New York is still fun
Last week on wednesday night I saw my friend Jesse. Jesse is one of my oldest friends. I have known him for almost ten years and we have always gotten along really well. Even though we have both left Nova Soctia long ago and rarely have an opportunity to see eachother, we always just pick up where we had left off.
It had been about two and a half years since I had seen him. He was looking really good, lost a lot of weight, and was in good spirits. He has lived in New York for a while now. He first came here to study at Yeshiva University. He liked it at first, but then the whole religious thing got to be a bit too much so he moved New Jersey and studied at Rutgers to finish up his degree. In May, after he gradualy, he moved to Hawaii for a month before coming back to New York to make a go of it. Now he is working at a hedge fund doing the most junior stuff they do and making a decent living.
We went for dinner at a surprisingly authentic French restaurant in the Lower East side where he lives. After dinner, we went for a walk around lower Manhattan until we ended up at Pravda, a trendy bar. There, we talked about future plans and dreams which for him include finding a good job and for me include moving back to New York.
On friday I thought I would introduce Roger and Vincent. I guess this probably wasn't the best idea seeing as Vincent can scorn someone very easily and Roger has many scornable personality traits. In the event I went to see Roger with a six pack of beer to start the evening. Unfortunately, since Roger doesn't really like beer I ended up drinking five of the beers to myself. By the time we made it to the bar to meet Vincent, he had already left. Also, becuase he had gone to a noisy club, he didn't hear my calls and I didn't get to intoduce him to Roger.
After giving up hope on seeing Vincent, we walked down to Chinatown to find some bubble tea. New York is not like Vancouver, and there weren't as many bubble tea houses, and the bubble tea wasn't that great either. I also ordred some 炸酱面, a Beijing specialty. It was the worst 炸酱面 I had ever had. The noodles were not real pulled noodles, but rather cheap instant ramen noodles. The sause was also crap. It really made me wonder if they had ever had real 炸酱面.
Saturday I went to work with my parents. We basically spent the whole day doing a big brainstorm session comparing the different options and scenarios on a whole list of different criterea. By the end of the session, it started to become apparant that outsourcing to outside companies is not a good idea on a large scale. What we did deem to be a good idea was to estabilish an arm's length UN subsidary company to handle all the translation outside of the rigid UN rules, but still inside the UN system. Of course, this is easier said than done, but it is much less risky than throwing Security Council work onto the open market.
Last night I had a real New York night out. I met up with Will who had come back from Boston for the weekend. Will is probably my oldest friend that I keep in regular contact with. I have known him for over ten years and he even came to see me in Nova Soctia. He is now in his last semester of a business degree at Northeastern University in Boston.
As soon as I got over to Will's house the first thing he did was roll a joint. He was there with his friend Billy, who was really annoying. He was from some shit town in Mass and he had clearly learned all of his knowledge and social skills from television. The real problem with him was that he was an idiot, but he really thought he wasn't. To make things worse he was in a Master's program so he had some legitimacy. Of course, the only thing I got from him was how shallow and ignorant even some "educated" Americans can be.
It had been six months since I had smoked, and closer to a year since I had smoked pot so it really hit me hard. For the next few hours as more people came over to hang out, I was pretty much out of it, unable to be properly social. It was cool that I got to see some people that I hadn't seen in a long time. After hanging out at Will's place for a while, we went to a bar on 17th and 3rd. It was ok, just a standard bar, the kind that doesn't really exist in Vancouver with one pool table and a lot of TVs. We drank some Budwiser and talked about TV.
Towards the end of the night we all went over to this girl Lauren's house. There, they started rolling a few more and they broke out the yay. I guess that is real New York partying. Around 2:30 some more people showed up. One of them was this Jewish guy who had gone to high school with Lauren. He was a model of conspicuous consumption. He had all of the signs of wealth. Gold cufflinks, expensive cell phone, blackberry, jeans with a rip in the back pocket to expose the LV wallet. All of this went perfectly with the yay and the vacuous personality. I think if I did live in New York, I would do better to spend more time with Jesse and Vincent and less time with people like these.
Today I went to the MoMA with Vincent and his friend Thomas. The MoMA is really great. There were lots of very famous and beautiful paintings. I can not say that I am a real art conneseur, but I did enjoy the gallery.
It struck me today that I only have one more week in New York. My time here has passed really quickly. I have been so busy working and seeing friends, I have not had any time to be bored. I hope that when I get back to Vancouver my life can be this interesting, I also hope that if I do move here, I still have this many friends and that I can have this much fun.
