Week 1 - Smoooooooooth

Along with colleagues across the globe, and thousands of others, I am spending the month of “Movember” refusing to let my top lip come into contact with a razor blade. Growing facial hair is a previously unattempted feat and, to be honest 14 days in is going better than i ever expected. Yes it is patchy; yes there are large amounts of ginger and blonde flecks but most importantly YES – there is definitely hair.

Week 2 - Handlebars....

Movember is seemingly massive in the UK & Australia but has yet to catch popular attention in the US. Regardless we have raised over 3K in the last couple of weeks for Prostate cancer and LIVESTRONG – The Lance Armstrong Foundation. We have a Mo Party fundraiser in San Francisco in a couple of weeks time but still desperately need dollars to help raise an additional 7K before the month ends - those generous souls who want to give but haven’t yet done so can do so here.

Present day - Unkempt and Ginger

Hopefully the above pics give you some idea of exactly how the humiliation is shaping up.

Here are the top 3:

Vietnam Vet Dog

#3 - Vietnam Vet Dog: Combat fatigues, sunglasses and an all terrain vehicle meant this little fella struck fear into the heart of any canine at the event not packing a firearm

Born to be wild

#2 – Dogs of Anarchy: Bike leathers, sunglasses (again) and chains made this one gang you didn’t want to run into in a dark kennel.

Bless me father

#1 – Pope Dog:  and this guy wasn’t even in the competition.

All the pics can be viewed here or if you want to see the professionals efforts, take a look at the Times Square Alliance’s Top 20 here which includes a phantom of the opera, a sheep and – errr – Michael Jackson. The good news is we get to do it all again next weekend at the Dogster Halloween Parade. And we’re dogsitting.

1. The subway is awesome. Trains are frequent and efficient and…run all night. Transport for London, meet the MTA. you can learn a lot.
2. I was promised celebrities on every street corner when i moved here. We had to wait till last week to spot our first, Alan Cumming (the blue dude out of X-Men and the russian villain out of Goldeneye) at JFK. Tier 2 cried the sceptics. Regardless, it’ll do in the interim till i bump into Robert DeNiro. I have also walked past the filming of Nurse Jackie and some Nickleodeon crap. No celebs in sight tho
3. And while we’re talking film, I now have a cinema a block away. Nads and i have come to a great arrangement where i go to films on my own. Yet to be determined whether this makes me a loser.
4. New York’s parking lots have lifts (read elevators). I mean hydraulic lifts so you can stack cars on top of each other…they don’t have these in Stratford (or Chiswick)
5. There is a woman who lives in a bush round the corner from our apartment. You don’t get this in Chiswick either
6. You get to learn pretty quickly that the streets (East to West) are short while the avenues (North to South) are long. Ten street blocks barely takes you ten minutes on foot. Ten Avenue blocks will leave you wheezing
7. Yelp + iPhone = lifesaver. The last 40 days have revolved around eating and drinking and the standard has been consistently high
8. On the food theme, you can order anything, anytime, anywhere.
9. The fact we have a pool in the building is irrelevant and has had no impact on our fitness since we’ve been a paltry 3 times.
10. In an effort to mee people Nads and I have both signed up for evening classes. Nads is doing Arabic and I have joined a film class at NYU. No new best friends yet, but full of interesting characters. more on that later
11. I may have a special gift for beer pong
12. Chicago is a great city. Nothing to do with New York, but we’re just back from a fun weekend in the windy city (named after its politicians, nots its gusts of air i learned). Read Nads take on the weekend here.

In short, it’s been a fun first 6 weeks – both in and out of work – but there is A LOT more to see. 

No more dull top 12 lists tho i promise.

But more prolific updates.

So, we are temporarily homeless, all our worldly possessions are in a van making the 2,563 mile trip coast-to-coast and we’ve said a sad farewell to our friends and to a great city that’s been our home for 22 months. So long San Francisco, it’s been fun.

As testament to the good time we’ve had, I’d like to do a not so brief top ten highlights of our west coast experience.

