Thursday night I hopped in a cab, told the 70 year old man where I needed to go. Then the cabbie starts...

Where are you from?

I'm from the US.

Ah, are you going home to your husband? Are you married?

No, no...I'm not married.

What? You should be married. Why aren't you married?

Ah, I move a lot. And everyone in Singapore is already married. So, there's no one left to marry.

You should have friends then. It's ok to have friends. You can be friends with married people.

(Laugh) Yeah, yeah...

My name is Johnny. I am married. I will be your friend.

(Laugh) Uh, Yeah...

Yes, you can call me and say "Hi Johnny, I am not busy you can be my friend and I will come over.

(Laugh, a little bewildered, a little awkward, what does one say to that...?)

So, that was my night...getting hit on by a very very very old man. This is my life. Geez.

I don't think frog and toad are friends anymore. Frog was hanging out outside my flat...alone...

Mr. Frog
Originally uploaded by amyisgone

This was a pic of him, waiting? Hanging out? Not quite sure.

Friday the 13th. Great day, always a good day...
I dare say, Friday the 13ths tend to be good days for me. Everyone thinks they are doomed, and so I think I fair pretty well by default if anything else. The 13th also happens to be my birthday. So, that's an added bonus. Anyway, I met up with S. and her friend S. We had dinner at an Italian place in the Holland Village area and then headed over to the White Rabbit for drinks with the Expat meetup. The funny part was meeting P. Check out my post from Feb. 15. That's the story.

...Ikea-ing... Similar to 'lego-ing' only more expensive and more prone to mistakes.
Whew. I sped out of work, picked up my bag from the hotel and jumped in a cab. It was insanity; it was just raining so hard. I found K. at the apartment, which would be the only time I would see her in a period of two months. Roommates like that are golden. But, back to Ikea. I quickly jumped in a cab and ended up at Ikea to wander and purchase hundreds of dollars worth of furniture. i.e. starting over my life in Singapore. Ikea was basically the same as anywhere else I've been. Same layout, same items. Nothing out of the ordinary. Good thing, I suppose. After that I met up with S. and friends and hung out near Orchard Road and the assorted Quays. It was a good night, but overall nothing terribly outstanding to note. We hopped from place to place, hung out and had an overall good time.

Still learning about Singapore. Good old fashioned trial by error. Papaya good, apples not so good.
Self explanatory.

I did that 25 things about yourself... Go ahead and read it, I'm not going to tag you. :)
If you're friends with me on Facebook, you can check out my post, which everyone seemed to be doing at the time. Funny how waves of crazy seem to wash over us. In my case, I actually posted one of these lists of 25 things. Sigh. It was something to do.


Chewing Australian gum... Thanks L!
L. came to Singapore for meetings and she was nice enough to be my gum mule. I only brought 3 little packs of gum and that certainly wasn't going to last me long enough. It was a great week- the meetings were a little grueling for me because I was new to everything in the meeting. But everything after the meetings was great-

Found a place, moving in on Friday. Yay! Hoping all will fall into place.
So, I've got two roommates. One gal from Japan who essentially lives with her boyfriend; for real, I only met her the day I moved in and haven't seen her since. She's really the perfect kind of roommate. The other gal is from San Francsico, so we have a lot in common, more or less. It's nice to be able to

“The good thing about New York is you don’t really have to make plans. You let them come to you.” - Adrian Grenier

I miss New York City.

...ditching the broker...seeking someone in need of a roommate instead... (Jan 31, 2009)

I ended up meeting a friend of a friend for dinner, a fellow transfer from the US, and she gave me the low down of how to work everything out. Basically, get a roommate. So, that's what I did. The very next day I ended up finding a roommate and that was it. Done. Go figure. :)

Safely in Singapore, getting settled...looking at every available apartment...tired of looking at apartments. (week of Jan 26...)

It's kind of unreal. I lugged 3 suitcases down 5 flights of stairs. I took a cab to the airport. I talked to my dad on the phone. I bought magazines with all of the change I had collected throughout months and months of not using it. I got on a plane for a very long time. I moved to Singapore.

