Our first full week

Well, we've made it to the end of our first full week and there's been plenty going on.

Our company car has arrived so the pair of us are driving around in his 'n' hers Jeep Libertys so we must get a photo of the two of them side-by-side to prove it. This is just a temporary measure until we get ourselves in a position to buy or lease another car then we'll have to give one of them back.

Annalie finally got paid into her US bank account so we felt like we weren't so stranded any more. We celebrated by going out and buying a washing machine and tumble dryer (ooh the high life!!). We were stunned at how expensive they are over here, especially the 'front loading' style we're used to back home. Around $1200 for the pair and they're not even anything special. Then Ian made up for it by going and spending nearly $2k on a TV This is despite the fact that we still haven't received our stuff. It has arrived in New York and is with US Customs but we've not yet heard what they're going to do with it.

There's finally a photo on here of our actual house. Its in the My Pictures album and is the bright blue thing!!

Ian's cabin fever is setting in good and proper and so he's been getting to the gym as much as possible to try and escape! He's been to the gym more times in the last two weeks than he has in the last two years.

Then on Friday we decided to head down to the local bar after work to meet up with some of the guys who are also here on secondment. Afterwards we went for the obligatory curry! The Americans aren't renowned for their love of spice so it's good that there is a curry house nearby.

On Saturday we thought we were being treated to some almost-live Premiership football when the Man U v Villa game was being shown on network TV. But we soon realised that things were too good to be true when it became apparent that it was actually a week-old game! Can't wait to get cable installed in our place!

Later that day we killed some time at a fab golfing shop called Golfers Warehouse. You can basically use it as a free driving range as they've got loads of demo clubs available to use so we messed about with some drivers for about an hour. Why pay for it when you don't have to!!

Then on Sunday we went to town. Literally. We headed into New York. It took just 1.5 hours to reach The Big Apple so there didn't seem to be a huge buzz about being there - it was just like driving to London really, and where's the fun in that? On the weekends you can pre-book all-day parking in Manhattan for as little as $15. So we did! We parked just round the corner from Broadway. We wandered down to Times Square for some breakfast while we decided what to do.

So for starters we went up to the viewing deck of the Rockerfeller Center. Ian tried the old "military discount" trick again and got in free! The views were pretty good. Because of its location you get good views of Central Park. It's not quite as tall as the Empire State Building, which gives you better views of Manhattan as a whole, but it's worth the trip and was nowhere near as crowded as the Empire State would have been.

Then we hopped on the Metro up to The Bronx to catch a Yankees game (that's baseball to the uninitiated!!) vs the Tampa Bay Rays. It's the last season at the original Yankee Stadium so we were pretty lucky to get tickets. We've been looking for weekend tickets for the rest of the season but its pretty sold out. unless we want to go to the last game of the season on 21st September, but then the cheapest tickets are a few hundred bucks, when we paid $20 for this game.

Anyway, it took a while for things to get exciting, but when they did, Annalie typically missed the action while she was queuing for a hot chocolate and a pretzel (when in Rome...). After two straight defeats by the Rays, the Yankees took this one 2-0.

We left the game about 4pm and headed back downtown for a bite to eat. Then we picked the car up and drive down to Ground Zero to check out how that's coming along and what they're planning to do to it. It seems such a small, empty space now when you compare it to what once stood there. The memorial that they're building is due to open at the end of next year so it might be worth a return visit after that.

Anyway, check out some more of our piccies. We've added an new album just for the New York trip - we thought it was worth it.