Ikea: Trip #01

After measuring up my apartment and stuffing myself with salmon and potatoes I headed to Ikea, where it would be necessary to purchase some of their delightful furnishings in order to sit on things other than the floor, put my clothes somewhere other than the floor and lie somewhere other than the floor.

Ikea in America (or at least in Brooklyn) is very much like any other Ikea.

At one point I tried to help a woman trying to choose a sofa bed frame, but was mistaken by other shoppers as a member of staff (probably my fault for wearing a bright orange hoodie) and was asked a bunch of questions by them all. Some of whom then didn't actually believe me when I told them I was just a man trying to buy a bed. Serves me right for trying to be helpful.

There seem to be two main differences between Ikea-America and Ikea-everywhere-else.

1) Everything is measured in inches and fractions of inches. Luckily I had foreseen this occurrence and measured up my apartment in cm and inches. Still confused me though. The imperial system used in the States flummoxes me at every opportunity. I still haven't got to grasps with Fahrenheit, and I'm not entirely sure what my weight is in pounds (not stone though, just pounds), around 150 I think. What the hell is wrong with metric anyway?

2) The food was wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. One of my great joys of Ikea is the meatballs with boiled potatoes, brown sauce (not HP, but gravy) and loganberry jam (jelly). I tried it here, and oh deary me, it failed on so many levels. The worst contender was the potatoes, Americans don't really do boiled potatoes. They just aren't bad enough for you. So it's served with mashed potatoes. The meatballs were made with just beef, and not beef and pork. The jam was incredibly sweet. For a country that does some amazing food, they really buggered this up. Seriously, how hard can it be?

The real kicker about the whole trip was that after spending 7 (seven!) hours hunting down bits of furniture, they didn't have the mattress I wanted in stock, and I'll have to go back on friday night to get it then. This isn't exactly how I like to spend my friday evenings, but at least it'll be quieter and I can have it delivered on saturday.

All I ended up buying was a bunch of blinds for the windows, some hooks for the doors and a giant oversized clock for the bathroom. Always had a bit of a fetish for very large clocks in very small rooms. Not entirely sure why. Playing with scale I guess.

Mile End Deli

Having picked up the keys to my new place. I took the opportunity to celebrate with a meal out at a local café. The first decent looking place I found was the Mile End Deli on Hoyt Street (http://www.mileendbrooklyn.com/).

Despite being only a year old, it's a place that celebrates traditional Jewish home cooking. In reality this meant they had a range of foods I'd never heard of, or could pronounce without making the waitress laugh. In order to save face I went for the dish I could say the easiest, The Mont Royal. This is a delicious concoction of Smoked Salmon (lox in the states), potato & chive latke & crème fraiche. I once had to make latke's for some particularly unnecessary religious education homework, so was keen to taste what the real thing was like. To be honest, the real thing tasted quite a lot like hash browns. Which is to say, it's mass of shredded fried potato, or in other words, it's fucking delicious.

I was in the mood to sample some of their amazingly scented brisket that was being made directly in front of me, but I was there too early, so I'll have to head back to report. The brisket chef gave me a whole bunch of information about the quality of their brisket so it would be a crying shame to pass it up.

Robocop

The subway police in New York get little trikes to ride on. While unassailably awesome, one thing about them in bothered me.

Why do they have wing mirrors? How fast are they going that they just look behind them?

Flat/Apartment

I'm in! It's not much. It's pretty small, it's really hot and it's got nothing in it. But it's home.

I moved into my new apartment today in Brooklyn. Well, I picked up the keys, measured it up, photographed it and headed out to Ikea to buy a bed. Otherwise, I'll be spending a while sleeping in a suitcase.

This is the area I live in (not the exact street, but mine looks just like this).

The apartment is based around three rooms. You enter through the tiny kitchen, you then walk into the larger middle room/guest bedroom, then after that has been traversed you enter the (larger still bedroom). The bathroom is the other side of the kitchen and is tiny but serviceable.

