about an Austrian living in NY City
Archive for May, 2008
Gerhard aka Joe was in town
May 29th
For the last 2 weeks I had an old friend in town and he really seemed to enjoy the American junk food and the shopping in the city. His shopping budget for the 2 weeks was gone after 3 days 
The junk food though seemed to bother him and especially his teeth a little bit at the end of his stay but I hope he is doing well now. I figured I haven’t even taken a picture of him but I hope he will provide me with some he has taken 
Kudos to Gerhard for being open minded to new food. He tried out frog at a Malaysian place and chicken feet at Chinese Dim Sum. Here is a picture to prove that he tried out chicken feet but I have to say he had some problems with the slippery sticks
Gerhard, I really hope you enjoyed your stay at my place and had a good trip back home.
Evacuation of the office building
May 28th
Today was the first evacuation of our office building I was “able to” attend. Due to some burning wires in the building we had to leave the building this morning for around an hour. I have to say the evacuation went pretty smooth. It was a good morning workout to walk 22 floors down on the stairs. My second one already since I’ve been in the gym this morning. After it was save to go back into the building the only problem was to get an elevator back up again but we also managed that. Now back to work.
Btw, it has been a while since my last post. I spent the last weekend on a road trip to Boston. Pictures are about to come…
Brunching in NYC
May 14th
As per request of Jochen here are some recommendation for brunching places in NYC. The one we have been together and I think Barbara and Jochen also enjoyed is the Essex Restaurant on Essex Street. You get there I would say “typical” American brunch with omelets, pancakes, eggs, etc and Brunch comes with 3 free drinks (like Mimosa or Bloody Mary). I would highly recommend the 3-egg omelet with spinach and feta cheese there.
The next place where I sometimes go for Brunch is the Clinton Street Bakery. This spot is famous for it’s pancakes and those are really highly recommended. The waiting time to get a table without reservation on the weekend is long though. Sometimes it takes 1 hour and 30 minutes to get a table but the delicious pancakes with either bananas and walnuts or blueberries are worth the waiting time
A bakery which we discovered recently and where we have been to for brunch this weekend is the “Le Pain Quotidien” which is located south of Union Square on E 11 St and Broadway. From my place it is a nice 30 min walk up there – especially on a sunny weekend like the last one was . This bakery store is actually a chain which also has 4 stores in Dubai and every ingredient they serve is organic. Their bread basket which is a mix of all their fresh baked breads and comes with butter and jams is highly recommended.
Movie shootings in the LES
May 11th
Yesterday they closed down the entire street one block away from my apartment to shoot movie scene. I don’t know which film it will be but it will definitely have some scenes playing in the Lower East Side. I haven’t made any pictures as I didn’t have my camera with me when I was walking by but it is impressive how much equipment they bring for shooting a short scene. Not only cameras and spots (also big spots on cranes to light the whole block) and lots of cables. They also brought old cars and bikes to give the street the look that they wanted to have and there was a truck with refreshments and snacks for the film crew
So keep your eyes open for a movie that has some scenes of my neighborhood
Barbara and Jochen and NYC
May 11th
I promised some pictures of my latest visitors in NYC and here they are. Barbara and Jochen recognized that one week is not nearly enough to experience New York but it seemed they had a great time and after shopping for one week their baggage was twice as much on the way back to Europe
Barbara and Jochen @Brunch and Jochen and me @Times Square with full shopping bags:
Driving around in the city
May 6th
Last Saturday I rented a nice convertible and went to Jersey to visit some friends. I have to say that driving around in Manhattan in a convertible is really fun and I have to do that again this summer
Since I was driving past a BMW dealer and I am a big BMW fan I had to take a closer look on the new X6 that came out recently. Nice car but maybe a little bit too small for the US market 
Clubbing in NYC
May 6th
Saturday we took Ji and Walter out for clubbing to a place called Ultra. This one is definitely not the best club I’ve been to so far in NYC but the drinks were strong and we had lots of fun as you can tell looking at the pictures below.
Dressing up for going out
Ji and Walter had fun:
Ji, Walter, me and Horst @Ultra:
Ellen and Ji:
Exhausted after dancing
Let’s go Yankees!
May 4th
Last Thursday I got free tickets from my company for the MLB game NY Yankees vs. Detroit Tigers. I have to admit that I am not a big baseball fan as I find it kind of boring but I always wanted to experience the atmosphere in one of the big stadiums. This is the last season in the old stadium as the new stadium is currently built next to the old one which will become a museum after they moved to the new one. Although the Yankees lost 4-8 against the Tigers I enjoyed watching the game and we had lots of fun and enjoyed beer and hot dogs
Visitors in NYC
May 4th
Last week there were a couple of visitors in town. Last Friday Barbara and Jochen were coming to town and stayes at my place for one week. Pictures of them are about to come. I have to wait for them to send them over to me as they took it with their camera. I hope you were enjoying your stay guys!
And then also Ji and Walter were in town. Walter is a colleague of mine working in our London office and he won the so-called “People Leader Award” of our company last year which allowed him and his girlfriend to come to NYC for one week. Last Wednesday we met them for dinner and went to the all-you-can-eat sushi buffet place Todai and to a lounge/bar afterwards. Horst, a former class mater of Walter and me, who is also working in NYC was also joining us. Here are some pictures taken in the bar (they had good lychee martini and lychee mojitos):
Bad laundry service
May 1st
It’s time for me to change my laundry service. I was quite happy with my old one the last couple of weeks although they tend to lose some of my socks but the way I got my shirts back and additionally the reaction of the laundry lady to my complaints about it forced me to change my laundry services.
Basically most of my buttons of my shirts got destroyed by the pressing machine they are using which seems to melt the buttons. This is how most of the buttons of my shirts look like now and please imagine that this was a brand new shirt when I handed it over to them:
When I was complaining that the buttons are destroyed the laundry lady simply said that she can’t help me as this is the way that the company where she sends the shirts in is processing the shirts for USD 1.50 per shirt. When I told her that I don’t think that this is a usable service if they keep destroying all my buttons and that I think that she or the company should replace the buttons as this company she is using destroyed the buttons of my brand new shirts she just continued to be uncooperative and just said that she can’t help me. You can imagine that I got really pissed off by this reaction especially after I left a lot money there for the last couple of weeks and so I gave up and just left and will never use this service again. There is another one in the next block anyways. I’m just hoping that they are doing a better job there.