These people are normal (kind of).

The night after doing Broadway, I was invited to have some drinks with a few people from work. People in New York actually do drink; they just do it at insane hours. His little drinks get together started at 11pm at a place called Village Underground. It was bizarre. Firstly, you had to give your name at the door and tell them which party you were with. If you weren't on the list, you didn't get in. Secondly, they're pretty serious about checking IDs here. I haven't been asked for ID yet in New York, and it's not something that's enforced emphatically either, possibly because I don't really look under 21 any more. The NY night scene seems a little different. I've got a New York ID card which they not only looked at, but inserted into some machine which read the barcode on the back to verify that it was legitimate and that I was over 21. You'd really have to have your act together if you were going to produce fake IDs here.

Finally, I found out later in the night that the guy whose birthday it was had to book a certain number of people to get in, which cost him about $250. He then had to guarantee that the group would spend another $250 on drinks. It was certainly a happening place, and when I left, there was a queue a mile long (not quite, but there were hundreds of people), but to spend that kind of money just to get people in seems a little crazy to me.

Long story short, there were a lot of people from work there, so it was my first opportunity to actually kick back and have a drink with these people. They're normal people as it turns out, just being American seems to be their only major problem. Once it got to about 12:30, I called it quits. The best thing about living in New York City is having the subway. The Village Underground practically on top of the D Line, and I was home in about 15 minutes.

I was speaking with the birthday boy a few days later, and he said they went until about 4am, and he passed out in the cab on the way home. Good luck to him; there are too many things to do in New York without doing that.

A bit of catching up

I've been absolutely flat out with work and life in general lately, so I haven't really had time to update my blog, so I've got a few posts which will catch things up. I'll break them down into smaller bits, because there's a bit to get through!

Last Friday night, we were fortunate enough to get some tickets to The Producers, one of the plays on Broadway. They announced on Friday morning that the Broadway production is to close in mid-April after a 6 year run. I thought that it would be good to see it before it closed, especially with Tony Danza (from Who's The Boss) in the lead role. Luckily somebody from the office had previously offered, very generously, to give us a night off some time, so being in a tight squeeze for babysitting, I called in the offer. I'm sure I'll be able to return it some time soon.

We were able to get great tickets through work, about 9 rows back in the dead centre of the theatre. Even better than that, because I booked through one of the deals with work, I got them at about half price. When we got there, we were surprised how small the theatre was. Not that it was especially tiny or anything, it's just that we're used to seeing plays in QPAC where you can fit about 5000 people per performance. We didn't know anything about the show before it started, so whatever was to come would be a surprise.

We weren't disappointed. Of course, something which Mel Brooks had a part in was always going to be good. It was pretty cool having Tony Danza performing live in front of us, even if we missed the original cast which had Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane (who is now on another Broadway show, The Drowsy Chaperone). It was a fantastic night. These things come through Brisbane once in a while, but in New York, they're on every night - and every show. We're truly spoilt for choice; the only trick is looking after Kyan.

Once the show was over, we ducked back to Sarah's place to pick up our little man. Apparently, he had been very well behaved, which we were very pleased about. By the time we got out of there, it was getting close to midnight, so Kyan had a little screaming episode on the train home. It's entirely understandable because his little body couldn't stay awake any longer, but it's also very frustrating at the time having to talk sense into somebody who just wants to scream. When we got home, we popped him straight off to bed, which ended a great night out.

The sky giveth, and the sky taketh away

We've now had the first decent snowfall of the season. Less than 24 hours after it hit, the sky is cloudless and a crystal-clear blue. Most of the snow has been expeditiously taken from the streets and sidewalks (read footpaths) and whisked off to some less populated destination. Perhaps Brisbane could do with a few thousand tonnes of snow for the Wivenhoe Dam.

The weather's still nice and cold outside, -6 with up to 50kph winds taking it down below -15. That can only mean one thing. Ice.

The footpaths are slippery beyond belief at the moment, so I've been advised to invest in a pair of galoshes. I finally know what the locals have. They're made out of rubber, look exactly like a shoe and just slip over your normal shoes. Why didn't I think of that? Next mission - figure out where to get them.

According to the weather commentators, this may well be the last winter storm to hit this season. It's been an incredibly tame one. The cold is brutal, but if there's no rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow or whatever else comes out of the sky, it's easy enough to cope with.

Off to work!

This photo was taken this morning on my way to work. We got quite a bit of snow last night, so the whole area looks very nice and certainly very white. It was fun walking through the snow. Luckily, I don't have too far to go above ground.

Everything seemed a lot more peaceful this morning. Maybe because a lot of people are staying at home, or the schools are closed, or people don't want to drive with snow and ice all over the roads, or people tend not to hang around in the streets when it's this cold, or maybe the snow absorbs all the sound. Who knows? I hope we get a lot more snow to really get buried in. The forecast says we won't, but you never know your luck in a big city...