Kitchen (with door to the bathroom beyond)

Middle room (view from the kitchen)

Middle room (view from the bedroom)

Bedroom (view from the middle room)

Bedroom (view from the windows)

So that's it. The other door in the bedroom is a cupboard. As you can see, it's in desperate need of furniture, which I'll get at Ikea, Craigslist, Target and anywhere else it's cheap soon enough. This week certainly, otherwise I'll be sleeping on my nice wooden floor.

Have I mentioned it's really snowy here?

It never stops. Spending your commute trying to traverse slushy grey snow isn't much fun, but it's what you have to do. I've learned more about winter footware in the past week than I have in the previous 27 years. For some reason everyone wears Hunter wellingtons here. I've no idea how these old fashioned British wellys became trendy in NY, but they are pretty much the only wellys you can buy and they'll set you back around $150 a pair.

Lots more photos on Flickr as always

The Cat Practice

No idea what The Cat Practice do. However, they have neon cat's with earings in their window. Nice.

Food and Drink at Interbrand New York

I've been asked by quite a few people here what my favourite thing is about New York. Frankly, it has to be the food. The variety, cost, quality and quantity beats anywhere else I've been by a distance. Sure, Japan has better ingredients, China is much cheaper and Italy takes more pride, but for the mix of all four. The big apple takes the biscuit.

Our Interbrand office is no exception. Everyday they lay on a free breakfast:

Monday: Bagels, cream cheese and fruit
Tuesday: Bagels, cream cheese and fruit
Wednesday: Oatmeal
Thursday: Bagels, cream cheese and fruit
Friday: Cooked breakfast

I'm trying to avoid the bagels though. A moment on the lips... So, like the UK, I'm bringing in Special K to work (the cereal, not the horse tranquiliser), like the big girl I am.

Friday's breakfast below:

They also love their coffee here. There is an impressive 9 (nine!) varieties of coffee available on a drip all day every day in the office. My only caveat is that they are all pretty crap. But at least there's variety. A large variety of crap food could be a pretty good metaphor for consumerism in the US, but that's a thought for a more thoughtful blog. Back to food...

Coffee at Interbrand

(note to self: staff at interbrand do not like to be photographed at 9am when they've come downstairs for a coffee)

We even have a large array of Interbrand mugs to drink our Interbrew out of.

Verbiage

The world of branding is a wondrous place, where words are made up on a daily basis to make things sound more important and more expensive. My favourite example of this today is the headline of a page of a powerpoint document I've been given which reads:

Interstitial Page

Current and Proposed Verbiage

If you're looking for a translation, you aren't going to find one here. I'm as baffled as you (probably) are.

Snow Lamp

Become your Dream

No idea what this is about. It was on the street and it's great.

Shake Shack

To celebrate finding an apartment I made a little trip to Shake Shack. There are a few of these in New York. The original being in Madison Square Park, by the Flat Iron building. http://www.shakeshack.com/ (good site!)
It's regularly voted as the best burger in New York, so I thought it was well worth a visit.

It has a strange system that I've seen in a few New York places now. You place your order and they give you a pager, then page you when your food is ready. Weird, but pretty effective. I guess the pager makers needed something to make nowadays. It shakes and lights up when your food is ready.

The burgers are excellent though. They are a lot like In & Out Burger in California (as immortalised in the Big Lebowski). Simple and tasty. A fitting celebration of my first American apartment.

Apartment!

I'm now officially a Brooklynite! The place I've found is circled below. I'd list the address but I'm afraid someone will find it and I'll get a tonne of junk mail (or I'll get burgled... again). Anyway, the general area is Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. It's a an unfurnished apartment, so as all I have is two suitcases I'll need to head to Ikea this weekend to get a bed!

The Escape Key

Today we were given a talk on emergency procedure in case of attach in New York. It was slightly depressing, but the real redeeming feature was the handout we were given. This thing had some of the best icons I've ever seen. Icons, representing different types of emergencies.

I particularly like the Nuclear symbol and that the Blackout symbol seems to show people looting. I think someone clearly had a lot of fun drawing these...

Sign?

What sign?

It's Snow Time

The snow hasn't stopped since I got here. Sometimes it's frozen, sometimes it's fluffy and pretty, often it's disgusting grey slush that gets everywhere.

