I’m a bit behind, but day two in the Big Brother office was not good. It started with a brush with the law enforcement authorities – or at least, a bus ticket inspector. New York is piloting a new scheme with ‘express’ buses on Manhattan. It’s a bit of false advertising really, as the fact these buses don’t stop at every stop doesn’t really make any difference in the rush hour, but you get the idea. So with these buses, you verify your travel card at a machine at the bus-stop, and it gives you a receipt – which like normal bus tickets, I tend to drop into my bottomless bag.
But this morning an inspector got on and clearly took my panicked scrabbling in my bag as a sign of guilt. She made a bee-line for me and stood in front of me. I handed her a receipt. She continued to stand there staring at me impasssively. “Is that not today’s?” I asked, dying to say, ‘I’m not a fare dodger, I’m just British!’ The impassive staring continued. I scrabbled some more, and finally found the correct one. She glanced at it and her manner completely changed. “Ok, thankyou Ma’am”, and off she went.
On arrival at work I was again overwhelmed by the string of bureaucratic things that still had to be done before I could really do my job – not to mention the whole get-a-US-bank-account-or-won’t-get-paid stress. Suddenly felt a bit like crying and I think my lovely manager had a sense. He put me in touch with an assistant who actually seemed to want to help and as of today I can now get into the office with my pass, I have an email account and log-in and an American bank account – but that’s another story.
So, the day continued – I read the lunchtime news programme – badly – but everyone seemed impressed. And I got more and more tired. This was the night myself and the Queen of Manhattan, my flatmate, were supposed to be attending a cocktail party organised by the brilliant new company Off The Sidewalk www.offthesidewalk.com/ — set up to help people re-locate between London and New York. (I wish I’d known about it before I tried to move over) A former colleague works for them, and I really wanted to catch up with her, and drink a cocktail in the Ava Bar on the penthouse suite of the Dream boutique hotel. But I was soooo tired.
However, once I had met up with the Queen of Manhattan, I think I absorbed some of her bountiful energy and I suddenly perked up. Then along came her delightful friend – a very American foil to her Romanian exoticism – calm, be-spectacled and from Missouri. What an international team we made as we tried to persuade a taxi to pick us up.
When we arrived we were fashionably late – but that made it all the more exciting. As we steped out of the ‘elevator’to the penthouse, what a sight greeted us. It was amazing – we were literally on the roof, looking out over the skyscrapers and the teeming road so far below. I wonder when the views of this city will start to pall. So we sat and chatted, and drank g and ts, and generally felt like something out of ‘Sex and the City’. And it was the perfect end to a potentially dicey day.
