Finally some keys

It's been a frustrating, yet productive day. We start the lease for the apartment as of tomorrow, so we figured that someone should have told us something about getting keys by now. Apparently, you don;t get told these things unless you chase it up yourself. Michael had to leave at least 3 messages before the broker rang back, then she got us mixed up with another client. She tried to tell me that the lease didn't start until November and that it is for a one bedroom place. I wasn't doing very well with that bad news, but she figured out who she was talking to and started to make some sense.

We got hold of the superintendant, and organised to meet to get the keys. Wwe arrived and waited and waited. Michael called him. We waited some more. he finally arrived only to discover that his key didn't work. We could only tell this from observation, as he was telling us nothing. we watching hom completely change the entire lock, before eventually getting keys.

When we came to look at the place, we were told that it would be painted before we moved in and that grids would be placed over the windows, as they are required by law for high apartments. Surprise, surprise, none of this was done. But that's not all. To my disgust, the place is absolutely putrid. The last tennants obviously haven't even made the effort of sweeping the floor, let alone cleaning when they left. there is food spatter all through the microwave, oven and fridge. The bathroom is disgusting. The windows are filthy. The kitchen sink hasn't even been cleaned. Needless to say Michael will be talking to the broker. They also need to fix the door that goes to the fire escape. Re-connect the smoke alarm, and fix some little holes in the walls. Obviously I know that standards are different in different countries, but it's not like this is a 3rd world country. i would have expected that you clean when you move out.

Anyway, enough rambling. I'm sure that once it is cleaned and furnished it will look good. Speaking of which, now that we have measured up the place, we have made our final decisions about furniture and I am back to Ikea tomorrow to give them all our money. I have to go on my own as Michael has to fly to Washington DC for his orientation, then he starts work, so I giess the house stuff is now officially my domain.

Almost all the big shows have started their new seaason over, except Lost, which starts next week. There are also some new shows. Grey's Anatomy is great. Desperate Housewives has started again with some strange goings ons.

I better head to bed, but here are a couple of the layouts I have been working on. Be nice, I don't have all of my supplies yet. The heroes one is a sample for the weekly challenge competion I un at Scrapbook City. There are prizes to be won, so if you don't already participate, please come over and join in. There will be a new round starting in a week.




edited to add: I'm sorry, I have no idea why that photo is sideways.

The Big Green Lady

Lot of photos today. These are from last week when we went to the Statue of Liberty. Kyan keeps calling it the Big Green Lady. The views were pretty good, but by the time we got to the top, Kyan was overdue for a sleep and just screamed the whole time.

The photo of me was taken in Central Park in "The Avenue", which was really pretty.

We did very little today. Michael has come off tonight with our Real Estate Broker for drinks so I am planning on doing some scrapping tonight, but first I have to get Kyan into bed.

Enjoy the photos.

Some more pics

I had a lovely long sleep in this morning. We finally headed out around lunch time and caught a bus to Chinatown for some food. We managed to get some photos printed up in a pharmacy. I also got a revlon colourstay lipstick there for $5. I pay at least $20 at home. I think I'll have to head back for more.

Chinatown is very much like Hong Kong. Lots of interesting shops, but mostly all selling the same sort of thing. I got pretty annoyed in one shop however, when the shop keeper basically made us leave because we had a pram. i made a comment on the way out about spending my money with someone else. I was quite angry about it really. It was quite a big shop, we were not in anyone's way. How do they expect to make any money if they treat people badly.

We ended up in Little Italy which has lots of really great restaurants, and found a playground for Kyan to have a little play. he loves to slide. he has started going down on his tummy feet first.






We've been noticing how much people love Kyan. he always manages to get someone to talk to or play with him on the subway. People in elevators talk to him. people walking in teh street smile at him. It's quite incredible. We know he's cute, but he's never attracted so much attention before. Of course, he loves it and performs like you wouldn't believe. he is becoming quite a show off.

The photos are from central park zoo last week. The polar bear was my favourite. He was enormous. Kyan loved the sea lions. We got some good photos of them at feeding time.

