Market Weekend

I now live in London. I now live in London. I have to keep reminding myself this. I keep thinking this is a temporary work vacation. Except this could be a couple of years and I no longer have a home in the US. Well… except my dad’s place, but let’s be honest, there are just way too many kids to have a room there.  

I spent my first week working about 15 hours a day. Fun. Exactly the way I wanted to spend my first week in my new city. I had to make up for the fact that I was busy moving the week before. And it’s a crazy time right now. So I didn’t do much last week except being chained to my laptop and blackberry, and sleeping.

When the weekend arrived, I was ready to sleep, relax a bit, and go exploring. I succeeded in all 3. I do need to find a place to live, but I figured I needed to get acclimated first. Get over jet lag. Decide on where I should live first. That type of stuff.

On Saturday I met up with KC, an old coworker of mine. She’s a newbie to London as well. I decided we will be friends. We spent the late morning/early afternoon wondering around Borough Market, which is near London Bridge. If you are looking for food, this is the place to go. They have a ton of fresh food for the choosing. Veggies, fruit, fish, spices, pretty much anything you can think of to prepare a meal. Now I don’t cook. We established this in #20. Luckily KC cooks and offered to feed me for my entire stay in London. Although she doesn’t know this yet. Of course there were also stalls with food to munch on for lunch. I grabbed a Pimm’s drink and a falafel to wash it down. It was pretty yummy. We then hit up Selfridge’s and had some cider to celebrate a good day.

On Sunday I was a bit more adventurous and decided to go to Old Spiltalfields Market. The adventure was taking the tube to the market. Apparently there’s a lot of construction on the weekend. EVERYWHERE. It took me about 2 hours to get there. No joke. I have no friends and had no plans, so I didn’t stress. This market is not food, although there is a lot in the nearby Brick Lane. This market is all about fashion. I wandered around and resisted buying anything. I figured I’d better find an apartment first before I purchase a lot of clothes. However, I do need some spring items since I didn’t pack properly when the shippers came before I left. There may be a return trip in the near future.

 

There are many markets in London and I plan to explore every single one of them.

I Heart NY

#15

I moved to NYC June 1, 2005, right after graduating from the University of Rochester. I spent the previous year taking part in the Take 5 Scholar Program and decided that I wanted to get into the Marketing field, and more specifically Advertising. I spent a couple of weeks at home in upstate New York restlessly waiting to hear back from job applications in NYC, Boston, and Chicago. I had a few interviews lined up in NYC and my sister’s college apartment was available to sublet. So I packed 2 suitcases and took the Greyhound down to Port Authority.

The interviews went well and I was asked to come back for a 2^nd round for a couple of them. However, It took me a couple of months to land a job. In the meantime, I explored the city and patiently kept applying to jobs. Something finally came through in August and I started at a healthcare advertising agency in Murray Hill.

One month shy of 6 years later, I am not only leaving this beloved city, I’m leaving the country to start the next chapter in my life in London. I am relocating for my job and am excited to return to the city I lived in briefly back in 2004. There are some things I’m not going to miss about NYC (crowded hot subways, gross rats, muggers), but there’s a lot more I’m going to miss. So going with my theme, I’ve made a list (in no particular order) of the various memories I’ve had in the last 6 years.

1. Running in 2 NYC Marathons
2. Watching the Yankees win the 2009 World Series at Brother Jimmy’s
3. Attending the Yankees Ticker Tape Parade a few days later
4. Countless races in Central Park, Prospect Park, and all over the 5 boroughs
5. My studio apartment in Woodside
6. Many nights that I can’t remember
7. Watching the sun rise at early races and after late nights
8. Watching the sun set over the Manhattan skyline
9. Many dinners at Dino
10. Too many nights of too-many-beers-after-dodgeball

11. Doing all the touristy stuff (Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, Statue of Liberty)
12. Going to Broadway shows like Rent, Wicked, and American Idiot
13. Too many Yankees game to count at the old and new stadiums
14. Tour of the old Yankees Stadium
15. The sadness of seeing the old skeleton of the old stadium
16. Day trips to Long Beach with friends
17. Hanging out in Central Park trying to get a tan
18. Weekend trips to upstate, Nantucket, and Philly
19. Many vacations from JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark
20. A very memorable wine-filled, 29^th birthday celebration on Long Island
21. Training runs traversing all over this city
22. Hanging out at the Astoria beer garden in the summer
23. Making great friends through work and running
24. Getting robbed multiple times
25. Seeing A-rod’s 500^th HR in person
26. The 7 train
27. The guys apartment building erupting when the Giants won the 2008 Superbowl
28. Running through Times Square in 3 NYC ½ marathons
29. Lots of margaritas and burritos at Blockheads
30. Snowstorms of 2006, 2010 and 2011 (just in case I needed a reminder of upstate)
31. Lots of ‘Cuse, Rangers, and Knicks games at MSG
32. Lots of concerts at MSG (plus a circus)
33. Going to The Daily Show taping
34. Many a homeless man sleeping on subway cars
35. Cursing at cab drivers, subways, people who cat-called me, and slow walkers
36. Grabbing a slice after being at the bars till 4am
37. Grabbing a whole-wheat everything bagel, toasted with scallion cream cheese the next morning
38. Watching movies in Bryant Park
39. Free Kenny Chesney and All American Rejects
    summer concerts 
40. Wondering around the Christmas Markets
41. Skating at Wollman
42. Halloween shenanigans
43. Runs from Paragon
44. Riding the bull at Johnny Utah’s
45. The views from the Staten Island Ferry
46. The views from Long Island City
47. Spring blooming in Central Park
48. The welcomed fall cool temps in October
49. Book club nights
50. An amazing going away party at the Brooklyn Brewery