I got hooked up with a broker who has helped previous transfers from my company get settled into Singapore. Well, these other coworkers must be making bank and I got screwed because I couldn't afford any of the apartments that were shown to me. It was insane. Really nice. It was definitely an 'expat on an expense account lifestyle' which I don't have. I wasted about 3 days looking at a ton of apartments and came up with nothing.

Still packing, organizing, recycling, donating, etc...very close to being ready to jump on a plane (...for 20ish hours...) (Jan 26, 2009)

My last night in NYC was kind of strange. I still wasn't completely packed and squared away. I had yet to mail a box back to MN. I had a box full of stuff to drop off at Goodwill as well. And, I watched Once with the girls while eating Mexican food. It was great. Irish movie, Mexican food. We hung out and S. made me a cake, which is was great. I swear, that girl knows how to cook and bake, she just pretends not to. Ahh....So, the next morning I got up and packed some more and then went down to the post office. There was a lady behind me in line moving back to Idaho (or something, I can't quite remember now) and she was completely stressed out. She didn't full on show it, but I knew because I was in that exact same spot. She was talking to the airline on her mobile and I could tell she was freaking out a little, but in one of those really forceful angry voices- slow, angry and loud. She ended up saying something like:

"...well, I'm sorry but I don't have a pen because I'm standing in line at the post office with a stack of heavy boxes!" She was totally thinking- I hate you and all of this.

So, I turned around and gave her my pen.

She then said into the mobile "...you're lucky, a helpful and amazing person here just lent me their pen!" She was then thinking- this guy on the phone is so lucky I just got a pen otherwise this conversation was going to go in a much different direction.

I still hope the best for that lady, whoever she is.

Moving to Singapore on Monday! (Week of Jan 19...)
Yup. Pretty self explanatory.

Skip the tequila. It has a tendency to bring out your inner pole dancer. That is a quote I need to remember: For me, not so much the pole dancer part...but I do have to admit I think I could be on So You Think You Can Dance. That and the following morning is like a turbulent boat ride I can't seem to get off of. Motionsick friends with me on that? Oh yeah. I need to remember that Grey Goose is really the ticket. Little groggy if I have too much, but nothing like the wrath of tequila.

Book I'm reading right now: A Million Little Pieces
Song of the moment: MGMT- Time to Pretend

So, the Ladyboy story. Occured around Feb. 14...in Singapore...for the sake of keeping up...

I was in a long line for the fitting room at the mall. There was this big sign next to the fitting rooms that said "Ladies Only" Before she went into the changing room she pointed at the "ladies only" sign and was like "What about ladyboys?" to the Fitting Room girl. The FR girl said, oh- no problem and smiled at them. So, the Ladyboy grabbed her pile of clothes and ran into a changing room. Well, she decided to try on her random items one-by-one...shirt...skirt...etc. then strutteddown down the changing aisle for the catwalk whenever she tried on a new item. Lets just say that I don't think I would have paid for those boobs, I'd want them a little more directed....

Music during this trip to the mall? Klaxons covering No diggity. So hot.

Huge jump in postings...fyi... bear with me!

Packing, sorting... This all occured the week of Jan 19...in NYC...
The week before I left NY was probably one of the worst weeks of my life. I didn't (and still don't) mind leaving NY. I know I'll return. It was the stress of having to finish everything I needed to do otherwise, time would run out and that would be it. It was like an opportunity cost sitting in front of me. If I didn't work everything out, I would be losing out on something. The whole process was hard; I was making very quick decisions about the physical items that made up my 3 years in NY. What do I need? What do I want? What should I part with? Throwing away the Playbill for Spring Awakening, donating

Ok, I have a lot going on. In fact, I've had a lot going on for about a month or so... So, my blog posts are sporadic and ancient when I finally get around to updating. So, I'm going to take it to the next level and jump around a lot. I'd much rather write about what I've been up to lately instead of going back and then just pushing off anything that has happened to me recently. So, here comes the literary gymnastics!