1. The outfits: Not that I like dressing up you understand, but over the last year I’ve adorned outfits for the grim reaper, one of the blue man group, the black night from monty python’s holy grail, and Goose from Top Gun however the sheer accuracy of my Magnum P.I. impersonation probably makes it my fave. And yes, I do have a thing for moustaches
2. Those impromptu bar crawls (especially if they’re on an amphibious vehicle): the best nights are often those you don’t plan for and the evening we were unexpectedly swept along on the Corona Girls promotional tour of San Francisco on a Bay Area Quacker. We came back with more swag (whistles, glowsticks, sweatbands, maracas) than we could ever hope for and visited a slew of vaguely Mexican themed establishments. Never made it in the water though.
3. The music you listen to…: One thing we did manage to do was see a lot of bands. Killers, Razorlight, Wombats, Bravery, Decemberists, the Verve BUT most outstanding were Vampire Weekend at Mezzanine…including this top notch Fleetwood Mac cover
4. …and the music you make!: Although Silver Cloud (see above image) was the destination of choice on more than one occasion, it wasn’t the standout largely due to its barely functioning microphones. I’d say that particular honor would go to live karaoke with The Inflatables at both this year’s spring fling and retreat when we belted out winners including Mr Brightside (awfully) and Brown Eyed Girl (slightly less so) till the early hours. Honorable mention also goes to the place in Japan Town whose name I can’t recall where I discovered a great love for Bonnie Tyler at client drinks.
5. Birthday celebrations: This year was a civilized brunch at Top of the Mark however 2008 saw an innovative bar crawl where we took to the streets adorning white T-shirts with pick-up lines (chat-up lines for the English) scrawled across them in black permanent marker. It loses something in translation I realize, but none of them were clean enough for reprint here.
6. Polk Street: Living three blocks away, Polk was basically the epicenter of everything we did in SF. Great wine at the originally named Wine Bar; great cheese at the originally named Cheese Plus; and great dogs at the AWESOMELY named (wait for it) WAGS Boutique
7. The sport…: Whether it was a poorly executed tailgate party at the Raiders, a night in the nosebleeds at the Warriors, or watching the Giants in an exec box, WATCHING sport in San Francisco takes some beating. PLAYING, however, is a different story. Signing up with “United Chaos”, the most painfully serious co-ed soccer team in North America meant that despite great results, we all stopped playing after three games. 
8. Unexpected holidays: God bless the pilgrims. without them there’d be no Thanksgiving, a great four day excuse for eating, drinking, singing and dogsitting. OK, perhaps the last two were just us but TG08 will live on forever as the year we truly embraced American culture…ate marshmallow mash and played singstar till the early hours. (We also dogsat for these two awesome gents, but that’s a separate story)
9. Boozing the bay: Whether its the offically sanctioned Brews on the Bay, the unofficial ‘hire your own boat’ brews on the bay, or just getting the ferry across to Tiberon that stretch of water will probably only ever be associated with one thing
10. The view from our balcony: So there were  few houses between us and the ocean but being able to watch the sun set over one of the worlds most famous landmarks was quality (question: does Nadia appear drunk in this photo?)

Please note the criteria for the above were that they all had to happen within an hour of San Francisco. Otherwise bday celebs in Vegas, New Year in Russian River and an epic trip to Coachella would definitely feature.

Anyway, despite being in-between homes, we are now officially New York residents. Here’s to repeating all of the above on the right coast.

So the broker experience while eye-opening wasn’t the horror show of slick con-artists that I expected. Here were our big take-aways:

• 60% of Manhattan brokers don’t know where they’re going: Whether it’s wandering in circles round the West Village, ending up on an express train to Harlem when we were aiming for the Upper West Side or missing at least 2 appointments because the Spanish girl showing us was clueless…our brokers senses of direction were appalling (in that last case she even tried to show us pictures on her digital camera as a ‘tour’ of the property she didn’t have keys for).
• Brokers tend to hear what they want to hear: Here is a sample conversation: 
  • Us:         “We want to live Upper West, West Village or Chelsea”
  • Broker: “He (pointing at me) doesn’t want to live in those places”
  • Us:         “Why?”
  • Broker: “Because he can’t get to work”
  • Us:         “Yes we can, so that’s where we’d like to look”
  • Broker: (no longer listening) “So we’re going to show you a place in midtown…”
• Everything looks the same: It’s true, with the exception of maybe four apartments, everything was identical (like this). Polished wooden floors, small kitchens slightly off main room, noisy air conditioners, plain vanilla buildings. Word to the wise – see something you like that isn’t like this, then sign for it.
• A little attention goes a long way: The broker we went with was a very nice Irish girl who showed us what we asked for and LISTENED. Nowhere too noisy…stuck to the areas we wanted…and stayed within our price range. It’s amazing the amount who didn’t.
• Don’t believe the hype: A quick search on Craigslist and the hyperbole is there for all to see. “WOW!”… “Unbelievable price!”…”Off the hook!” etc. I’m all in favor of creative sales techniques, but please…

