21 July 2007 – The Big, Tasty Apple

 

 

Settling into training in NYC was comparable to settling into university.  There were of course a few differences between the two times though.  For one, rather than having a small single bedroom, in a dark basement of a halls in Paddington, with the view of a brick wall and my kitchen, I had my own apartment, in Jersey City, on the 38^th floor overlooking Manhattan.  On the down side I did have to get up every morning and felt compelled to wear a suit to work  (in fact I still do).  The short of New York City is that I loved it (although I haven’t bought the T-shirt).  I appreciate that my experience of living there was heavily skewed by the circumstances but I can’t understand how people would not be awed by this place.  In fact that’s a lie because I can imagine people that could quite understandably experience life as unabatedly repugnant, but I think you know what I mean.  The place is bustling.  Service is excellent.  Staff are very professional no matter what their job is.  Decisions are quick.  People aren’t so shy. Pick up games of many different sports can be played throughout the city.  There are excellent places to have brunch. Central park is the perfect place to relax or hang out…  The list goes on.

 

Saturday 21 July was a typical weekend day in NYC and my Su, Annelies, was visiting from Ohio.

Day starts with Path train from Newport, Jersey to WTC site, lower Manhattan.  Have a look around the Four World Financial Center and the Winter Garden.  Starbucks for 2 Grande mocha frappuccinos, one skinny – no cream, one regular – with cream.  Walk up along the west side of Manhattan by the Hudson river and talk about investment management and the financial services industry.  Stop at an art gallery of Alex Grey to see his 10 year works:  Sacred Mirrors;  a series of 21 life-sized paintings that portray transcendentalism in highly detailed, translucent, physical, human forms interlaced with spiritual imagery and landscapes.  Cut into Greenwich village and on to Union square to watch a bit of street performance and part of a 10 minute chess game.  Up Park Avenue, to see Grand Central, counting the blocks E 34^th, E 35^th, E 36^th … must have stopped for food somewhere around here (think we had a subway – love those meatballs).  Starbucks for 2 more Grande mocha frappuccinos.  No one asks for money so I take them and have an attack of conscience wondering whether I should have paid.  By coincidence I see a boy with, “OH NO JOHN” written on the back of his T-shirt and point it out to Annie.  59^th street, arrive at the base of Central Park.  Buy Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books.  Sit just up from The Pond in the park and read.  See a dad teaching his young girl to climb the rocks in the park.  See people playing football.  See people playing baseball.  See people chilling like us.  Good day.

 

Later in the evening, after having been home, we went to Borders on Union Square to see what the deal was with getting a copy of the new Harry Potter book.  Thousands were in line to get their hands on a copy of,  “…the Deathly Hallows”.  Realizing we had a much better chance of picking the book up at some other store in the morning we left to go home via a Starbucks for a couple of Mocha Fraps. 

04 July 2007 – Flight to New York

 

Customarily this is date most popularly know for the celebration of the Declaration of Independence, but I will always remember this date as the start of my journey into the wider world… and a day at Heathrow Terminal 4.

 

Having landed a position on the Technology Analyst Program (TAP), I was very excited to be taking off to NYC to start a 9-week training program with 120 other graduands before being sent out into “the real world”.  Taking off however was something that was going to have to wait a while.

 

Terror alert and subsequent evacuation of Terminal 4 on Tuesday meant that Chaos had become our new master on the Wednesday morning.  Waiting to get into the Terminal building with my parents and Sarah became somewhat akin to waiting for the gates to open at Reading festival, only there was less mud, people didn’t smell so much and I had to settle for a tea to pass the time rather than a beer.  “Tea solves all”, on this occasion, was not going to work either.  I was soon to realise that, despite the fact that half the people had not been given a chance to check in, my flight to JFK was taking off on time anyway.

 

Having wallowed in my own self pity for a few minutes it was time to pick myself up and start skulking around what seemed to be a never ending queue of people waiting to rebook their flights.  Deciding this was definitely not the course of action I wanted to succumb to I went in search of the higher powers.  This was of course to no avail.  Finding a member of senior BA staff that want to talk to the great unwashed in these situations is like finding gold at the end of a rainbow.  Fortuitously however I found a nice young lady who appeared to have the power of booking people on a later flight that day.  I think word of this godsend was spreading fast though. There didn’t seem to be any discernable system around her.  People were starting to close in fast. Bits of paper, that were presumably booking confirmations made invalid only hours ago, were frantically being waved in the poor girl’s face to get her attention.  I needed to be faster and presumably needed a larger piece of paper.  Whatever happened I managed to elicit the services of the angel being and took my chances at pushing my luck by asking for a club class seat.  Dad’s advice here paid off.  10:25 Missed flight to JFK.  12:00 got new booking for a flight later in the evening in Club.  At that I bid my parents and Sarah farewell and found a nice spot to read and wait for my new flight departing at 20:00.  On finally boarding the flight I am told I have been upgraded again.  Off to the big apple.  Off in style.  1st Class.