who doesn't right?), I would like to pay respect to all the curvaceous
mermaids who could teach me a lesson in body confidence.

Not to be outdone by the ladies, the gentlemen, although represented in smaller numbers made their presence known.  Dressing like a sea creature appeared optional for the lads, as most simply wore whatever fancy dress costumes they wanted.

Alice in Wonderland

Joan of Arc

Bubble Boy

The drummer wore an Aussie flag

Easily the best costume of the day.  Bumblebee was more sweaty than
meets the eye.  The poor guy had to keep stopping for water breaks.

JUST BECAUSE.....
We thought this poster really summed up the day well.

WELCOME TO CHINATOWN

It's a Small World After All

We may have only moved two blocks away, but turns out we have changed continents in the process.  Once you cross from Mulberry Street to Mott Street, beneath Grand, you leave Little Italy and enter Chinatown.

Making Our Money Go Further

Despite the smell, it is actually very handy being so close to all the fresh food markets in Chinatown.  Now that we aren't shopping at Wholefoods (expensive but delicious Organic Supermarket) we are actually saving approximately 1/3 in groceries.  Last week we purchased oranges, broccoli, lettuce, potatoes, capsicum & celery for the grand total of US $3.40.

And last weekend we discovered a great hangover cure - spicy noodle soup and steamed dumplings at "Excellent Dumpling House" on the corner of Lafayette and Canal Street.

Deciding on what to have for lunch is such
a difficult decision when the menu is 10 pages long

Like Stewie Griffin, we like it when there are
pictures of the food on the menu

Yum!  Spicy chicken noodle soup for only $4.95

Super-stars of Chinatown

As a way of embracing the culture, Tim & I have taken a keen interest in the singing super-stars of our neighbourhood.  These are all genuine performers with upcoming gigs.  Now we just have to decide which one to attend.

Father's Days concert

This is my absolute fav!
He looks like a Wiggle from outer space

Don't be mistaken.  These guys are not hairdressers, they are
Taiwanese Mandopop rock band FIR.  Checkout their smash hit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PqSFtPxVY8



Our local music and dvd store -
most of the selection are non-English speaking artists



Korean karaoke anyone?




Just because...
We finally found it.... Cool Hwhip.  Whilst gently rummaging thru the freezer at a house-party in Brooklyn we stumbled across Cool Whip, as seen in Family Guy.  This one is for you Viz.



You can't have pie without Cool Hwhip!
Watch the full clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lich59xsjik&feature=related

Cool Hwhip - with the emphasis on the hw

THE NEXT CHAPTER.....

Moving to New York - the how to guide

Step 1 - Travel to NYC on the 90-day visa waiver

Step 2 - Find jobs


http://www.wpaonline.org/



Step 3 - Fly to London to finalize your E3 working visas

as part of the visa process, Australian's who travel to the United States on the visa waiver must leave the country to re-apply for a new work visa (outside of US and Canadian borders)

Step 4 - Apply for social security numbers and the wait 6-8 weeks for Homeland Security to determine whether you are a threat to national security.  Does anyone else think this is redundant considering our work visas have already been approved and we are living on US soil? 

Step 5 - Find the perfect NYC apartment

Our bedroom door adorned with Tim's favorite New York sites:
Brooklyn Bridge, Flatiron Building & the Chrysler  Building

Step 6 - Breathe.... then pinch yourself because this is actually happening

It's hard to believe that all the little pieces to our New York puzzle are finally coming together.  It certainly hasn't been easy though and given the opportunity to do it all again with the knowledge of how hard it is..... we might still be at home with our beloved family & friends.

What's That Smell?
We found a sweet little 1-bedder in Chinatown only one block from our beloved Mulberry Street pad.  Apartment is cutely furnished and even shares some visual similarities to our Bowen Terrace place that we rented from Bec D.  However like everything in New York the apartment is rustic (a.k.a. old) , needs a little love and alot of cleaning.  We actually think this is the bermuda triangle for dust in New York.... somehow it all ends up here.  Apart from that it is pretty much perfect except for....... what's that smell?

Living in Chinatown has plenty of perks; cheap eats, an easy walk to the Lower East Side or the East Village where all the best bars are, an even easier walk to Soho where the best shopping is and I don't have to ride the subway to work because I can walk there in 25 minutes.  That said, there is one significant downside to living on a busy Chinatown block above authentic food markets..... if the food market below you sells seafood your apartment building smells like fish.  That said, our actual apartment is fine and fish-free however the stairwell is staaaaaaaaanky!!!

Yukky!!!  They sell live toads downstairs.

Casa Daley-Pak

Mum's The Word
No-one can fix things better than your Mum!  Tim & I were both feeling a little out of sorts because we were homeless and were starting to feel the pangs of home-sickness when Mummy P came to the rescue.  Mum came armed with a bag full of aussie treats; Tim Tams, Lipton Teas, Dove Tanning Moisturiser, macadamia nuts, Scotch Finger biscuits, garlic & horseradish tablets (they don't sell these here), applicator-free tampons (see previous blog), and of course Vegemite. 

I am so proud of my Mum who equipped with her ipad 2 navigated this city like an old hat and accomplished more in 10 days than most people do here in a year. 




Walking the streets of Williamsburg

Drag Queen Bingo



Priscilla Queen of the Desert Broadway show
Are we starting to see a theme here?

Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village
Bob Dylan had his first gig in New York here

State of Origin - Game 1 was played live at 6am
at The Australian Bar near Times Square



So much shopping at Century 21

It was a shame that our Mum's schedules clashed and they couldn't have come together.  They both share an intense passion for shopping, sightseeing and spoiling us.  Miriam and Jo start saving for your next trips together - we miss you both so much already!


Just because....
Remember the hilarious collection of images that circulated on the internet a few years ago of funny unintentional penis-shaped images?  Chances are Sam B sent you this email.

Well Tim found this bridge in London.  Unfortunately it was the wrong time of day to get the shadow, but it was definitely the same place.