Day 193 - Rugby Legends 2013

Tonight I went to the Rugby Legends dinner at the New York Athletics Club. I know that when I look back on my time here, this will be one of major highlights. If not the highlight!

For the fifth year running, Captain's Knock has invited sporting legends to help raise money for a variety of charities. Tonight's guests were Jeremy Guscott, Warren Gatland, Gavin Hastings, Paul Wallace and Martin Johnson. To say I was slightly starstruck would be a major understatement.

Jeremy Guscott chaired the onstage interviews with each of the honoured guests. Having watched him year in year out on the BBC, I expected a straight laced, formal interview.

Not. A. Chance. This was a rugby dinner with an open bar after all!

The banter that flowed between the top talent was hilarious. For example, the way Jeremy Guscott introduced Martin Johnson onto the stage was comedy gold;

"...and finally we have the only player too have captained the Lions on two separate tours, win the Heineken cup six times and of course the World Cup. Martin Johnson, amazing player, shit coach!".

Throughout the night there were multiple auctions for charity. There were multiple signed jerseys of all different sporting heroes, including Messi, Hoy, Wiggins and Wilkinson. I thought I would test my luck and put a bid in for the Chris Hoy signed jersey. However, I was the highest bid for about 30 seconds. Most of the items went above the Mountbatten budget fairly promptly.

To have attended this event in the New York Athletic's Club, made it even more of a dream occasion for me. I will never forget this night. Ever!

When I momentarily was the highest bidder, before it went for a few grand. Slightly out of the Mountbatten budget!

Warren Gatland

Paul Wallace 

Martin Johnson

Jeremy Guscott

Gavin Hastings

Day 192 - Chocolate Temptation

To resist the luring temptation of the chocolate only bar at work, took some serious restraint.

The chocolate eclairs must have had an inch of chocolate on them. And the smell from the warm chocolate fudge cake, with a crushed Oreo topping, was just insane!

Day 191 - Last of Six

Today I worked in the last office of the six that I can work in around New York, Conneticut and New Jersey. There is just no need for a screen saver with the views that these buildings provide.

Day 190 - Trader Joe's

From a previous post, you may remember my fascination with a super market in the Upper East Side, Fairways.

As I have now moved out of Harlem, Fairways is unfortunately no longer on my doorstep. I have then had to venture to pastures new. This has brought me to Trader Joe's in Chelsea.

From what I have read up on Trader Joe's it has a great rep in the US for its customer service and array of food. This must be the reason why the queue went the whole way around the store!

Day 189 - Class of Two Halves

Today, I had a marked presentation on the financials of Pfizer. This was for my latest module, Managerial Accounting and Finance. So to say, I was productive in the second part of class would be a slight overstatement.

With her ever attentive eye, the professor noticed the mental disintegration and decided to give us some pre school style motivation;

"If I let you watch the rugby for twenty minutes, will you create a cash flow statement for?"

She received a resounding, Yes!

Day 188 - Grace

The Grace skyscraper on 42nd and 6th, is one of my favourite buildings in NYC. The way it's bottom outlandishly sticks out into the pavement, compared to the invariable directness of it's neighbours, makes it one of my New York icons.

Day 187 - Space is a Luxury in NY

When this person bought a smart car to drive around New York, they probably thought they were being, well... smart.

That was until they bought a 60 inch TV!

Day 186 - Halfway

Although not technically the half way point of the entire MBA programme, it is the halfway point of my time in New York. A fairly jam packed six months I'd say.

I thought about reflecting on everything that I have got up to so far, but have instead decided to leave that for my 372nd blog post. That statement is also a commitment to another six months worth of blog entries. Thank you to everyone that has stuck with it so far. Stay tuned!

So instead of a review, I am going to give you philosophical quotes from my train platform. I wouldn't say it is the most traditional of places to gather inspiration, but it works.

"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best".
Henry van Dyke - American Author, Educator & Clergyman

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough".
Rabindranath Tagore - Poet & Novelist

Day 185 - Oh James!

My flat mate had an argument with the blender today. He lost. Not to worry though, Target (which is kind of like a Tesco Extra) had many a blender on hand to rectify the issue.

Unfortunately, one blender and one ego were hurt during the posting of this blog entry.

Day 184 - What do you do on your day off?

I run stairs!

In preparation for my run up the Rockefeller, I have been trudging up (and down) as many sets of stairs possible. Don't get me wrong, there are better things to do on Presidents Day but when you ate as many wings as I did before Christmas, going that extra step is essential. Especially if I want to get up before the 45 minute cut off!

I am doing this all in aid of the MS Society. If you are able and willing, please may you sponsor me? You can do this at my sponsor page;

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/alexlee

Just under 14 days to go!

Day 183 - Wagner & Fry

Tonight I truly lived up to the 'Curious' part of the title to this blog. Last Friday, I was flicking through 'Goldstar' (a great website for NY events and shows) and came across a showing, that I would have not normally gone to see if I was back home.

