Jetlag ....

Where has the six months gone? Got back to NY from my Australia trip on Saturday, and was immediately faced by my smugness. Jetlag. My rather superior words to friends about "oh-ho, jetlag, yes, I don't really suffer from that, you know, I might wake up at 3am, but I just go straight back to sleep!" And unfortunately I had made a number of such comments to a wide audience only a month ago after my HK trip (which involved flying on Friday morning NY-HK and back three days later. With a 23 hour flight time (including connections) and a 12 hour time difference, that is a trip with jetlag written all over it). So I made a number of smug pronounciations like - "not really sure what this jetlag thing is all about" and "well, I never have a problem sleeping". Hmmm, that has all just been disproved.
I arrived into JFK on Saturday night after the 24 hour flight from Melbourne, my lovely driver met me and took me to the apartment. I headed out to Wholefoods for milk etc, stayed up until about 11pm local time, and went to bed confident and smug... and lay confidently and smugly staring at the ceiling until 5am unable to sleep. I did drop off at about 6:30am (which conincidentally is 10:30pm in Melbourne) but then my alarm went off at 7:30am for the last trip to Woodbury Common. I lay there feeling rotten for about 10 minutes, but couldn't miss my last chance to head out on the Shortline bus, so dragged myself to the shower and up to the Port Authority. It was worth it - I staggered back with bags a short time later - power shopping.
Back in Manhattan I went and spent more money at Old Navy - everything is on sale for Thanksgiving weekend, and at two singlet tops for USD10, how can you not? Particularly when the BBC news today was explaining to me how weak the dollar is... But how I am to ship all of this stuff back to London this week? I need a personal sherpa I think - or mules I believe they call them when they fly? (only kidding! It is only clothes, shoes and cosmetics that are my vices!)
So after a day of power shopping, I was sleepy at 9pm, and thought yippee, back to normal, last night was just an aberration. Oh no it wasn't, as I discovered at 3:47am when I woke up, and then stared at the ceiling until 6:30am smugly and confidently wondering WHY I had jetlag...
So I headed down to gym and punished myself for a while before heading to work. And last night - I slept! Don't know if it was the gym, don't know if it was a 48 hour jetlag that had run its course, maybe it wasn't jetlag at all, perhaps I had a virus (ha ha), but glad it is over. Of course I still have it all to do again later this week.
So what exciting things do I have to report on this week? Well, I have been noticing more of the advertisements in the subway trains. They really are the lowest of the low - advertising costs must be REALLY cheap. They vary from offers of training and schooling (all of which specify they habla espanol), to lots of book reviews (my current favourite is for some reverend who has nine steps to resolving problems - these involve finding a relevant passage in the bible, believing it, embracing it, and having faith that God WILL Answer ....), to drop in centres for bunion removal. Lovely. At least I only have a few stops to go!
Otherwise, well, what else? The television advertisements are not getting any better, although I do like the Lexmark one, where all the printers head off to work with the office workers, riding on escalators and catching lifts etc. Very cute. Otherwise it is all just adverts for food, food, and more food... plus the usual drug ones - incontinence is a BIG issue in America is all I can say...
It has been a lovely time to be away though - although I missed the Thanksgiving festivities, I have come back for Christmas preparations - there are huge aprkly Christmas trees everywhere, and lights strung on the normal trees. Around the corner from me on Sixth Avenue there is a stand selling real Christmas trees which are all lovely and plump and green (would they last until Christmas though??). There is a beautiful Christmas scene in the office building foyer, which replaces the pumpkins and wagons that were there for Halloween (not sure if I missed the Turkey tableau or not!). So I feel very festive, and this is always my favourite month of the year in any case.
Anyway, enough rambling, I will put up the final post tomorrow (sniff), before heading home to pack up. I am leaving my packing until the last minute to see if the ruthlessness will kick in - I have accumulated so much stuff in 6 months that I really do need my own sherpa!

Robbie Williams let me down ...

... yep, there were a few songs of Robbie's that I actually quite like - mainly stuff post 2001, and pre-2005, and not on a whole album basis, but enough to just buy his most recent Rudebox album without checking on the samples first. What a waste of money - if anyone would like a very slightly used CD, please apply here. It is rubbish - Robbie the rapper, and he is not very good at it. The lyrics are self serving and maudlin, and I would guess that KFed raps better than Robbie. It is utter tripe and I hope it does very badly for Robbie for presuming he can inflict such trash on people. Phew, that is enough of that. Luckily enough I did get some other CDs which were very satisfying, and will be entering the permanent collection, to make up for the disappointment. Robbie really was so bad I was almost nauseous.
Now I have a few other dilemmas to deal with. I have acquired quite a few books whilst here which I am not taking back to the UK, and now have to try to find some sort of donation place for those (as well as one Robbie CD) and also a lot of clothes that will not be making the trip back. Easier said than done in Manhattan I think, but any suggestions gratefully received - I refuse to throw things away particularly coming into winter when they could be either recycled or used for less fortunate people. So that is my new mission for today.
Nothing particularly hilarious on the TVs this morning, although every channel had non-stop election coverage. Thankfully that will all be over tonight (although of course everyone is hoping for a LATE night, just to keep the "excitement" going). I could do without the excitement really.
Bring on Boston on Friday I say - I am looking forward to watching the Charles River go by ...

my weekend ...