With this list of memories I now say good bye to the city that never sleeps. I will take my NYC walk across the Atlantic, and make some new memories in London.

Kangaroo Meat

#12

Why did I put kangaroo meat on my list? Well, I saw it somewhere and had never tried it, so why not. I used to get a lot of questions on whether I’m a vegetarian. I think it’s because I’m a runner. My response is, “my dad is a hunter”. So yeah, I’m a meat eater. I’ve had all the traditional meats—venison, pork, beef, steak, chicken, ect. I even tried alligator sophomore year of college down in Ft. Lauderdale. I figured kangaroo meat wasn’t really readily available so I added it. It would be a challenge to find it and then actually eat it.

My friend Nick had found a place that served it and I figured I could get some guy to take me out for #8. Well that didn’t happen. And the restaurant apparently had stopped serving it. I kind of forgot about it. A few months later, Nick and I made plans to meet up for dinner. I am moving soon, so we had to hang out one last time. Luckily he was thinking of my list and googled and searched on menu pages for a place that served kangaroo in NYC. And we were in luck.

Public on Elizabeth Street has a kangaroo appetizer dish. So of course we made reservations and met up last night to try this exotic fare. We started with some drinks and dove right into it. It was grilled kangaroo on a coriander falafel with lemon tahini sauce and green pepper relish. Pretty good. It tasted like beef. I thought it would be a white meat (as did Nick), but it was red. We ate it up. I would definitely eat it again (although it’s endangered in some parts). We moved onto our main dishes and caught up. We finished off with some dessert at Rice to Riches. I tried a new food, so why not a new dessert. I got the chocolate chip flirt. It was good. But ice cream is definitely better.

It was a good night of catching up and trying new things.

Anna Karenina

I finally finished the 2^nd book on my classic list! I bought a kindle a couple of months ago and downloaded a bunch of free books. I figured I could get a bunch of classics downloaded and read them throughout the year. Well since it was organized by alphabetical order, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy was at the top of the list. That may or may not have been a good idea. I started reading it a few days before I went to London back at the beginning of March. Now I was quite busy during my month in England, but read pretty steadily. Since I was on the kindle, the length of the book was very deceiving. I tried googling it but it didn’t specify the number of pages. Well I found myself in a bookstore in Camden Town and found the actual book. Well it’s more than 800 pages! No matter it took me so damn long. I did have to take a break once I got to part 6, but picked it back up a week later when I finished I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson.

The book was long. Longer than it needed to be. There were parts I liked, and other parts that kind of dragged on. Some parts were sad, and the ending wasn’t quite what I expected. Some people really like the book, others not so much. It was good, but I was glad I didn’t have to write a paper on it for English class.

Pie!

#20

You may think that I’ve made a pie before and I have. So why is it on the list? Every year at Thanksgiving I make a pumpkin pie. Now anyone that makes pumpkin pie knows it’s pretty simple. My brother Zach and I go to town on the pie after dinner. I decided to be a bit more adventurous and make an legit pie from scratch.

First of all I don’t cook. I live by myself and my job doesn’t allow me to cook on a regular basis. I’m really familiar with the various delivery places near the office. When I’m actually at home, I just throw something together. Pasta is my main dish and luckily being a long-distance runner, this comes in handy a lot.

I decided to make a strawberry rhubarb pie. I haven’t had rhubarb pie since I was a kid and thought it would be a good choice. I figured my mom would appreciate being a part of my 30 list and asked her to assist in the pie making. On Easter Sunday, my brother Levi and sister Em made our way to our mom’s. Now I asked my mom if I should bring a recipe and she said no; she had one.

We almost couldn’t make this pie since mom was unsuccessful in finding rhubarb. Luckily we stopped at Tops in Skaneateles and they had some. Vegetable oil was also missing and we had to quickly grab some—after I had begun to make the pie crust. Mom cut up the rhubarb and Em cut up the strawberries. Levi drove to Tops. So as you can see it was a team effort.