Today: 15 Feb. 2009: Da da da, Elastica cover...awesome.

I decided on Friday that all of my clothes were too inadequate for the weather here. I looked through my closet and just couldn't find anything to wear despite all of the clothes that hung before me. It happens. Well, Friday was my birthday, but I forgot to get prepared so I didn't have a birthday outfit to wear. I just looked through all of my regular clothes and all of the material was just too thick. I tried on about 5 outfits of clothing and ended up in one of them...although, I wasn't loving it. That night I went out with my new friend S and her friend-of-a-friend S. We had dinner in Holland Village with a flamboyantly crazy waiter. I loved him! I haven't had a waiter like that in Singapore yet! I mean, if I wasn't getting tipped, I wouldn't have been so energetic either, but he was special. In a crazy way. After dinner we headed over to the White Rabbit and met up with some ex-pats. S. introduces us to her friend P. They chitchat for a while and then there's a lull in the conversation.

So, I ask P. where he's from.

Minnesota.

Really? Where?

His eyes are curious: Duluth. Where are you from?

The Cities, St. Paul.

Oh that's strange! I went to the University of St. Thomas.

What year did you graduate?

2001.

I graduated in 2004. And so on... Basically, we don't know each other, but we had one overlapping year. So strange. I never coincidentally met anyone from my school in NY. But I move half way around the world and here he is. Go figure. Fun night though.

Anyway, I went shopping today (Sunday) and listened to my iPod as I wandered from store to store on Orchard Rd. Elastica came on and I suddenly remembered how I earned an A in my senior year German class in high school. Da, da, da...

- I still have a ladyboy story to get into...but, I'm too tired at the moment... I'll save it for another day along with some more historical backlogging of posts I need to finish up.

It's past noon, Obama is officially Mr. President!
Well, I did finally get a couple of tweets in. While watching the procession of guests onto the stage and opening remarks about the ceremony, I kept watching the clock. Whether he took the oath or not, Obama would become my president at noon (EST). And, he did. During the actual ceremony, my eyes welled up a little bit and then my reality set in again; time to get back to settling my life in NY in order to set it back up in Singapore.

Too many tweets a second ago? For real? Everyone twittering Obama, like me...

Ah, my inauguration post. I wish I could have enjoyed inauguration week. I was completely stressed out and obsessed with moving. I made it really difficult on myself by trying to leave the country within a week. But looking back on it, it worked out. I don't think I could do it all over again: as it was, I almost broke down about 3 times a day. In fact, the morning of the inauguration, I was reading the paper on the subway and saw a picture of Barack with one of his daughters and I almost lost it right there. It was a historical day and my stress level couldn't have been higher. Just before noon, I tried twittering about everything and I ended up timing out because just about everyone was trying to write something about whole ceremony. Amazing.

Tons, tons, tons to catch up on. I'll try my best to remember what I've been up to for the past three weeks, but it was a whirlwind. This will be reverse order...newest to oldest.

Hates moving, being sick, and things not getting done. I'm three for three on that.
My visa for Singapore was approved on MLK day. A & J took two suitcases and an extra carry on back to MN for me- and it was a godsend. I sent back tons of winter clothes and books which wouldn't have made it over to Singapore with me. Since the visa was approved there was no time like the present to get my stuff moving. So me and the gals got a van and started moving it. Here we are, hanging out in front of the building...in the snow...on the couch... It was much more fun to sit on this couch outside than any other couch I've sat on indoors. There's just something about indoor furniture outside.