... lovely chilly but clear sunny days. Saturday I did indeed hit Woodbury Common. Not my most impressive number of bags to date, but I did treat myself to the super-duper new Bose noise reduction headphones at exorbitant cost. I deserve them (I think!). The usual suspects were on the bus with me on the way in and out - disgruntled UK tourists, Japanese visitors looking hopefully for someone with a yellow hat or big flag to direct them around, plus some Eastern Europeans just to spice things up a bit. I was back in town by about 3pm. Then spent some time on the phone catching up with friends, before heading out to meet up with other friends for dinner. We had some drinks first at the Flatiron Lounge on w19th, waiting for our table to be ready at Boqueria a couple of doors down. Boqueria is a fairly new tapas restaurant. It was OK, but not fantastic. The paella was very salty, and most of the tapas very small servings for the price. But the patatas bravas was some of the best I have ever had. Dessert was a let down - there are 6 options, 4 of which revolve around different combinations of either custard or icecream (ie stuff that freezes or keeps in the fridge). The only two menu options which would be freshly prepared (ie the doughnuts with chocolate sauce or the cakey style one), they were out of - at 11pm on a Saturday! Very unimpressive I thought. But a few glasses/bottles of Spanish red made it all worthwhile. Back out for a few drinks afterwards and then I happily wandered home in the wee hours.
Sunday I watched some of the marathon, and was treated to some classics of American commentary. At one point one of the commentators was going through the women's names in the elite pack of runners, and came up with the following gem: "Hlladya, Petrucopska, Delos Santos... where are the Smiths and Jones's??". There was an awkward silence before his fellow commentator piped up: "um, its an international race and those are international names". Cringeworthy really. There was lots of focus on Deena someone (the US woman in the elite bunch) for about the first half of the race. When she dropped off the back of the pack and ended up finishing 6th, there was not a lot of coverage until the end when they cornered her and instead of congratulating her and saying well run, the questions were more along the lines of "so where did it all go wrong today?". Funny stuff. Then there was Lance-cam. Not only did Lance Armstrong have to run the whole race with a TV camera next to him recording every grunt and drop of sweat, but they also constantly compared his rate per mile to that of the male winner! He had said he wanted to finish within an hour of the winning runner, so at least he achieved that if nothing else. Otherwise you could imagine the questions at the end "So Lance, where did it all go wrong?". No mention of course of the achievement of finishing his first ever marathon with a camera shoved in his face.
So I spent more time in the gym watching the marathon on the TVs, which was amusing in that for the first time all four treadmills were full all morning, with people running, watching other people on TV running. I couldn't work out if they just had not got a start for the marathon, or whether it is like when Wimbledon is on in the UK, and suddenly you cannot hire a tennis court for love or money with all the people suddenly playing! Then I went and spent more money at Virgin music - their net value will have to increase with the amount I spend there. Quiet evening after that getting ready for work again today, and starting to get my apartment sorted out ready to move shortly!

Today in NY...

... it is COLD. After walking the 4 short blocks to the subway this morning at 8:30am, I had the equivalent of an icecream headache. And it hurt. And I forgot my gloves. Still, at least it isn't raining - there is always an upside.

Was entertained at the gym this morning whilst pedalling away by the emerging fisticuffs between Bush and Kerry following Kerry's ill-advised throw away lines about intelligence not being a pre-requisite to be sent to Iraq. I am in no way defending Kerry's words, but if Bush in a pre-written and approved statement could only word his indignation in the following way: "insulting and it is shameful. The members of the United States military are PLENTY SMART and they are PLENTY BRAVE" then I query once again the intelligence of Bush. I am guessing he is not "plenty smart" to use such incorrect grammar (although of course I can only guess it was so worded to appeal to the not-so intelligent members of his supporters). Can't wait for these mid-terms to be over so that the media coverage can find something else to focus on. And they can stop these annoying advertisements on television which constantly go on and on about how one candidate is clearly better than the other. Yerks.

So this weekend I am hitting Woodbury Common again tomorrow for the last time, out to dinner Saturday night, and then Sunday I am watching a friend run in the marathon (hope I can pick her out of the crowd!). In between I need to start packing as I am in Boston next weekend... sniff.

Halloween

Yep, the US night of nights was last night. I wandered around a bit to see the parade with a couple of friends, then sat in a bar and had some drinks (well, they drank, I had soda water and lime - alcohol is not top of my hit list at the moment). Surreal sitting at a bar surrounded by people wearing the oddest costumes. There were some very original ones, and very unoriginal ones around as you would expect. Also got some amusement by two large fat middle aged guys trying to pick up the two 20-something year old girls sitting next to us, who were dressed like something out of Cats. Needless to say the men struck out after one drink.
My favourite picture of the night is attached for your viewing amusement - where is this devil going to put the cash once he withdraws it???