New York - 6 nights. Baltimore - 4 nights. Washington DC - 2 nights. All in the fabulous company of my very good friend (and boss), Miranda. Arrived home on Thursday, 6 days ago, and still feel wrapped up in the incredible atmosphere. I did plan to do a daily blog post while I was over there, to keep a bit of a journal of where I went and what I did... but ahhhh... didn't happen. I guess I was too busy actually immersed in it all to find time to write about it. So I will do the best I can to recall it now...
Thursday 27 October
Arrived in New York. It seemed like forever to get through the airport, collect luggage (except my poster which hadn't made the connecting flight), wait for a taxi, and battle peak hour traffic from JFK, through Queens and over to Hotel Mela in midtown Manhattan. When we finally arrived though, we discovered that our very nice (albeit TINY) accommodation was only about 50 metres from Times Square on 44th street. Brilliant location! We dumped bags, 'freshened up' and hit Times Square. Gobsmacking. Instantly fell in love with the city. We had dinner at Bubba Gump shrimp company, and had a little wander around the place. Discovered that pretty much every shop is open until midnight. woo hoooo! So we did a little shopping and then hit the sack nice and early :)
Friday 28 October
Shopping!! We decided that it would be a great idea to familiarise ourselves with our part of the city by wandering all day, doing a bit of shopping, and just generally soaking up the atmosphere. It was a great day. Discovered Sephora, Forever 21, and Ann Taylor. Great shops, much time and money spent - lots of fun :) We also discovered that Times square is a great place to be spotted as tourists and sold to! (The look of dazzled amazement on our faces gave it away I'm sure). We bought tickets to a comedy show, and also a hop-on hop-off bus for the weekend. The comedy show was fantastic. Very funny guys. All very different. A great day & night in all.
Saturday 29 October
One of my favourite days of the whole trip. After breakfast at our new favourite little French bistro (we had brekkie here every morning while in NYC), we headed over to the Empire State building. The night before, Miranda had discovered a pre-purchase 'web express' pass which we could pick up the next morning. It was $20 extra, and we almost weren't going to do it, but at the last minute decided it might save us a bit of time.
Anyway, this ticket may as well have said 'step aside, I am royalty', because that's the effect that it had on the crowd. We were shuffled straight past long lines of restless tourists, ducked through secret corridors, jumped in the lift first, and had the red rope of barriers unhooked just for us. We made it to the top in less than 10 minutes. Most other people waited close to two hours. The view was spectacular. It was a clear sunny day, and we could see well past Manhattan and over to Brooklyn, Jersey, Queens etc. Amazing. Took lots of photos and really enjoyed our stint up top. Then, just as on the way up, we made it back down in less than 10 minutes. I felt as if people were watching us as we walked right past them all and into the lift first, and admittedly felt a little guilty. It's no fun lining up to get down after all the fun is over. Not that we knew about the lines - we had a golden ticket!! OK, enough gushing about the golden ticket..
Next on the agenda was lunch! We jumped in a yellow cab (getting good at hailing these by this point) and headed on down to Little Italy (downtown), and lunched at Lombardi's. Best pizza in town. Also discovered White Zinfandel here - scrumptious wine! After lunch we wandered through Greenwich village, discovered a little beauty salon and promptly decided to get the works - manicure, pedicure & massage - bliss! After a bit more wandering, we headed into a Jazz club and enjoyed an amazing performance. All in all, an incredible day :) Flopped into bed at a reasonable time, excited about what adventures lay ahead of us the next day.
Sunday 30 October
WORST DAY EVER. Already makes me laugh thinking about it. It started out ok, when we stepped out of our hotel and were faced with the realisation that it was snowing! SNOWING! "Oh! How magical!!" we said...
Bloody snow!! It was freezing! And we had bus tickets for a (wait for it) OPEN AIR BUS TOUR. pfft. First item on the agenda: shops to buy clothing that will keep us warm in this frozen snap of a day. After about an hour of that, we were all kitted up with new jackets, scarves, beanies, umbrellas and were feeling slightly more positive about the prospect of hopping onto the bus. And then pulls up the bus. The glass shade that sits over the first two rows of seats is completely frosted over with snow & ice, and every other seat up top is sopping with snow. So we take our seats up front (where we can't see a damn thing), and end up listening to our tour guide who alternates telling us about all the fabulous things we can't see, and asking us about Australian celebrities (seriously, this dude was obsessed). However, in the spirit of remaining positive, we keep our fake smiles pasted on and reassured each other that it could be so much worse, and what fun this all is! And there was some truth to our reassurance, it could be worse, as we were just about to find out...