You must be Hadouken because you are down (+) right fierce.
A & J came to NYC over the MLK weekend and I had my last shot at wandering through the city and doing random touristy things. They got in late on Friday night so we lazily got up on Saturday to compensate and headed into the city. We picked up pastries at Bread Alone (my favorite tarts/pastries/cookies/scones in the entire city) and wandered our way to 8th St. and then took the train downtown to catch the Staten Island Ferry. First time I'd taken that ride and it was worth it, I suppose considering it's free. We looked at lady Liberty, got some photos and then headed northward again. We also checked out the view of the WTC area from the second floor of Burger King. (For real, best view.) We turned around and a woman walked right up to us to take our spot at the window. She then made an uninitiated comment about 'taking pictures for my grandson...oh, I know I look too young to have a grandson...' Um. Ok. Right. Sure. We made about 10 seconds of small talk and inched away. I love John's Pizza, so we met M. and had some really great pizza before meeting up with the remainder of the gang at some bar with the name 'Fish' in the title. Fun little place, especially since it was on our way to UCB Theater to see some video game related thing. At first, all I could think was '...this isn't what I pictured...' But, it ended up being hilarious, hence the twitter...

Stressed out...trying to get things done one at a time...waiting for the stress to pass...

So, so crazy in my head at the moment. I know I've got a lot coming at me, and I can't do much about it...I can't do much to move everything along, either. I think I have all of my visa information in and ready to be processed.

The moving company finally got back to me yesterday with a monster of a quote, which mean I won't be shipping all of my stuff like I originally hoped. I will instead be getting rid of everything I own, somehow. And that is infinitely stressful to me- you just don't even know. J & A are in town for the weekend, so I've already packed a bag for them to take back to the MN for me. I'm contemplating another 2-3 bags. I just need to get my act together and sort some of my stuff out and decide what will get binned, donated or brought along with me. Then, I need to find random things in Singapore on my arrival to refurnish and make my life comfortable. This is a whole new scenario of "...leaving NY, never easy..."

I wish I could associate my time in NY with another song, but that one is it.


I was listening to the 'ol iPod yesterday and I remembered how my friend M. used to be able to connect almost any song that came up on the radio with some experience in her life. I don't know if it had to do with her listening to the same radio station consistently (...thus, hearing the same songs over and over again), or if music was that powerful for her.

Here are some of my monumental songs of all time...that is, songs that automatically take me back somewhere...

Griffin House: Waste Another Day
This song sums up a couple of train trips I took between southern Germany to Frankfurt. I was 22, everything was new and an adventure waiting to happen. I sat at the window, looking out into a mountainous forest- completely picturesque and the epitome of southern German landscape. 'Waste another day, waste another day with me, my love...' That time in my life was about wasting a day, and looking back it wasn't a waste at all. As I move around all of my stuff, I keep flipping through photos of this period and I wish I could experience it over and over again.

Ok. I'll work on the list. One isn't exactly a list. But, it is the start of a list!

So, so proud of Slumdog Millionaire...awesome film...love Dev Patel.

Love me some Slumdog Millionaire. Dev Patel is the kind of guy you can't help but love no matter what. Match him up with his character in Slumdog and you don't have a chance. I'm a huge fan of the Skins series out of the UK and I didn't see Anwar from Skins at all when I saw Slumdog. And, the little kids in the movie are adorable.

I've been to India a few times, and I think Slumdog Millionaire and Outsourced are the two movies which can sum up my experiences there. See them both.

The Golden Globes overall were weird. No intro, no closing, no outstanding craziness to speak of. Sasha Baron Cohen was halarious with his Madonna joke. Shah Rukh Kahn was a great surprise, I'm hoping for more Indian movies to break into the US. I'll keep the picture of SRK up in my cubical for a while longer. :)

Trying to motivate.

Sundays are difficult. Explanation done.

In hot yoga withdrawal. At least it's not possible to go into House withdrawal.

It's been a few weeks since I last wrote, so I'll see what I can do in terms of catch up. Since the end of December, I have become a hot yoga and House (the tv show) addict. Hot yoga. I must have some sort of masochistic mindset when it comes to kicking my own ass. I have the same gratification in finishing an 8 mile run as I when finishing a hot yoga session. How is this possible? I have yet to figure all of this out. I completely recommend hot yoga to anyone. So, so awesome.

House, another phenomenon I can't figure out. I love that show. I love Hugh Laurie and even weirder, I love the character of Gregory House. Thanks to cable tv, I can watch House almost every day. Go figure. Yay!