I can hope...
Last week on wednesday night I saw my friend Jesse. Jesse is one of my oldest friends. I have known him for almost ten years and we have always gotten along really well. Even though we have both left Nova Soctia long ago and rarely have an opportunity to see eachother, we always just pick up where we had left off.
It had been about two and a half years since I had seen him. He was looking really good, lost a lot of weight, and was in good spirits. He has lived in New York for a while now. He first came here to study at Yeshiva University. He liked it at first, but then the whole religious thing got to be a bit too much so he moved New Jersey and studied at Rutgers to finish up his degree. In May, after he gradualy, he moved to Hawaii for a month before coming back to New York to make a go of it. Now he is working at a hedge fund doing the most junior stuff they do and making a decent living.
We went for dinner at a surprisingly authentic French restaurant in the Lower East side where he lives. After dinner, we went for a walk around lower Manhattan until we ended up at Pravda, a trendy bar. There, we talked about future plans and dreams which for him include finding a good job and for me include moving back to New York.
On friday I thought I would introduce Roger and Vincent. I guess this probably wasn't the best idea seeing as Vincent can scorn someone very easily and Roger has many scornable personality traits. In the event I went to see Roger with a six pack of beer to start the evening. Unfortunately, since Roger doesn't really like beer I ended up drinking five of the beers to myself. By the time we made it to the bar to meet Vincent, he had already left. Also, becuase he had gone to a noisy club, he didn't hear my calls and I didn't get to intoduce him to Roger.
After giving up hope on seeing Vincent, we walked down to Chinatown to find some bubble tea. New York is not like Vancouver, and there weren't as many bubble tea houses, and the bubble tea wasn't that great either. I also ordred some 炸酱面, a Beijing specialty. It was the worst 炸酱面 I had ever had. The noodles were not real pulled noodles, but rather cheap instant ramen noodles. The sause was also crap. It really made me wonder if they had ever had real 炸酱面.
Saturday I went to work with my parents. We basically spent the whole day doing a big brainstorm session comparing the different options and scenarios on a whole list of different criterea. By the end of the session, it started to become apparant that outsourcing to outside companies is not a good idea on a large scale. What we did deem to be a good idea was to estabilish an arm's length UN subsidary company to handle all the translation outside of the rigid UN rules, but still inside the UN system. Of course, this is easier said than done, but it is much less risky than throwing Security Council work onto the open market.
Last night I had a real New York night out. I met up with Will who had come back from Boston for the weekend. Will is probably my oldest friend that I keep in regular contact with. I have known him for over ten years and he even came to see me in Nova Soctia. He is now in his last semester of a business degree at Northeastern University in Boston.
As soon as I got over to Will's house the first thing he did was roll a joint. He was there with his friend Billy, who was really annoying. He was from some shit town in Mass and he had clearly learned all of his knowledge and social skills from television. The real problem with him was that he was an idiot, but he really thought he wasn't. To make things worse he was in a Master's program so he had some legitimacy. Of course, the only thing I got from him was how shallow and ignorant even some "educated" Americans can be.
It had been six months since I had smoked, and closer to a year since I had smoked pot so it really hit me hard. For the next few hours as more people came over to hang out, I was pretty much out of it, unable to be properly social. It was cool that I got to see some people that I hadn't seen in a long time. After hanging out at Will's place for a while, we went to a bar on 17th and 3rd. It was ok, just a standard bar, the kind that doesn't really exist in Vancouver with one pool table and a lot of TVs. We drank some Budwiser and talked about TV.
Towards the end of the night we all went over to this girl Lauren's house. There, they started rolling a few more and they broke out the yay. I guess that is real New York partying. Around 2:30 some more people showed up. One of them was this Jewish guy who had gone to high school with Lauren. He was a model of conspicuous consumption. He had all of the signs of wealth. Gold cufflinks, expensive cell phone, blackberry, jeans with a rip in the back pocket to expose the LV wallet. All of this went perfectly with the yay and the vacuous personality. I think if I did live in New York, I would do better to spend more time with Jesse and Vincent and less time with people like these.
Today I went to the MoMA with Vincent and his friend Thomas. The MoMA is really great. There were lots of very famous and beautiful paintings. I can not say that I am a real art conneseur, but I did enjoy the gallery.
It struck me today that I only have one more week in New York. My time here has passed really quickly. I have been so busy working and seeing friends, I have not had any time to be bored. I hope that when I get back to Vancouver my life can be this interesting, I also hope that if I do move here, I still have this many friends and that I can have this much fun.
I can hope...
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