A couple of hours later, we all tried a slice. And it was yummy. Some of the filling had oozed out, but still delicious. We brought some back to my dad’s and my kid sisters also tried some—after they finished their dinner of course. Too bad we didn’t have vanilla ice cream.

Baseball and Beer

#5

I wanted to put something on my list baseball related. I’ve been to plenty of games at both the old and new Yankee Stadiums. I did a tour of the old stadium before they knocked it down. Ever since I moved to NYC in 2005, I was determined to go to the Ticker Tape Parade, and finally got to when the Yanks won the World Series in 2009. I thought maybe I should do a tour of the new stadium. I tried last year, but getting tickets seemed near impossible. I had it on the list, but I removed it at the last second and replaced it with a visit to Cooperstown to really see where the Yanks rule. I was trying to avoid putting things on the list that I’ve kind of sorta done already.

I made plans to come home for Easter weekend. Now, this is something I never do. Church? Not so much. Baseball? Yes. As my friend Andrea says, her religion is the Yankees, and I have to agree. So I grabbed my brother Levi and my sister Em and we drove to Cooperstown, about 2 hours from where we grew up. It was a cold, rainy Saturday morning and I of course didn’t bring proper footwear. Upstate NY hasn’t realized May is practically here.

 

We headed straight to the Baseball Hall of Fame when we arrived in Cooperstown. There were many other fans of the game milling around. I could see Phillies fans, Red Sox fans and of course plenty of Yankees fans. Right before we entered, the current standings were on display—Yanks 1^st in the AL East and the Red Sox last. The way I like it.

During the tour we gravitated to all the Yankees memorabilia—Babe Ruth memories, the Pinstripe Wall, many World Series rings. All the greats were there, Yogi, Jackie Robinson, Babe, Mickey Mantle. Every team was represented by a locker. In the Yanks one, we had Jeter’s gloves, A-rod’s cleats, a ticket for opening day at the new stadium

After spending a couple of hours of reveling in baseball glory, we headed outside of Cooperstiwb to drink some beer. Cooperstown Brewery was up first. We did a quick tour and tasted a bunch of varieties—Nine Man Ale, Old Slugger, and Benchwarmer to name a few. We were beginning to run out of time and made our way to Ommegang Brewery. Unfortunately google maps failed big time and we couldn’t find the brewery until they were closing. We squeezed in a couple of tastes of Belgium-style beer, like Witte and Hennepin. Since we didn’t get to taste too much, we made our way to Bear Pond Winery since they were open until 7pm. We then had a few tastes of upstate NY wines.

For dinner, we may our way back to Cooperstown and had dinner at the Doubleday Café. Burgers and beer. Yummy. All in all a good trip with baseball, beer, and burgers. And the Yanks beat the Orioles 15-3.

To Infinity and Beyond

#6

I’ve been meaning to learn how to knit for years. Really ever since college. Somehow knitting became cool—not just for your granny—and everyone was doing it. Some friends offered to teach me, but we just never got around to it.

I went home for Thanksgiving back in 2008 and during that weekend we went to Wal-Mart in Auburn (where without fail I run into someone from high school), to pick up a few things. I saw the teach-yourself-how-to-knit instruction kit and decided to finally learn how to do this.

Once I got back to the city I immediately got started. At Thanksgiving every year my siblings and I always exchange names for our Secret Santa. Well that year, I got Emily and I figured a scarf would be a nice present. I knew she would appreciate it and would definitely wear it. Well my grand notions of giving it to her a month later didn’t pan out. I did not make as good progress on this as I had hoped. I thought maybe I’d finish sometime during the winter. Nope.

All of a sudden it’s over 2 years later and I hadn’t finished the damn thing. Don’t get me wrong, I'd pick it up and knit for a little bit—occasionally. But then I would forget about it. Of course going months without practice wasn’t the best idea. I definitely made mistakes. Oh well. I was a beginner.

I was coming up with my 30 list and decided that I needed to set a goal for myself to finish this scarf. If I can finish it by my birthday this year, it would have only taken at most 3 years to do.

A few months ago I was actually making good progress and realized that not only did I somehow add stitches to the rows, but I was going to run out of yarn. Damn. I’m going to have a short, fat scarf for my first attempt.  How would I wear it?? Luckily I noticed my friend Sandra had an infinity scarf and decided that this is what this scarf was going to become.

I got close to the end of the yarn and enlisted my friend Pam to help me finish yesterday afternoon. She provided direction on how to finish the last row, and then to connect the 2 sides (a garter stitch?). My scarf isn’t perfect. There are a few holes due to missed stitches and one side is fatter than the other, but,it’s actually not so bad. I will wear it with pride. It only took me 2 years and about 5 months to finish. Too bad it’s April and snow (hopefully) is gone for another 8 or so months.

P.S. It took Pam 2 cameras and about 10 photos to get a picture of me proudly wearing my scarf. I kept blinking at the flash. Apparently my eyes are sensitive.