I spent a week in New York a few weeks ago, mostly for work. I landed on Friday afternoon after an 8-hour direct flight from Zurich. I hate flying.
After landing at JFK, I made my way (slowly) through US immigration, the AirTrain, and then the New York subway system straight into the Google office for food, a US power adapter for my laptop, and a data connection. After getting all that sorted out I went for a walk on The High Line, a really cool elevated park through the city which was built on top of an abandoned elevated train line. After that I was exhausted (felt like 3 AM) and I got to bed. My hotel room was exactly as long as the bed, and the floor space was exactly the width of the door and length of the bed.
Jetlag woke me up before dawn, so I headed back to the office. A few hours later, my co-worker Arno was awake and we headed out to explore the city. I managed to see a lot in one day...
- Walked through Central Park
- Visited the New York City Museum
- Walked through Harlem
- Lunch from a deli
- Visited the Cloisters Museum
- Out for dinner, caught up with another co-worker Bas who had just arrived
- After dinner, got a tattoo... it's from Tolkien, and means "Day shall come again". I'll have to post a longer explanation some other time.
The next day (Sunday was also busy. I started with a workout at Crossfit New York (the Black Box), signing up for a one-week membership. I managed to work out there 5 days out of the 8 I there - it was an interesting place, a bit different than other Crossfit gyms with more of an emphasis on heavy weightlifting, and a real New York attitude from at least one of the trainers, a tiny, slightly scary woman who chewed people out if she thought they weren't pushing hard enough :-)
After a shower and breakfast at the Google office, I went shopping. New York may be expensive by American standards, but it's really cheap compared to Zurich! Bed, Bath, and Beyond as well as Trader Joes were highlights. I had also pre-ordered a ton of stuff from Amazon, including a suitcase to put it all in, so I came home with a lot more than the little carry-on I had taken with me.
That afternoon I caught up with my co-workers again, and we headed out again, this time visiting the New York Public Library and Grand Central Station. After all that, we went out to a jazz club and got dinner while listening to an amazing jazz show.
Monday through Friday was mostly work, not so interesting to write about. But here's a bunch more of the better pictures I took. I recommend you click through to see them on Google Plus... they look a lot better there.
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