Hot yoga is...hot.

So, A. introduced me to hot yoga, and I think her with all of my heart for doing so. We went to a session at CorePowerYoga on Grand Ave. and it's a fantastic studio. I had no idea that I liked hot yoga, I just feel like I get a better workout than regular yoga. Hot yoga is hard for me. Super hard. I don't have much balance as it is, and I have much less so when I'm covered in sweat. So, this guy comes in and sets up his mat in front of me and A. and he puts a glass (jam) jar of water next to him. Because he's green or afraid of plastic, I need to be ever-aware of this glass jar so I don't accidently fall over and break it. Great.

The next day, I dragged Nanners along to a session and she became obsessed with it as well. Wahoo...hot yoga friends in St. Paul.

Korean food...it's been longer than it should have been.

The New Year is a big deal for Koreans, so my mom took us out for lunch a few days before hand since she had to work New Years day. At the table, I decided right then and there to confirm my decision to move to Singapore. I guess I had been leaning towards it the day before, but my confirmation email was sent while I sat at the table. People ask me if my parents were concerned with the decision. And, it's funny because that's not a topic of stress or concern in my family. Getting a pet is more of a stressful situation for my family than anything to do with traveling or moving internationally. I could be away for a year or two, but a cat is a commitment of 15 or so years. See what I mean?

Merry Christmas! I'm done baking ;)

Merry Christmas/happy holidays/all that jazz. MN is a snowy crazy place, as expected. It was 20 degrees today and it's supposed to reach 30 tomorrow. Whoa, heatwave. I've spent a great deal of time just hanging out either with friends or House. House on TV, yes that House.

I hung out with A. (J was also present), M and S a few days ago. I was explaining how I would have to disown my unborn future kids if they told me they were republican creationists. The others laughed, but sort of agreed with me. A. replied 'Well, I believe in God and I also believe in dinosaurs.' Wouldn't that be an awesome t-shirt? I kind of want that on a t-shirt. Makes me want to create a top ten list of t-shirt ideas.

10. I believe in God and I believe in dinosaurs.
9. That's what she said.
8. Only true New Yorkers know that people living anywhere else must be kidding themselves.
7...
Ok, I'll finish or revise the list later.

Baking. Oh baking. I want full and fantastic kitchen more than anything. Professional grade stove/oven, stainless steel cookware and a full espresso machine/bean grinder/steamer. My parent's don't have much of an interest in all of that, but their kitchen is a few times bigger than anything you could find in a NY apartment, so I baked to my little heart's content yesterday. Pumpkin bars and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies were made. But, I'm certain to spend more time in front of the oven in the upcoming weeks. I need to get it all out of my system before I start gettting busy again.


I'm getting into crunch time. Decisions, decisions... Three days and I'll know what the future will hold for me in the next year.

Finished off the Adventskalender instead of dragging it to MN...feels a little sacrelig...but it was lecker!

Tuesday was perfectly 'holidayed' for my taste. I rushed around finishing things up and cleaned up my desk before I headed out for the holiday break. The annual team gift exchange brought a familiar X rated touch that is almost trademark of the group and I love it. I couldn't work with anyone else...ok, I could, it just wouldn't have the same amount of craziness and amusement. We followed it up with some bowling all while I hoped the snow would cease so I could get out of JFK.






Luckily, the precipitation did cease. I arrived in Minnesota. I experienced the softest landing of a plane that I can remember. As a true Minnesotan reminder of where I live, the plane pulled up to an alternate gate because the original gate was frozen shut.

Every time I leave New York, I miss it. It's an inevitable and reliable feeling that occurs within 48 hours of departing from the city. Here is the trigger this time. I was watching 'Keeping the Faith' this morning and Edward Norton says* "...the true New Yorkers' secret belief is that people living anywhere else had to be, in some sense, kidding themselves." Three years ago I didn't understand how a dirty, crazy, expensive, big city could be so captivating and attractive. I catch scenes in movies and know the places they shot it- places I walk through casually. Celebrity sightings are something to tiredly nod at or to believe it was meant to be, depending on the person - either way, it's an unalienable right in a common place kind of way. As I've said so many times before, NY and I have a love-hate relationship. I love to hate it. I hate to love it.