I hadn't bought any decent snow boots with me, much to the amusement of my colleagues, and repeatedly had to go home and change my sodden socks. So I finally succumbed and got the cheapest pair I could find.

The consistency of it is pretty amazing. It's not like the UK, where we'll get a few inches occasionally and it'll stick around. Nor is it like Norway where it'll be feet deep overnight. It just keeps coming. Never getting deep, never entirely going. It's just always there.

Even the crossing signs have to brave the snow

It makes for some great photos, but it's getting me down a little. I'm tired of constantly having a wet cold coat, trousers, socks, etc. Saying that, from what everyone says, when the extreme hot summers arrive I'll be praying for the snow. So watch this space in 3 months.

Rocking Mural

Went to a pretty decent Mexican cafe for lunch today called Uncle Moe's.
http://unclemoesnyc.com/ (site's basically a menu).
The food was pretty good, but by far the best thing about the place was the mural on the wall...

I'm pretty sure it's a mexican family eating burritos and burgers in a park in San Francisco in Spring, while a rock band are playing to the crowd behind them.

The place has absolutely no connection to music or San Francisco. Awesome mural though.

The guy in the picture is Chris Kline, my Interbrand 'buddy' (assigned the help me out). He's another senior designer, or to faithful to the mural, a senor designer.... (oh deary me, that was poor)

Lawn?

What lawn?

Interbrand New York

I got asked to take a photo of the outside of IBNY... so here it is, with it's very-hard-to-read metal-on-metal sign that i've now walked past three times in three days.

Economy Gastronomy - Lunch in New York

I've been asked by one of my many fans (and where would I be with you, my fans...) to show more pictures of the food here. Eating out in NY is interesting. It can be very expensive, but most of the things you eat for lunch are around $6-10, and the quality (and quantity) is higher than the UK by a huge margin. Lunch is taken much more seriously here. Also, if it's bad, they complain, dear god do they complain....

Some examples of recent lunches:

Vegetarian Burrito with vegetarian chili and sour cream - $7.50

Eggs Benedict with some kind of thin fried potato bits that I couldn't find anywhere on the menu - $8

It's all good.

Idle photos of Manhattan

I spent the day today wandering around Manhattan, going into diners, sorting out my apartment and buying groceries. Nothing particularly interesting to report, so here are a few photos of the things around me instead...

Stretch Only

Signs like this are why I love living in New York. Not seen too many of these in the UK.

On the Hunt

I'd heard a lot about Brooklyn, but I'd never been there. So on Saturday I ventured off the island (Carrie would be so ashamed of me). Some of the designers at work kindly ringed parts of Brooklyn that they'd recommend, so I tried those.

It was recommended that I stick to the river. Williamsburg gets a lot of praise, but there are a lot of decent areas in Brooklyn. But going too deep takes you into more dangerous waters (apparently)

I went to Williamsburg at first, which is like a trendy Shoreditch style experience. You can tell it's cool, but it's so gentrified that it seems a little fake. Also, wandering a street or two from the main drag (Bedford Avenue) takes you into pretty rough industrialised parts.

I then headed to Fort Green and Park Slope, which are really good areas. Friendly, safe and neighbourhoodly (is that a word, no? didn't think so). A map of my travels is below. The lines are where I walked, between those points I took the subway.

At the top of Atlantic Avenue is an amazing indoor flea market in the hudson building. It's impressive inside and out.

A selection of photos of my travels are on my Flickr site (jimberland), there is a link to this on the left column of this blog. Here are a couple to give you the idea

Cafe Bliss in Williamsburg

The amazing hudson building

Which turns into an astonishingly beautiful flea market on the inside

Chasing Greenbacks

I have to admit, I was pretty worried about being able to get a bank account without a permanent US residence and without a Social Security number, but it turned out to be a straightforward (if longwinded) process. So I have have a checking account and savings account with Chase. Partially because there are thousands of branches, partially for the geeky typographic reference.

I'm not entirely sure why my cheques (checks) have pictures of Tigger and Nemo on them, maybe I have a childs account? I do rather like them though. I also liked that the branch was playing a selection of Al Green in the background. Who cares if Americans still use cheques (checks), playing music in branches is progressive!