Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!!


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December 30th 2013
Published: December 30th 2013
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Hello Everyone,

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope you all had a magical Christmas and enjoyed all the lovely Christmas T.V that I missed 😞

December was a month of two halves great highs and great lows (mild exaggeration)

I was able to take advantage of a corporate benefit and take a friend to Moma evening for her birthday. It was really cool and not what I expected. There was an open bar and DJ , with music blaring all across the first floor. This was a museum late New York style. The crowd was principally divided into two main groups; hipster arty types and the corporates trying to ‘do art’ for an evening. It was a really great exhibition, I don’t have a great deal of time for the Moma - I normally just hang there to have my lunch in the warm and away from the office. This exhibition was interesting as some pieces were a part of an exhibition held at Moma some 40 years ago. Great to see the difference in what had changed and more interestingly how much remained the same; my friend enjoyed herself and that was the main thing.

I ended that week with a gig at the Barclays Center (first time visiting, was extremely excited) to see MGMT. I have to say that particular evening I felt very old. I was at my first gig in the seated section (other than Coldplay at O2, which was all seated) seeing the kids hang out in general admission. But that’s how hard it is to secure tickets for things when you have a job, you simply cannot compete with a 15 year old, who spends 21 hours a day attached to a smartphone- you know they don’t sleep! It was a good night on the whole and I took what I think is my best gig photo yet on my smartphone. Yay me!

December required me to be a lot more focused on work as I supposed to be ‘getting it’ now. It all started and ended with four days credit risk training, which was painful. I enjoyed it in hindsight, though at the same time I did feel that I was being hit like my head was bongo drum for most of the four days. I did however, get a lot out of it and now see risks in everything, very similar to Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly.

After this trying week of credit training we had our office Christmas party, it was nice to get to know people, though they obviously won’t remember me due to the open bar.

I booked basketball tickets! Basketball is an American sport I can totally get engulfed in. I enjoy the speed and flow of the game. Brooklyn Nets are my team (certainly for this year- I have bought a hat and I am invested). The crowd is probably the coolest set of fans you will ever see at an American sporting event. Minks, enough said. We were lucky enough to be sitting next to a passionate fan, and I learnt a lot. I also got to see the basketball player that I walked past but didn’t say hi to because I was listening intensely to the black keys and yes, I was doing a walking jig.

I finally felt inspired to take my camera out and about. So, I went along the High Line and ended up chatting to some New Yorkers (always fun). The photos were ok, though I think the light in winter can test the patience of a saint, so back to the drawing board on that front.

It’s Christmas!!

I had a lovely Christmas, a friend had invited me to have dinner with her and her flatmates (one of which was cooking and is an awesome cook). I didn’t have any particularly high expectations when told to trek to an apartment in Brooklyn. However, upon arrival I notice the streets looked very well to do, when we come up to the door and walked inside, it was wonderfully furnished and makes you put on the Lloyd Grossman voice “who would live in a house like this?”

The place was a beautiful townhouse with three floors and a basement. The food was amazing and the company lovely. I felt terrible when I sheepishly presented my secret Santa gift of ‘holiday cookies’ for the yankee swap*. I had forgotten my original secret Santa gift at home and had to pick something up from Duane Reade. I on the other hand, got lucky with some lovely nail polish. Yes, you’re right life is not fair.

I have been working throughout the holidays and I only had Christmas day off, so I thought I would treat myself to breakfast at the Plaza, it was nice. However I was not bowled over. Later, in the evening we went to the restaurant in the Empire hotel, twas great to have a little fishy on a dishy. The dessert was probably the best part though; chocolate ganesh tart, with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. All in all, Christmas in New York was both cool and traditional.

Roll on New years…

<em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">*Yankee swap: is a secret Santa in which you pick a number and get to select gifts in that order, however when it is your turn you can steal a gift from someone else forcing them to pick another gift from the pile. A gift can only be stolen twice and you can have hours of fun.

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