*It came from either from Woody Allen or John Updike (describing Henry Bech. I tried looking up the actual origin and can't seem to trace it...also, excuse my very loose restated interpretation of the quote...

Tis the Season...

So, before I ran into Jemaine (:::swoon:::) on Sunday, I had a funny Saturday. Since I'm infamous for making a long story longer, I'll expand on this one too.

Last year after sleeping over at M.'s (which sounds like a scandalous story, but really isn't...it was more annoying than anything and I'll talk about it another day) after a crazy night out we went down to Yucca for brunch. Yucca has since been my favourite brunch in all of NYC. Partially because of the spicy Bloody Mary's and mostly because of what I saw that morning. I was sipping on the spicy delicious beverage when I saw a Santa walk by. Crazy, but I suppose it is NY and a Santa is bound to walk by. Then a Christmas Tree walked by followed by another Santa. My friends and I stood up and tried to see over the random cars parked between us and Tompkins Sq. Park where hundreds of Santas stood. Yes my friends, SantaCon.

This year, SantaCon imposed itself on NYC last weekend. A few of us headed down to South St. with some reindeer antlers ready to see a few Santas. We got some stares on the subway because we busted out the antlers on the train to do our preparation. As we got out of the train and into the station, about 10 Santas emerged from other train cars... When we got above ground, it was like a movie: tacky red and white velour and fluff were coming at us from every angle. I felt so underdressed. I had a huge red and white deficit going on with my outfit, but I was just too amazed at all of the Santas to be too concerned.

We were in front of the Christmas tree that sits in the middle of all of the shops and watched some Santas singing and doing Capoeira...And as we walked past the tree we saw the hundreds of Santas that were hidden behind it...The vastness of Santas was mystifying. The sheer numbers are easy to see, but the infinite types were impressive.

Pimp Santa...
Scottish Santa...














And even one of 'Santa's Helpers'...

Stalked Jemaine Clement, then he followed us around.

Long haul flights are a love/hate situation for me. The only 'hate' is obviously the very long amount of time cooped up in an airplane that will never have enough space. The 'love' is having enough time to fall asleep for more than 15 minutes and to catch up on some shows. For me, a trip to Asia = catching up on Flight of the Conchords. A friend of mine sent around a video of the guys doing Business Time about a year ago and I've been a fan ever since.

I waited for M. yesterday in the lobby of MOMA and alternated between looking through old messages on my phone and scanning the room of museum goers. I look up and see this guy walk by with his girlfriend. OMG. It had to be Jemaine Clement from FotC! I follow him into the MOMA store and start looking at random gadgets at the kiosk next to him. I pick up a paper robot kit and look past it and directly at the guy in thick black rimmed glasses with a black knit hat instead. I couldn't quite tell if it was him or not. Actors tend to look a little different on TV than in real life... M. showed up so I pulled her into the store and we both picked up random accessories and looked past them at this guy. I looked up his height on Wikipedia and it said he should be 6'1", so I tried to estimate if he was tall enough. In the end, M. said "No, it's not him...the lips are different, just look at his face..." I agreed and we headed upstairs to wander our way though the museum.

We walk through the architecture room and over to the railing that overlooks the big lounge space. I take a few shots of the crowd and look to my right to see the other museum goers walk past us and there he is! 6'1", dark rimmed glasses, dark tossel-headed Jemaine. The real one! The guy in the store was just a guy who looked eerily like the real Jemaine that was standing in front of me. He walked past us and into the architecture exhibit. I forced M. to follow him with me. After about two minutes of looking at bogus models of buildings and thinking of the coolest way to talk to him, I finally convinced myself to walk over to him and say "Hi, sorry to bother you, but I really love your show, just wanted to let you know..." He awkwardly replied "Oh, thank you very much..." His New Zealand accent confirmed it was him. Then I had to follow right behind him to get to M. Awkward! M. and I head out of that exhibit and moved into the next room. Then we noticed Jemaine was on the same museum route we were on. We followed each other from floor to floor. It just became more and more awkward because I was the girl who walked up to him and said 'Hi!'...and he knew I knew he was Jemaine. So, we avoided and ducked past each other from room to room, floor to floor.