Our one and only plan for the day apart from the open air bus tour (ha!) was to pick up our tickets for the Halloween party. After hopping off the bus at the closest stop, noticing that our jeans, socks, shoes were now almost soaked, we thought, "this will be quick, we'll nip in, pick the tickets up and then go somewhere warm for a fabulous lunch!". WRONG! By the time we actually found the place to pick up tickets, we were almost totally over going, and then the stupid ticket lady told us that costumes were required... You can just see her now can't you: Miss cocoa queen with her sideways head moves and arched eyebroys saying "you have to be in fancy dress" as if we were lunatics to consider otherwise. CRAP! We had just planned to dress nice, like, in a dress! nice shoes, hair, makeup etc. So in a panic, we ask where we can go to get costumes... right across the road apparently - hallelujah! Finally something working out for us today!
So over the road we march (trudge actually), hopeful that we will find something wonderful in no time. WRONG AGAIN! Can you imagine a costume shop on the eve of halloween in NYC? Let me paint a picture for you: it was packed! bursting at the seams! Where do we even start? We decided to rent costumes. That seemed sensible. No need to buy when you can rent right? So we went down to the rental department and spent about an hour, probably two, choosing costumes. Then off to the mask department! Chose some beautiful masks (only took another hour or so), then started doubting whether or not to hire as we'd have to bring the costumes back...! So decided to go back to the drawing board and looked on the sales rack for cheap costumes that we could buy & keep! Found Cinderella & Snow White quite quickly. Didn't matter that they were a bit tatty & a bit tight - who cares! We bought them and got the hell outta there.... Phew! Only took four hours! Except that we discovered that both our costumes had stains on them.. obvious stains. Quickly became disillusioned. We were fading. Snow. Bloody costume shop. Hunger. Grumpiness set in quickly. We had to find somewhere to eat QUICK! And now we had the same dilemma that we started with five hours ago - WHAT ARE WE GOING TO WEAR TO THE BALL?!?!!
After more hours trying on almost everything in Macy's, we settled on nice dresses to go with our masquerade masks and reassured each other that it would be perfectly fine to wear normal clothes with our masks. Of course it would be! It's a masquerade ball! We should've done this in the first place! Big sigh. Totally exhausted. By this stage, it was evening. We dragged ourselves back through the streets of Manhattan cursing almost all the way, weary from snow, broken umbrellas, not enough food, stupid halloween costume stores and Macy's far too large a selection that took us what seemed like days to look through. We bought some beer and headed back to our room for reflection on what really was a truly shitty day and eventually some blissful slumber. Perhaps tomorrow will be better....
Monday 31 October - HALLOWEEN!
Another INCREDIBLE day!!! Blissful breakfast. Then a spot of shopping on 5th avenue where we discovered the most *darling* leather goods store. Purchased a much needed additional suitcase to contain all the shopping I had done. And a couple of little handbags. Happy days :) Then went for a two hour bike tour of Central Park. It really felt great to be seeing more of the city, especially in such a healthy way!! After our ride, we picked up some fresh fruit from a street market and feasted on pure healthiness for lunch while taking in more of the city by foot. Fabulous! After a long relaxing dinner at our favourite little French restaurant, we headed back to our room to get ready for the ball! Excited!!! How often does one get to go to a masquerade ball in NYC? I was almost bursting with anticip.........ation.
THE HALLOWEEN BALL
Wow. Wow. Wow. Imagine the biggest party. With the loudest music. And the most outrageous guests. And then multiply it by ten. The Ball was held in what looked like the interior of a castle ballroom. Massive pillars everywhere. Decorated ceiling. Huge. Hundreds of people. Lighting to rival a rock concert. Dance music pulsating through our bones. People, crazy people! dressed up in all sorts of costumes. The atmosphere was rife with hedonism. Everyone was making the most of letting their hair down and enjoying the moment. It was an amazing night. Danced. Danced. And danced some more. And eventually, after many many hours, made it back to the hotel for a little bit of sleep... I think I might have seen 5am on my clock, but I can't be sure...
Tuesday 1 November
Hungover. Tired. Missing my family. Deeply... :( Dragged myself out of bed to get to Ground Zero for our noon booking (you have to book in a time to see it). We made it. Just. We sat there and soaked up the atmosphere. It was heavy. Sorrow surrounded us. Just looking at all those names. All those humans, those souls that lost their lives. The burden of that loss weighs heavily on the atmosphere of the district. You can feel it. It's still so desperately sad, after 10 years. And there is still so much rebuilding going on. It is going to be a trauma that weighs heavily on the people for many generations.
After a very low key afternoon, we took in a broadway show in the evening: Jersey Boys! Was great. Would have been better to see it on a non-recovery day (!), but, let's face it, how many times does one get to go to broadway?! It was great :)
Wednesday 2 November
Last day in NYC. Already grieving at this point. Bit more shopping. 5th Avenue. Fao Schwartz toy store. Tiffany's. Abercrombie & Fitch. Presents for the family! We maximised our shopping time so much so, that by the time we checked out of our hotel and caught a taxi to JFK airport, we were running late to our plane! Eeeeeek!!! So after running towards the gate, hand luggage flying in all directions, sweat, panic, and the prospect of missing our flight, we were so relieved to make it *just.in.time*. We were the last passengers on board. Phew! Baltimore here we come!