Here are some random observations of New York.(no particular order)
*It is ginormous.
*People are generally friendly. Someone will always help with the pram.
*There are way too many stairs in teh subway.
*Coke here tastes different because they use a different sugar.
*People will blow their horn as soon as the light changes, even if the person in front isn't too slow.
*It is only a matter of time until I get run over because the traffic is coming from the wrong direction.


Michael just arrived back with the biggest pizza I have ever seen, so I better go and eat some.

P.S. Kerri, thanks for dropping by, I'll email you soon.

Hopefully some photos.

Michael tells me that the reason I couldn't upload photos yesterday was because I didn't resize them, so I'll have another go today.






The flag was on the side of abuilding opposite ground zero on Sept 11. It was enormous. I didn't know anything about it before, but every year they have these 2 enormous blue lights that light up for one night to represent the two towers. For some reason they are not directly from the WTC site (maybe construction?), so as it happens they are on teh roof of the car park right opposite our unit. It was extrememly eerie.

There are squirrels all over the place here. They are very very cute.

We went to the top of the Rockerfeller centre today. They have recently renovated it and have a new observation deck at the top, where you can see 360 degree views of the city. I haven't sorted through the photos yet.

The NBC studios seem to be part of the centre, so of course they have a gift shop at the bottom. They had a very cute Will and Grace shirt that I may go back and get. Sara, they also had a Scrubs section. You could buy a set of pink scrubs with the logo on it (among other things) I thought of you.

After that we went to Brooklyn to have some lunch, and a bit of a walk around what will be our neighbourhood, then back home.

I have done a little scrapping, but it for competitions, so I wont show them yet. I really need to get to the rest of my supplies. There is heaps of great stuff available online, however since we don't have an American credit card just yet, so it would cost up heaps in fees to go shopping yet. I can't wait until I can shop.

Better go check dinner.

Silly blogger

I had hoped to come and show some photos today, but blogger wont let me upload. I had a bit of a quiet day yesterday. Did a bit of housework, then went out to Kmart to look at stuff for the appartment.

I finished off a scrap page last night. I was really happy with the results.I came back after dinner and found that Kyan had pulled out one of my pens and had scribbled all over the photo. Luckily, he didn;t draw on the layout itself, so I can just replace the photo. unfortuntaely it is on the hard drive of the computer that is still in the container. I might have to get you Sara, to email me a copy. It was hard to be cranky with Kyan though, because he was so cute, and Michael was laughing his head off.

We then sent Kyan off to bed. he has figured out how to open the door by himself, so he kept running out with a giant grin on his face. it was funny the first 5 or 6 times.

We are not up to much yet this morning. Michael went off to get his social security number this morning, so that he can get paid when he starts work next week. Now he's having a nap. We might go to the Rockafeller centre later on. They have redone the top of it, and it apparently has a new observation deck at the top.

Will try again with the photos later. Check out Michael's blog, he managed to get at least one photo up.

Ikea day

Thanks for the all the comments you left yesterday. It was really nice to hear from everyone. Sorry I kept you waiting for so long.

We finally made it out to Ikea today to look for furniture for our apartment. The closest store is actually across the river in New Jersey, which is good because they have lower sales tax there, but it meant we had to catch a bus to get there. It was pretty easy though as they have free shuttle buses just for Ikea, because no-one here has a car. There were huge coaches going every 10 minutes or so.

The Ikea was enormous. We spent hours there. Even the cafe was huge. It had it's own live entertainment. We took our time looking through the 2 floors of stuff. We've picked out most of what we want. We'll go back once we have the keys to the appartment, so that we can measure first, then Ikea will deliver for us, which makes life very easy. It's even better knowing that Michael's work are footing the bill.

We brought the webcam with us, so we have been able to talk to Michael's parents via video call. Best thing is it doesn't cost to talk that way. Kyan quite enjoys performing for the camera.

I haven't had time to look at how to get photos onto the computer yet, but I will really soon I promise.

That's about it for now. Ikea took all day. I'm kind of keen to do a little scrapping tonight. There are a couple of US DT's I'm interested in applying to. Can't hurt to try.

I'm off to read all about you guys now.

Hello from America.

