4 posts tagged “nyc”
Today I received confirmation that my transfer request was accepted and I am going to be starting in our NYC office late October/early November. The process started almost 3 weeks ago when I was called into the office to have a meeting with one of the partners to discuss my career options. Basically, we have too many managers in the Phoenix office and they needed to reduce the manager headcount by about 2-3 individuals. So, I was one of the managers that was asked to transfer to another office or leave the company and find a job in industry. The offices that I was given the option to transfer to were San Diego, Silicon Valley or San Francisco. I have been talking of living in NYC since 2003ish, so I asked about that office as well. Well, long story short, after lots of phone calls between Phoenix partners and NYC partners, I got a call today that they would like me to come to NYC.
This is definitely not the timing that I had planned, but I keep telling myself that God's timing does not always jive with my timing. If you would have asked me a month ago where I would be living at the end of 2008, I would have NEVER said NYC. However, I do have a peace about the whole thing. There are some questions I have asked that have not been answered so I know that this is all God. For some reason, He is closing a door in Phoenix and opening a door in NYC.
I definitely have mixed emotions about going. I am looking forward to living in a big city, walking everywhere, going to Broadway shows, hanging out with Jenn, having people visit, H&H bagels, Ferarra's and the whole NYC experience. However, I will miss Arizona and my family, friends and familiarity that I have here. It will be an adventure.
After Orlando, rather than flying to PHX, I flew to JFK. (Interesting side note, I made it through security at the Orlando airport with a full bottle of water. I had put a water bottle in my backpack mid-week during training, completely forgot about it, and found it again when I was sitting at the gate.) Jenn turned 30 on August 17th, so she had a big party to celebrate. Jaime, Kelly, Jodi, Jolene, Kealey and myself all flew in for the weekend. I was supposed to land at JFK at 4:45pm on Friday, however, it was one delay after another. It was my first experience on JetBlue, and although none of the problems were really their fault, it turned me off from JetBlue - give me US Air anyday (even with all the extra fees now!). My plane was scheduled to leave MCO at 2:15. When I checked in, I saw it was delayed until 3. We boarded the plane like we were leaving at 3, but at 3:15 we had not even pulled away from the gate. The pilot then made an announcement that there was weather in NY and that we currently had a wheels up time of 5:10pm. We pulled away from the gate and waited for 2 hours. We did take off at 5:10, but had to circle for about a half hour because there was still weather at JFK when we got close and finally landed at 7:15. I go to wait for my luggage and I am waiting, waiting and waiting. Another announcement - due to the weather, the luggage ramps are closed. At 9pm I finally get my luggage and head to Air Train. At this point, Jenn and the rest of the girls had already gone to dinner and she had left keys to her apartment at her gym. Well, I know the gym closes at 10pm, so I have one hour to get to Air Train, take the subway to the West Village, and walk to the gym to get the keys. I did make it (barely) and ended up just waiting at the apartment for all of the rest of them to get back.
Saturday we all slept in and then went and got Murray's Bagels for breakfast. We then just lounged around before going to the Tribecca Grand at 3pm to check into the hotel (as part of Jenn's BD gift, Jaime had reserved a hotel room for the night). We walked across the street for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon slowly getting ready. We had 9pm dinner reservations at Megu in Tribecca.
We stayed at Megu until about 2:30am, walked back to the hotel and sat in the lobby and hung out until 4am, at which point Kelly and I hopped in a cab to head to the airport. Happy Birthday JENN!!!
About a month ago I had a training in Montvale, NJ, so of course I would not pass up tagging on a weekend to NYC. After my plane was delayed for a couple of hours, I arrive in the city at about 9pm on Friday night. The subway station by Jenn's has an elevator, but it was broken so I had to do the stairs with all of my luggage. I started up the stairs and didn't get very far because this homeless guy saw me and offered to carry my luggage up the stairs for me. I thanked him and told him I did not have any cash on me but would be back shortly. I walked to Jenn's apartment, dropped off my stuff and Jenn and I walked back to the subway to give the guy some cash (I bummed a few dollars off Jenn). We then went to a Thai restaurant in the Village and then to see Baby Mama.
Saturday morning we slept in a little and left Jenn's apartment around 11am. We ended up being gone all day and got back a little after midnight. We stopped in Jenn's neighborhoon for bagels at Murray's Bagels, went shopping in Soho, went to South Street Seaport to buy Broadway tickets, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, had lunch in DUMBO (Brooklyn), went to babycakes, went to Pinkberry (see previous posts), saw What Happens in Vegas and then went to The Hummus Place for dinner.
