New York, New York - a return visit

This week brought about yet another impromptu visit to New York, this time for the both of us. Friday was the annual Wings Club Dinner Dance where the entire who's who of aviation turns out in their finery to mingle and schmooze.

In Annalie's team, Carla was supposed to be going as she made all of the arrangements and would have been running the logistics. However her mum is quite poorly and she didn't want to head off to New York for the weekend just in case. So she asked Annalie to cover for her so we got to go to the whole event.

This meant that we got to spend two nights at the Waldorf Astoria of all places! Given its reputation, we thought we were in for a right treat. However, even though we were upgraded to a suite, it was a pretty poor effort really. The room was badly designed and felt very normal, rather than the sumptuous luxury you'd expect. Anyway, we weren't paying so we shouldn't really complain!

We headed off to the Dinner Dance, which was a pretty good affair. All of the right faces seemed to be there and the IAE guys could mingle with the best.

After the meal was finished, we decided to have a look at the "silent auction" where a bunch of aviation-related "prizes" were on offer. The way it works is that each "prize" has a sheet of paper attached to it and you have to sign up your name and bid. So you can see who has bid what.

The only one that really took our fancy was the most expensive of the lot (typical!)! Two business class flights from LA to Auckland. We uhmmed and ahhed about it for a bit and then decided we'd give it a go (we won't tell you for how much!). Shortly after we were outbid by $100. There was only about 40 minutes to go so we thought we'd hang around to see how much more interest there was and potentially get the last bid in before the papers were collected.

Ian dutifully hung around and there were no more bids placed. We asked a Kiwi colleague from Rolls-Royce if it was a good deal and he said it wasn't dirt cheap but it wasn't bad either. So as the papers were beign collected, Ian pounced and claimed the prize as ours.

Or so we thought... As the organisers were sifting through the collected bid sheets, Ian went to confirm our status with them. Only to be told by the woman who ran the auction that we had been outbid because she had been authorised by a friend to bid more than us.

This outraged us because it didn't follow the spirit of the auction and we felt very cheated. Annalie then took it up with her but she just kept going on about the fact that she was authorised to do the bids but she'd been too busy running the auction to place a genuine bid on the paper. And she tried the guilt trip by claiming it was for a 90 year-old man who she'd known for 40 years.

She didn't seem to want to know and walked off. When we asked her colleague if we could take a photo of the bid page as proof of our status, she stormed back over shouting at us "OK, you've won, we'll call you on Monday. Are you happy now? You've just ruined a perfectly good evening!" We wondered whose evening had been more ruined though

Everyone we spoke to after that agreed with us that it wasn't right and that we should stick to our guns, but it still left a very bad taste.

Anyway, on Saturday morning we debated the situation and thought we'd go and check out how much the flights would be if we wanted to buy them directly with Air New Zealand. Turns out our winning bid is about half the price of two business class tickets from LA to Auckland so we thought we'd stick at it. It would be the holiday of a lifetime for us and the one place in the world we really want to go. Here's hoping we get that call tomorrow

On Saturday afternoon, IAE took some customers to the matinee showing of the Broadway production of Boeing Boeing. It's a hilarious comedy and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. It's recommended to go and see and it's on in London until 5th January too. We were amazed at how many of the actors we knew from TV and film.

After we'd packed off the IAE execs and their customers to their evening meal, we decided to head back towards Theater Land for something to eat. One of the guys had pointed out an Italian advertised in the Show programme so we thought we'd head for there. It turned out to be directly opposite the theatre so we thought we'd treat ourselves (on IAE of course ). It was a fantastic meal and so we reported back to the recommender.

We had intended to go to the Rockefeller Center ice rink, which, amazingly, is already open. However the weather on Saturday night was dreadful with huge storms rolling in, so we headed back to the hotel instead. Ian refused to get a taxi so we ended up getting back to the Waldorf looking like drowned rats! We thought we'd see what the weather was like on Sunday morning to maybe get to go before we left.

We expected the rain to still be lashing it down, but when we opened the curtains it was beautiful clear blue skies so we thought we'd head out and try. When we got there the rink was quite empty, but everyone on it was a fairly good skater. Somewhat fearful of how stupid we would look, we waited a while until a few more, slightly unsteady people got on. Eventually we decided to go for it, after all, it is one of the things on our "bucket list" and we duly got skated up.

After an unsteady start, we both started to get the hang of it, although the last time either of us ventured onto the ice (without a snowboard on our feet that is!) was well over 15 years ago! There's even some photos to prove we remained upright! All was going well and there were no tumbles, until right at the end. Ian stopped to make a suggestion about calling it quits and Annalie tried to stop to talk to him, but somehow lost her balance and fell backwards, cracking her head on the ice. No major damage, except to Annalie's ego, but she skated around once more before we headed back to the hotel and then home. At least it's one more thing ticked off the list.

Other major happenings this week include the fact that Annalie's new passport has arrived already. She wasn't expecting it for at least another week but she's happy to have one in her possession once again - she doesn't feel like persona non grata any more! She's still going to wait until after the holiday to Hawaii to go out of the country to get her new visa. She's just paranoid that she'll get stuck without a visa and this holiday is important!!! It's a bucket list item too.

We've both been a bit more sporty this week than we have for a while. Annalie went to the gym for the first time in about a month and Ian got to play another game of volleyball, which he really enjoyed. Then we both played football on Thursday night with the IAE crew. We were meant to be on the same team, but as one of the guys was late, Ian swapped teams to make up the numbers for them. It was a good game, very close, but Annalie's team ended up victorious, maintaining her 100% record

This week promises not to be quite so eventful!