Hi. We finally got a new laptp today, so I can finally update my blog. It's not like I haven't had anything to talk about, but no matter how I tried I could not get into my blog using my little PDA. All that is fixed now. Michael however managed to get into his blog, so he has some of what we have been up to. Click the link on my side bar. I won't worry about repeat too much, I'll just start from today.

We went to see the giant green lady today, more commonly known as the Statue of Liberty. We can just about see it from the unit where we are staying so it was easy to get to. We were also early enough to get a pass to go up into the pedestal. They only give out a certain number a day. We had to go through security twice, and you can only go to the top of the pedestal. Before Sept 11, you could go all the way up to the crown. Unfortuntaely Kyan deciding to choose the exact time we were up the top, to become very tired and therefore screamy. I think we got a few decent photos though. Now that we have a computer, we'll be able to have a look at our photos.

Yesterday we went to the toy store from the movie "Big" with Tom Hanks where he plays the big piano. I have some photos of Michael and Kyan playing on the piano. We found the best shop. It's called the Container Store and it's totally awesome. It has every sort of container and jar, and shelf, and box. Some were about 1cm cube, perfect for eyelets. I found some awesome glass jars. I bought a tiny, clear plastic handbag that will make a very cute mini album, and a box that looks like a giftbag, but solid, and folds open. I'm going to make it into a mini album too. I wish I had room for a scrap room over here, the shop would be perfect. So many great things for altering too.

We saw our first celebrity, Michael Douglas in the street. I almost missed him, as I wasn't paying attention. We also went for a walk through central park and saw lots more squirrels. It's the third time we have been there, and we haven't been in the same place twice. It's enormous.

I'm starting to feel a bit more confident using the subway now. It's a bit complicated, but I think I'm figuring it out. I've gone a few places on my own, so I can learn, instead of just following Michael around. It will be different once he starts work thoug, as I'll eb all on my own with Kyan in a pram, and almost all the stations have multiple flights of stairs. Kyan is not used to spending so much time in the pram, but I think that once we are in our own place, we'll get into a better routine. We are very much living like tourists on holidays at the moment.

I got the chance to talk to Mum, Dave, the in laws and Sara tonight. It was funny talking to Sara through the computer. I couldn;t recognize her voice straight away. It was really good to chat though.

Meanwhile, I could keep talking forever. I'll stop for now, before you get so bored, you never come back to my blog. Thanks for your patience in my internet blackout.

See you on the flip side.

Everything is packed and ready to go. The plane leaves at 11:15 in the morning, so it's going to be a long day tomorrow.

I'm not sure how long it will be before we have computer access again, so bye for now. Please forgive me for not getting around to everyone's blogs for a little while. Don't forget to watch this space for some New York photos.

If you haven't already, check out Michael's brand new blog on my sidebar. he'll be posting photos as well (we'll try to do different ones. leave him a comment so he feels loved. (he likes the attention)

Take care everyone, I'll post again as soon as I possible can.

No coments

For some reason my last post did not have the option to leave comments, which is odd as I don't remember changing anything, so I'll see how this one goes.

A very short post today. I am on my way into bed. We had another exhausting day today. I thought we were all but finished. I guess we weren't. My lovely friend Ang came to give me a hand. Thanks again Ang. We have one short trip out to the house tomorrow and then I think that's it. Then we just have to hand over the second car, try to get to a bank and a chemist and most importantly see Sara. Lucky we are staying with Michel's parents who are only 5 minutes from Sara.

My brain wont let me go on, so I'm off to sleep. Hope the comments thing works, as I love getting comments from everyone.

Packing Day

The day has finally come. The removalists are coming at lunchtime to pack everything up. It's really hard, as we have a certain limit that we have to stick to, but we have no way of knowing if we are near that limit or not. Kyan's toys seem to making up a large percentage of the pile. My scrapping stuff however has been reduced from a whole room, to this:

Only a few more days til we are on the plane. Thing is in the meantime, I still need to empty the house and then clean it. I don't think it will take all that long.

In other news, we had Kyan's birthday party on Saturday which was nice. It's his actual birthday tomorrow.

Here are a couple of layouts for Scrapbook City.