On Sunday we slept in again, had breakfast in Jenn's neighborhood at Soy Luck Club and then went to see Mama Mia. That is the most fun Broadway Show I have seen. That would be one that I would definitely see again. After the show we got Pinkberry again and went to Whole Foods before the car picked me up to take me to Montvale.
I am looking forward to going back for Jenn's 30th in August!
My parents and I made a trip to New York City in mid-December. I had two coupons for $99 fares with the purchase of a regular price ticket (basically I bought my ticket and my parents each paid $99 round-trip). Since I was not feeling well, we went back on forth numerous times as to whether or not we should go. I started on prednisone (steroid) the week before the trip so I was feeling good and we decided to go (which I am so glad that we did). We flew in to JFK on a Friday night and took the subway directly to our hotel. We stayed at a Doubletree in midtown (51st and Lexington) which worked out perfect as there was a subway station also on that corner. We checked in to our hotel and then went to dinner at Sea. Sea is a Thai restaurant that I had been to a couple of times with Lauren and loved it, so I wanted to take my parents there.
After dinner we were going to do some walking around, but we were all freezing so we just came back to the hotel. The average temperature was about 30 degrees during the day and probably in the teens at night. Our Arizona blood is not used to those temperatures :)
Saturday morning we did breakfast at H&H bagels on the Upper East Side. This was another favorite of mine from my visits to see Lauren. My dad wanted to go here also as this is where Kramer has a job for a short time.
After breakfast and Starbucks, we took the subway to South Street Seaport to buy tickets for a Broadway show. We had planned on seeing Mama Mia, but my dad saw that A Chorus Line was available so he wanted to see that. I had never heard of it, but I guess it is a long-running Broadway show. (I think we all wish we had seen Mama Mia.)
After we bought the tickets we headed down to Canal Street (Chinatown) as mom wanted to get a knock-off Coach wallet. Once we got into Chinatown, a lady came up to us and said "You want bag." I said yes so we followed her. In my previous Chinatown experiences, they always would take us into a warehouse building and that is where they kept the Coach, Gucci, Prada, etc. bags. This time was a little different. As we were walking down the street, the lady said "Man can't come." I just told my dad to keep walking as I did not understand why they wouldn't let him come (and if they were going to take us into a building and not let my dad in then I was not going in either). Finally, the lady starts to unlock a mini-van and I now understood why "man can't come" as there was not enough room in the back of the mini-van. So, my mom and I crawl into the back of this van and there was another lady in there with all the bags. They close the door so we can make the purchase and my dad waits outside. The lady who led us down the street told my dad "Be careful, Bolice." (I did mean to spell that with a "B" rather than a "P" as that is how she said it.) My mom found the wallet that she wanted and we negotiated the lady down from $20 to $12. On a side note, a few days after my mom bought the wallet, she went to pay for something and had to unload the entire wallet in order to get her credit card. The credit card slots in this wallet were extremely deep so all of the cards fell to the bottom. Kyle, Kellyn and I ended up getting her a real Coach wallet for Christmas but our Chinatown experience still makes for a fun story. I do not have any pictures either - I was hoping my dad would have taken a picture of us crawling into the van but I think he was a little nervous :)
After Chinatown, we went to the West Village to meet up with Jenn. There is a Pinkberry right near Jenn's apartment so we met there for yogurt. When I was there in the summer, there were long lines for Pinkberry - not so much in the winter. I wish they would open a Pinkberry in Scottsdale - the closest one is in LA and I can't justify driving 6 hours just for Pinkberry :)
After Pinkberry, we headed back to midtown to buy tickets to see the Rockettes. We saw the Rockefeller Tree and then went back to the hotel for an hour to warm up before the Broadway show.
When we came out of the show on Saturday night it was snowing and it snowed most of the night. On Sunday morning we went back to the Upper East Side to this place called Vinyl for breakfast. We then walked through Central Park and then along 5th Avenue to look at windows.
We walked 5th Avenue until we got to Rockefeller Center, and then we took a subway to Lower Manhattan because my mom wanted to go to a 9-11 firefighter museum. On Friday night on our way home from Sea my dad commented on how nice it was that I know my way around the city and he did not have to bother with subway maps or knowing where to go - he could just follow. Well, on our way to the museum I missed our stop and we ended up in Brooklyn - I figured it out fast enough and we just hopped on a train back to Manhattan :) After the museum we went back to the hotel for about a half hour before going to Radio City Music Hall for the Rockettes performance - which was amazing.
After the show we had dinner at Stage Deli in Times Square - dad's favorite restaurant and I think that he has eaten there everytime he has been to the city. On our walk back to the hotel we stopped at Rockefeller to get some pictures with the tree. Every other time we had been there it was jam packed with people.
We flew back to Phoenix on Monday afternoon. I love this city and I can't wait to go back :)