The only way I could have upped the ante in awkwardness would be to sit next to him on a plane while I caught up on episodes of Flight of the Conchords...

Week is almost over...phew. One week until Minnesota!

I have been driving myself crazy with the help of miscellaneous extraneous factors. Work was about 75% of the extraneousness and 25% is/was/will always be the regular life administration.

So, Work. I've been worrying and thinking about my job and life for the past few weeks and it all came to a head two days ago. Basically, I need to decide my next step. The easier choice for me is the crazier choice if any outsiders to my life saw the options. To be honest, it's the choice I'm leaning towards at the moment. It gives me a chance to further live out the life I describe/aspire/see myself living. It's a bit rogue, exciting and allows me to be foreign. M. said a few months ago that I '...love to be the foreigner.' And, I do. I also like being nomadic and mobile. A few more weeks and I'll have this settled. The second part to work was that a lot of my friends at work were let go. So, while I was stressing over the official chance at a new period of life, they were getting notified to leave. I've literally never experienced anything like that. I walked into the office and it felt toxic. The air, the people and the space all seemed toxic. Everyone knew what was going on. It wasn't until the next day that the air cleared and everything seemed normal again. It was an awful experience to witness, but it was good to see. It was good to see how people are affected. How difficult it is and how it's not something anyone can take lightly however, it also needs to happen sometimes.

I'm glad this week is finally ending, and now I'm only a few days away from Minnesota! I discovered a new brilliant pastry at my favorite stand in the Union Square Market - the Apple Tart. It sounds normal. Apple, pastry, done. But, no. I swear it is so much more than a standard pastry. This pastry helped me get through this week. The apples are great- baked and tender but not too mushy. The pastry is sprinkled with raw sugar and tastes like real butter in every bite. If I become obese because of this, I'll get there happily. This is a pick of a fantastic pastry stall in Borough Market, London to help you visualize my obsession with pastries.


Tomorrow I'm going to try and join in on this...

SantaCon NYC. A friend is going to try and pick up some antlers for me tonight. If all goes well, I'll be buddying up with hundreds of festive Santas tomorrow. Tis the season!

T-minus 8 days and counting until I land in the Twin Cities!

I kind of have a complex about staying in one place too long. I think my dream would be to live as a lady of leisure. The things I love involve traveling, eating, photography, reading and journaling. If I only had exemplary skills in any of those areas, I'd have a shot at being a lady of leisure! Perhaps in another lifetime.

This past weekend I walked around LES and some other parts of lower Manhattan with M and S. Good day for graffiti. Here is one of my favourites from Saturday...

This was another favorite of mine...not sure if it is a particular quote from something or not, though.


I got a Spanish Latte from Think (awesome, awesome coffee shop) and it was better than the one's I'd had in the past. Perhaps the intro to the coffee was better this time. A. I was freezing. B. I love the smell of freshly ground coffee beans and espresso drinks, which it did. C. It was less sweet than the last time I remembered having one.

I am on day 9 of my Adventskalender. D sent it over from Munich and it's fantastic, but I could have used about 5 more of them today. I feel bad even thinking about opening the doors for the upcoming days. Seems sacrelig. Being German, the chocolates are brilliant... Here's the calender at day two...

Wondering how my Mumbaikar friends are doing...leave me a message and let me know!

I follow a lot of blogs, especially travel blogs. It seems like my 'blogging friends' are doing their own stories of the Mumbai attacks, so here is my connection.

