New York you Sick Son of a Bitch!

 

Hot on the heels of Isle of Skye, was an unexpected, but positively delightful trip to New York for work. Of course, given it was for work I undoubtedly spent a large portion of my time in the US of A, working sadly, but thanks to a few early starts and a Saturday in the land of the free, I did get to see a fair bit of the city. Not surprisingly – I absolutely loved it and cannot wait to go back. I’d move there in a heartbeat!

 

 

I landed on the Monday amidst a snow storm, so unfortunately for me that meant massive delays with my taxi journey, as well as missing the iconic view of the skyline as we came over the bridge – I couldn’t so much as see my hand in front of me. All in all this gave the whole experience a rather surreal feel and after I had unpacked and made it as far as the hotel bar to catch up with my two favourite colleagues, I still didn’t quite believe I was there. As you all know, it has been a rough and very crazy six months at work, so I was dying to see my counterparts… Which goes someway to explaining our night of champagne, chatter and giggling like hyenas. It was WONDERFUL to see them.

 

The next morning the snow had somewhat settled so I was able to get a small sense on where I was – the American flags gracing the top of every rooftop certainly hammered this point home! It wasn’t at all what I expected – sure there were NYPD cars and yellow taxis everywhere, as well as billboards advertising 1800 Cop Shot, where you get a reward for dobbing in people who shoot cops (have you ever heard of such a thing?); but it was also fairly spacious, urban and quite grungy. We were staying in TriBeCa, which was right up my street and it was just a quick walk to the office, which seemed to border Soho – that said, it seems to me that areas of NY are simply different streets and one building could be explained as falling under three different areas, depending on your mood.  Just nitpicking in my opinion!

 

It was fantastic to be there – I mean really, really great. I spent the entire four days bonding with colleagues, giggling with my team and really soaking everything up.

On one of the mornings, Sarah and I got up early to go for a run through the city – the perfect opportunity to actually see some of the city. It was an amazing experience as we ran past the World Trade Centre, the Hudson River, Statue of Liberty, Wall Street etc. In fact, we spent the entire time laughing like loons – partly because it was so fricken cold, but mostly because we genuinely found everything hilarious. To the point where colleagues look wide-eyed at us throughout the week saying they found it difficult to connect with us, as we just wanted to laugh at each other. I even ran with my hair in its naturally bouffant state but this just added to the whole experience – you can do anything in NY and people just smile!

 

 

 

Every night we were out, whether that meant visiting New York’s oldest bar, gracing glamorous cocktail bars with friends, or going out in the too-cool-for-school Meat Packing district where we danced in gangster bars and laughed all the more. I don’t know how we survived on next to no sleep. We barely ate either come to think of it – it was like an amazingly, surreal and altogether fabulous experience.

Saturday was spent, laughing (shock) as we shopped continuously, picking up lipstick after lipstick, visited Times Square, Central Park, Bergdorf etc – all the sites, before I, very reluctantly, went back to the hotel to collect my bags and head to the airport for my overnight flight. On a brighter note, I flew out of a different airport, so can say I’ve technically been to New Jersey as well as New York. Sadly, there were no sightings of the Jersey Shore crew. I can  claim to have seen Beyonce and Jay-Z’s apartment as it is right opposite the office – woop woop.

 

 

 

 

Everything about New York is fabulous, the city, the shopping, but most of all the people – they’re the perfect side of friendly, yet hilariously aggressive. That said, while I’d love to live there, I’m not sure I could handle it. Some people just can’t hack that city and the same can be said for me - so much so that on Saturday morning I woke with this horror of horrors! A trip to the opto and doctors revealed it was a hemorrhage from coughing too hard and promptly wrote me off work with a chest infection, as well as being severely run down. I can’t blame this on New York, but I’d do it all again in a heartbeat – despite the fact it took three weeks to heal. Eek!

 

Much love

xxx