About time too!

I finally came home from work in the snow.

I have nothing more to say. It's about time.

Boys' Day Out

Alicia has taken off for the weekend, so Kyan and I have three days together. Yesterday, we thought we'd make the most of it, despite the cold. It was actually a pretty nice day. It was about -5, but with not much wind, so we thought we'd get out and about.

We stayed at home in the morning playing games, reading some books and watching a little bit of The Wiggles. It was fun to spend some time together.

We headed off to Chinatown for lunch; it's our newest discovery in New York. The food's great, and cheap, and it's only one subway stop away on the D Line. Kyan loves his rice, so he had plenty of it. He also shared my noodles while I enjoyed a Tsingtao; something I'll have to seek out, quite pleasant.

After that, we headed up to Central Park to have a bit of a look around. It was much quieter than the other times we've been there. We hadn't been in a while, mainly because the weather's not exactly as pleasant as it was when we got here in September. We ended up going to the lake where you can hire a rowboat in the warmer months. There wouldn't be much point now, unless those boats had wheels. The lake was totally frozen over. I read about it in the paper the other day, but to see the entire lake frozen was pretty impressive. I wanted to go walking on it, but I'm sure that wouldn't have been a good idea! On our way home, we went past a playground, and Kyan just had to have a play on the slides. So even though the playground was completely empty of people, we went and played on the slides. He had fun anyway, and burned off a bit of energy. Kyan slept for about 15 hours last night, so he must have been pretty tired at the end of all that.

So today (Saturday), we'll have a quiet day at home, playing with trains, reading the New York Times, and drinking coffee. It's a beautiful day outside; not a cloud in the sky and it's even forecast to get above zero this afternoon. We'll probably go out tomorrow; we just don't know what to do yet. We might just do something quiet like head up to the shops, or maybe something a bit more interesting, like go to a museum, or take the Staten Island Ferry and see 'the green lady.' Who knows? That's one of the best things about New York - you're never spoilt for choice.

Life - on hold

So my blog is probably starting to sound like an endless series of weather reports now. It's not that cold weather's anything new, or even interesting. The thing that amazes me is that it's just so incredibly cold that it seriously puts life on hold, or at least slows it down a lot.

Last weekend, it got down below -20 with the windchill, so poor Kyan didn't even get to go outside. It's just too cold for his little baby body. I managed to take a run down to Home Depot (like Bunnings, but a fair bit bigger) to get a new shower head. That was exciting. I've done the trip before on the bus, but this week I took the subway so I didn't have to wait above ground.

Apart from that, I made a couple of quick trips to the shop over the road, and a longer trek to Key Foods, the supermarket about 400 metres away. That was to get the ingredients for pizza - yum.

We watched the Super Bowl (a game of American Football) while we had our pizza. The Super Bowl didn't hold much interest, but the commercials were great. Companies advertising during the SB spend millions on their ads and quite often never show them again. I can at least say I've watched the SB now. Tick that off the list.

There was a picture in today's Metro (free newspaper) of the main lake in Central Park completely frozen over. I might try to get up there on the weekend and take some photos. During the warmer months, there are people having wedding photos taken next to the lake, and people in row boats on it. If I can brave the elements, it should be a worthwhile photo.

We're in for another arctic front to come through, so no warmth for a while yet. It's probably why you can fly to London for $400 return at the moment!

When freezing is warm

It certainly looks as though we're in the thick of winter now. We're all decked out in our new winter gear (still no snow shoes though), and life in a seriously cold environment is not anywhere near as harsh as we thought it would be. Except for a day here and there, the temperature hasn't gotten over zero for the past couple of weeks now. What's even worse, when it's zero outside, it actually feels warm!

It only feels cold when it's -15 outside, which is our best so far. It's funny how in Brisbane, you'd say it's 30 outside, but with 85% humidity to truly express how unpleasant the weather is. Well they have an equivalent here, and it's called windchill. When the wind picks up, even though it may be zero outside, the wind can take another 10 degrees off that pretty easily. Then there's something called RealFeel, which takes into account the wind, humidity, precipitation, sunlight and a bunch of other stuff to calculate how it really feels like to be in. For example, tonight, it's forecast to be -4, but because it will be windy with some snow flurries, it will feel like -13. Not great to be out in.

The worst to come will be on Monday. The minimum is forecast to be -15, with the RealFeel at -28. That qualifies as seriously cold in anybody's language. The forecast for that day is "Mostly cloudy, brisk and bitterly cold with a few flurries". Nice. By the way, flurries are a poor excuse for snow, kind of when the snow couldn't quite be bothered falling down. We haven't had a serious dump of snowfall yet, but it should be coming.

Well, the good news is that it's Groundhog Day today! Punxsutawny Phil the groundhog has predicted an early spring this year. We'll just have to wait and see how clever the groundhog is.