Thursday 3 November
Sick :( Did we overdo it in NYC? Yes Jane, you did. 150%. Not in the mood for a conference today. Dragged myself along anyway. Far too many concurrent sessions! Which one do I choose? I chose a few. To be honest, I was expecting to be blown away. This was ISTSS afterall. I wasn't blown away. I found myself being internally critical of the research being presented. Am I becoming that academically cynical already? Surely not. Surely I still have the capacity to be dazzled by big words....
This was also the day that I presented my poster (if you are a true dork, and actually are genuinely interested, I would be willing to email you a copy of my poster... just email me). I got lots of great feedback, and it was a really great experience. One that I would definitely encourage new researchers to seek out.
Friday 4 November
Early night last night followed by early morning conference attendance. I plan to be dazzled by new research techniques today! And, I actually was. I went to a presentation that outlined a different statistical analysis technique for understanding varied trajectories of mental health, and it focussed on resilience! Lots of ideas flowed. Inspired. Yes, this is what I came to see. Wanna learn more. Wanna open data sets! Loving living in nerd land (at least for today). I'm gonna finish this PhD in no time. No time at all.
Late afternoon was spent luxuriating in the cocktail lounge with colleagues - yes! This is the conference life! Then followed by a lovely dinner at a local Irish Pub. Great day. Looking forward to many more conferences in the future. Sensational mix of academic inspiration and enjoyment. What a life!
Saturday 5 November
Today was all about my colleagues presentation. They did an amazing job. Had a big attendance from many big names. Lots of great, attentive questions. An amazing project on the Health and Wellbeing of the Australian Defence Force. Email me (jane.cocks@adelaide.edu.au) if you want to know more about it. Huge study. Huge amount of work went into this project.
We all celebrated with an extended dinner at an amazing steak house in Baltimore. Will remember that night for many years. Fabulous food, and company couldn't be better. Loving life. But missing my family..... not long to go now...
Sunday 6 November
Packing suitcases yet again. Starting to get a bit sick of living out of one of these devices... Too many purchases. Too many bags. Too many bloody clothes!! Ugh.
We were kindly offered a lift to Washington DC from some colleagues at the conference (thank you so much, you know who you are xxxx), and arrived safely just after lunch. After settling into our hotel (which was sadly not as nice as the novotel in Baltimore), we headed out for a neighborhood wander. So..... where are all the people in DC? There was hardly anyone around!!!! Sure, it's Sunday, but seriously... C'MON!! Where's all the people?! The action?! The lights?! The excitement? I guess we were still in a New York state of mind... (Billy Joel, I get you now).
In any case, it was an exquisite day. The sun was shining. The sky was blue, and we were both relaxed. Conference behind us, and only just over a day before we started on the journey home. We needed to relish this day while it lasted. And relish we did. We strolled past the White House. Saw the Lincoln memorial, the world war II memorial, the veitnam memorial, the korean memorial and the pool of reflection (that was more like a quagmire, closed for renovations... :( ). After wandering a bit more, we discovered the Museum of Crime and Punishment - a great serendipitous find! Then, after a lovely relaxing dinner down in 'the library', the restaurant in our hotel, we retired early to face our last full day in the USA...
Monday 7 November
Smithsonian Immersion. First, the Museum of Natural History. Second, the Hirshhorn Art Gallery. Third, the sculpture garden. Fourth, the Museum of American History.
OUCH! I shouldn't have worn my high heeled boots!!! Too much walking!!
Apart from that - AMAZING! Loved it. Felt like I should be holding hands with my children and explaining things along the way. What a great family place Washington DC is. Tommy and the kids will love it when we go back there one day.
We finished off the day with a lovely relaxing vietnamese dinner on M street in Georgetown. And slowly came to the realisation that the holiday was over. The conference. NYC. It was all finished. And now we had a long flight home.... couldn't wait. Bring it on. I was ready.
Tuesday 8 November
Flight home. DC -> LAX = 5 hours. LAX -> SYD = 14 hours. SYD -> ADL = 2.5 hours. Plus time in between.... Too long!! Itching to get home. I had been skyping Tommy and the kids every day. We had kept in touch every step of the way. But nothing substitutes real human contact..... itchy, itchy, itchy!!!!
Thursday 10 November
Arrived home at midday. TEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!! There's just no place like home!!!!
Overall, amazing trip. Unforgettable. Fabulous company (love you Miranda xxx). Worthwhile conference, if only for the opportunity to present myself. NYC & DC. Brilliant. Caught the travel bug yet again...... but for now, I delight in the simple pleasures of home, my beautiful family & the glorious reality of NOT living out of a suitcase!!
Jane xxxx