I’ve figured out that since 2006 I’ve lived in six different properties in four different cities. I think New York needs to be the last stop for a while.

Jaws is widely regarded as one of the greatest thrillers/horror films of all time and easily sneaks into my top 5. Nadia took some convincing that this trip to the Vineyard wasn’t going to just be a tour of famous Jaws locations. Of course, it was, just with ample chunks of sunbathing, drinking and eating thrown in. The picture above is of the bridge to the pond which the big shark sails under to attack some guy in a boat. At least we thought it was. We spent a good 2 hrs floating down the channel and basking in the sun until we cycled another 20 minutes down the road and found the ACTUAL pond. Looking at it again, even with the magic of cinema, it’d be a stretch to fit a 25ft mechanical great white under that bridge (also bearing in mind I could touch the bottom). Still we got there in the end. We also wandered round the centre of Amity (aka Edgartown) and found the car ferry across to chappanquick – oh, you’re bored? OK. Final point – they make virtually NO REFERENCE to Jaws anywhere. Not in promotional merchandise; not when you’re talking to the nice lady hiring out the bikes; and not when you’re wandering round the shops of Oak Bluffs or Edgartown. Apparently they are more proud of their whaling history (who’d have thunk it). I was hoping to leave with at least a “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” T-shirt but to no avail. Perhaps I’ll need to make my own. (side note: the only vague mentions were a sandwich called “Jaws” on the Island Queen ferry and an “Amity Island” plaque in a gift shop. Still, we managed to get a shark bottle opener so came away happy).

So in short, we had a great week in New England for our “pre-apartment-hunt” vacation. Nads talks far more lucidly about our exploits here. Highlights were whalewatching and the colorful folk of Provincetown, Naucet beach and of course the Vineyard. I also enjoyed the fact that I rediscovered roundabouts (as in car-roundabouts or ‘rotary’s’ as the Americans call them)…the only place in the US that I’ve found them and a major reminder of why this place is called New England (apart from a – the weather and b – the town names…Plymouth…Falmouth…Chatham etc.)

The vacation ended abruptly as drama unfolded on the way back to Boston today – I learned the iPhone was no replacement for a Garmin Sat Nav. A sub-2 hr journey took us 3+ and resulted in us missing our connecting train to New York. Despite frayed tempers we managed to exchange our tickets and are currently winging our way to Penn Station. Note to self – sometimes a good old paper map is the best solution. I also managed to get us lost on Martha’s Vineyard, again, the less said about that the better.

Tomorrow our apartment hunting starts in earnest. Have to say I am filled with dread. We have set aside 4 days for looking and emailed a boatload of brokers. I’m slightly concerned with the desperate pleas coming back screaming “please choose me as your broker” or the fawning “thankyou for selecting me”. I haven’t selected you for anything – I asked you to show me an apartment. Flathunting was much simpler in San Francisco – all you have to do is respond to a Craigslist ad and hey presto. Anyway, time will tell if they’re as shady and pushy as they seem.

So now here is attempt 2. In just over a months time myself and my girlfriend are going to be relocating to New York (you can read her take on the transition here) after a relatively short but very sweet dalliance with the west coast (note: we will be back). Subsequently, it seemed like the perfect excuse to try again.

So instead of  a blog following the transition from the UK to the US, it’s going to be San Francisco to New York. This blog is designed to cover our efforts to get acclimatised to reputedly one of the greatest cities in the world, as well as other random thoughts.

We’ll see how this one goes.

Task 1: find an apartment. 

Oh, as for the blog title. Well the resounding impact that San Francisco has left on us is the strengthening of our calves. Having lived on the top of Nob hill for the last year-and-a-half…the one thing we’re not going to miss, is the daily tortuous slog up steep slopes.