It was a screening of Stephen Fry's, 'Wagner and Me' docu-film. Mr Fry delves into his fascination for the German composer, Richard Wagner. He questions whether it is acceptable, for someone of Jewish heritage, to have such an admiration for Wagner. This because of Wagner's anti semitic views and the Wagner family's links with the Nazi party.

In my opinion, Fry is attracted to the fundamentals of Wagner's revolutionary compositions. Not his views. I therefore believe that he should be able to listen without guilt. After all, if you have seen the show before, you will realise how much passion Fry has for Wagner's music.

Day 182 - Harlem Globetrotters

When I first saw the Harlem Globetrotters on television as a kid, I wanted to see them immediately. I didn't think that immediately would be in 15 years time though! So when the opportunity came up to see them in New York, I could not turn it down.

Apart from a nightmare of a time getting there and back, the show/game was awesome. It was a combination of slapstick humour and high end skills! I guess you would expect nothing less from players with names like TnT, Big Easy and Moose!

Day 181 - Friday Financial's

In preparation for my upcoming presentation for my latest module, I have been spending my evening traipsing through the financial statements of various companies. TGIF...NAAT!

Day 180 - Yippie Kay Yay Mother Russia

It's not nice being apart from your loved one on Valentines Day. Hopefully, I will not have to do this too many more times.

While I got through the day, Bruce came to my rescue for the evening, as I went to see his latest Die Hard movie. It was as to be expected, lots of explosions and plenty of cheesy catch phrases. Perfect distraction.

<3 Janie x

Day 179 - V Day Prep

The highly marketable Valentines Day is upon us, as of tomorrow. My boss kindly bought me two heart shaped Dunkin Donuts as a reminder.

As I am focusing on my Climb the Rock charity run, I didn't do what I would usually have done and gobble them up with in seconds. Instead I had a stare out with with them for the rest of the day. I won. They are still intact.

Janie, I would mail them to you but I don't think they would make the trip somehow.

Day 178 - Intense

After speaking with one of the residents in my building regarding the recent snow fall, he said that he'd bought a 4x4 to 'handle it'. My immediate thoughts were that this was a slightly excessive purchase. Especially to say the roads are normally cleared by 9am each morning and it has pretty much melted.

Asking what he had bought, he pointed it out to me in the car park. I couldn't help but 'LOL'. I think he should have done a bit more homework before he bought a virtually extent, white tractor on growth hormone.

Day 177 - Grand Central Museum

I had 30 mins to burn while I was waiting for a meeting today after work, so went to the Grand Central museum, in the entrance to the magnificent station. One of the most interesting, time killing moments I have spent in NY.

Did you know that Grand Central was almost torn down in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s? In 1990 a $400million revamp took place to turn it into what it is today.

Many architects put forward designs and plans for a new building to stand in its place. I took pictures of the best. Well actually they are (in my opinion) atrocities, so maybe they were the two worst. Although, they would eventually be accepted, to lose the history of the original Grand Central would have been such a shame.

As St Pancras is one of my favourite buildings in London, I think Grand Central is becoming my favourite building in New York.

Day 176 - Where there is a will, there is a way.

Trawling round my new home town, for a bar that was open at 10am, to watch the Ireland vs England Rugby game was extremely frustrating.

The six nations is one of of my favourite sporting occasions of the year and as I have missed all the previous games because of class, I was determined to not miss this one.

I had to resort to strapping my laptop to the router and watching it in stages because the internet was so slow. Learning from my Sunday morning trepidations, I would like to send out a plea of help, on behalf of all the disgruntled Brits based in Newport, NJ;

"To any Newport, Jersey City and Hoboken bars, restaurants, friendly households that read my blog - Please may you play the six nations games in two weeks time? I am a brilliant guest and will happily provide you with English biased opinion throughout the game. Many thanks."

Day 175 - Snow Day

My plans for this weekend were to explore my new surroundings. You would think with the amount of snow that fell the previous night, this would be a no go. However, one thing that the Americans are very good at, is dealing with snow. The roads were cleared, pavements were swept and people were going on as if it wasn't even there.

Also made for a pretty picture or two!

Day 174 - Finding Nemo

The latest storm to hit the Northeast coastline, aptly named Nemo, brought considerably more snow with it compared to the last few dustings. By midnight, it had covered the wheels of the cars.

Get this for an interesting fact as well, if you are caught driving your car during the storm in Massachusetts you could face a years jail time. Intense!

Day 173 - So much room for activities

After living with five other people in a shoe box on steroids, my new flat is positively HUGEnormous! You could comfortably perform the bleep test in the lounge.

These pictures are not that great, so if anyone is really interested in looking round, I am more than willing to give you a virtual Skype tour.

Day 172 - New Jersey's Finest

Move day has arrived. The end of my address no longer reads NY but instead says NJ at the end. To make the situation worse, my empty Harlem room means that I am approaching the half way mark.

However, it's not all bad. The local shop sells Robinson's Fruit Juice! Small victories.