I was on the treadmill last week staring blankly at the TVs like usual. Walking and watching the normal trash on E! and ESPN. I looked further towards the right to the last TV. CNN rotated clips of India. It's strange to be pulled into breaking news because you recognize the places in the clips before you read the scrolling headlines. I recognized the style: buildings, cars, and graffiti. It was India. It was Mumbai. It was the hotel I stayed in for three weeks from Diwali through Thanksgiving last year. The Taj hotel wasn't my favorite hotel, but it is widely known and worth a visit for history's sake. They showed an empty VT (the Grand Central Station of Mumbai, if you will) with blood pooled on the floor. I remember climbing the stairs into the station and walking across the tiled floor, being pushed and bumped into from every angle as I looked around.

My most recent trip to Mumbai was over the summer during the time of the bombings in Bangalore, which were a much smaller scale than the Mumbai attacks. Even at that time, I wasn't concerned about my safety, although it seemed as if everyone else was. Pulling in and out of 'western' hotels involved guards running mirrors under the car and searches through the trunk. The only point I was slightly worried about dying in an attack was at the airport departing Mumbai. A suspicious package was left near the check-in area I needed to be at. The bomb squad roped the area off and was deciding when and how to remove the package. Had it been a bomb, I had nothing but a velvet rope between me and it. I’m not sure how traveling has made me fearless – dental work without Novocain in Bangalore, eating ‘black’ tofu (you don’t want to know), riding on the top of a Landrover through dunes only holding onto the luggage rack for safety… I guess I’d rather live a little dangerously than miss something along the way. Funny, I haven’t incorporated as much fearlessness in my everyday life!

This was a picture from my trip last year. The Taj hotel is on the left and suffered a significant amount of damage due to the shootings, bombs, fires and hostage situation.




Happy Thanksgiving!

My original plan was to spend Thanksgiving parked on the couch in front of the TV catching up on all of the junk I miss while at work. I was home for a visit at the end of October and already have tickets to go home for the Christmas holiday, so a visit in November seemed like a lot. (A lot of time at home, a lot of $$...) Well, I ran into a friend the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and my plans changed. I was invited to spend the day with friends in the UWS. So, that is what I did. I hung out with former coworkers and their kids. It was actually neat to see. I feel like quite a transplant in NY. I am under the impression that I don't live in NY, I just stay here. So, hanging out in apartment that a family has had for over 20 years is pretty remarkable for me. I asked all sorts of questions about the neighborhood and building was like when they first moved in. All in all, a nice day.

Southbury where it always comes down to 'Automatic Weapons' or 'Chinatown'.

Apples to Apples. Always ends up ridiculous. Need I say more?

Whinging about bobbles.

Friday night looked something like this...


Because of this, we thought doing this the following night was a good idea...


We decided our Irish friends needed an introduction to a proper Thanksgiving. I mean, we seem to have turned ourselves into beacons for anyone holding a foreign passport and we feel compelled to show off our version of 'Americana'.

Between four of us, we created an entire Thanksgiving dinner within one day without much notice. That is, we woke up around noon after surviving the night before (see aforementioned photo about Friday night) and motivated ourselves out the door and to the grocery store. From scratch- or darn close to it- we came up with a full meal. It was an achievement and super fun all at the same time. For me, it was my Thanksgiving since I'm not headed home this year. As a sidenote, I should mention that pre-holiday time tends to be more exciting and worthwhile to me than any actual holiday. The boys tried sweet potatoes for the first time and didn't think they were anything terribly remarkable. Everyone had a good time. Especially when the box competition started. Basically, you lean over without bending your knees or using your hands and you pick up a box with your teeth. Since the boys had such a poor showing, we allowed them to bend one knee so they could get a bit closer to the ground. Even then, three of us (oh yeah, me included!) beat them without any help. Yay us? Yay yoga?


Ich hab die echte Gummibärchen! Haribo macht Kinder froh (und Erwachsene ebenso)!

I finally received the package from D. Lovely gal sent over real German gummi bears (die echte), Toffifee...and an Advent calender. So many little doors to open up, so much effort and self-restraint not to do so.


Favorite sentence of the day...A. to Y, 'When does the ass kicking commence?'

Venting and making fun of it. What more is there to say?