Onboarding

My first day at Interbrand was a day of Onboarding. In a nutshell this means induction. In reality, I got shown around and then spent a lot of time hunting for flats online.

The studio looks a little like this:

Or at least some of it. You don't have to wear red to work here... but it helps.

The sandwiches here are everything I remember, by which i mean large enough to sink a ship or two.

Mmm... multimeat...

I settled for the classic ruben sandwich, a concoction of beef, cheese, sourcraut and mustard, on toasted rye. Delicious, but it genuinely made my heart ache shortly after, so i'll probably give these bad boys a miss in future.

I also discovered Indiatown (about 4 of 5 blocks of Lexington Avenue), but enough about food for one day.

On the hunt

This is my day of sorting things out.
Today I need to do:
1) Open a US bank account. Which brings me neatly to...

2) Start apartment hunting. Without a bank account it's extremely difficult to get an apartment. However, it's very very difficult to be taken seriously when apartment hunting if you don't have...

3) A US cell phone number (that's mobile phone for you brits out there). Unless I buy a 'burner' (for those who didn't go through a recent addiction to The Wire, this is a phone with credit already on it. Useful if you need to find an apartment, or if you're selling drugs and don't want to have your phone line tapped)

4) However, I'm not I can even get to number 1 without a social security number (I certainly can't get paid without one)

Anyway, i'm going to head out to a bank to try and make things happen.

Here are some photos of my walk to work

The flat iron building and adjacent park. Very pretty in the snow, if very very cold. It got down to -7 last night, which made simply walking around very unpleasant.

Good Morning America

It's 7:26am.

I've been awake for an hour as I can't sleep with the excitement/dread. I got a bit of weird jetlag that I hope the weekend, some sleeping pills and alcohol can fix.

I was driven into town in a big squashy Lincoln continental (the black car you see everyone drive in the movies). The driver was playing 1950s jazz as the Empire State building came into sight. Quite the introduction.

Discovered the room makes a range of interesting noises. The toilet also flushes itself all night, and one of the walls keeps clanking, which takes some getting user to.

Work is a 15 minute walk down 5th Avenue, It's just started snowing and it's about -1 outside.

Home sweet home

Well, i'm here. It's 23:55 local time, 4:55 james time. But i've made it. The taxi on the way into New York played 1950s jazz the whole way, what a fitting introduction to the city.

In a very New York move, I decided to use all the cash I have on me (a full $5) to tip the doorman. Leaving me with nothing but the satisfied glow of a man who probably didn't tip enough.

I've checked in to my $3700 a month apartment, which appears to be a small kitchen with a large bed in it. But there we are, I've attached a photo (as taken beautifully by my macbook) if anyone is interested. And no, there are no other rooms. This is it. Home.

The greatest idea in the history of ideas

I'm not there yet, but i've stumbled across something amazing.

My biggest worry for moving to NY is finding apartments. It seems like I have two choices

a) I sublet and live with some other people. This is probably what i'll do at first.

b) get my own place. this is what I really want to do.

So why not just do b? Ahhhh... thanks for asking. Unlike in the UK, nearly all NY apartments are sold unfurnished. In the (brief) search I've done so far I've found very few apartments that can be rented out with furniture. I don't know how long I'll be in the states for, so buying an apartment worth (even a tiny NY apartment) of furniture seems like a rather daft and frivolous thing to do. Also, I'm not really going to bring any stuff over with me.

But I have an answer! And it is here...

http://newyork.craigslist.org/zip/

More free stuff than I could shake a (free) stick at! So why not rent a place for a month or so while I get my shit together, then get my own place and fill it with free crap from around New York?
This will have lots of advantages, these are:

a) Get lots of stuff for free
b) Get to see lots of areas of New York as I travel around looking for stuff
c) Get to meet lots of people I wouldn't normally meet
d) The stuff I do get will have more character and be more interesting than any new stuff I buy (especially from Ikea. That's right Ikea, you heard me...)

There are basically no disadvantages to this, other than having to get all my stuff back to my apartment again. But there must be a multitude of services set up for this very purpose. Even if i buy new stuff, it'll still have delivery charges.

The only thing I'll probably have to buy new will be my bed (or at least the mattress)

Hopefully in a few months anyone reading who is planning on visiting me will be able to come over to a wonderfully interesting apartment full of battered old free crap from all over the city.

Still in England

After a week of living out of a suitcase, today is the day I leave. 

I have my visa (below) and I'm ready to go. 

The photo submission process for American work visa's is pretty weird. You have to upload a photo, then it is automatically checked to see if it's good enough quality.

The photo I used was professionally taken and given to me on a cd to be compatible with the US visa system. But it's not that easy

My first attempt was too small.

My second was too dark so i lightened it all up

My third attempt was too dark around the eyes, so i lightened the eyes up.

The result is that photoshopping your photo is the only way to get it approved. daft.

anyway the (blurry) result is below

hello all

good morning, I'm writing this both as an easy way of letting people know what's going on in my life in New York, and as a way of cataloging, what will probably be a weird and interesting year. I'm not going to advertise this, put it on twitter, facebook, myspace (does that still exist?) etc... If you know about this, it's probably because I've told you, or you randomly came across it online. Either way, welcome!