Here’s something different! Last night, Karl and I met up with Damien and Lisa to do karaoke at a place called Sing Sing, down in the East Village! Why? Why not! We hired a “private room” which basically meant we only had embarrass ourselves in front of each other.

Originally, we thought that an hour of karaoke would be more than enough for any one person. Well, one hour passed amazingly quickly to the tunes of Pearl Jam, Frank Sinatra, Neil Sedaka, Oasis, and even a duet of System of a Down’s “Toxicity” by Karl and I! No guesses for which songs I had chosen . Kristy had been attending her farewell drinks from work but joined us a little later in the piece to chip in her versions of “Summer of ’69″ and “Sweet Home Alabama”.

In the end, we sung our lungs out for just over two hours! Song of the night had to go to Lisa and Kristy’s duet on “More than Words” by the one-hit wonders, “Extreme”. Nice job ladies!

Overall I would say it was a hugely fun night, and I’d for sure be signing up again. But, I suspect my dreams of being an awesome karaoke singer are probably going to go unfulfilled. Oh well!

The conclusion of yesterday was also the conclusion of our second last weekend in New York. We did what we could to make the most of it, but unfortunately it involved a fair bit of packing which isn’t the most enjoyable past-time. There’s still a long way to go, but now at least we have the advantage of living in an apartment that looks like the victim of a tornado.

Worse still for Kristy, she got roped in to working all day Saturday! At least she got paid for it (time-and-a-half no less – just like being 15 again!), and that means more spending money for travels!

So whilst the wife was slaving away, I went to gym, taught Fabia how to make espresso (she’ll be taking our machine when we leave), then met Karl for lunch at Chipotle (of course). After that, Karl and I wandered around the city, from Times Square, to Columbus Circle, then to 5th Avenue. It was a glorious, bright sunny day – I just wish I had taken my camera!

Yesterday was also fairly bright and sunny, but a little windy which made it a bit cool. We were told that we would be losing our water all day, so we started our day with a trip to the gym so we could shower there. Turns out that there was also a street fair running along second avenue, so we got to walk to the gym enjoying the smell of gyros, popcorn, and shish-kebabs. Tempting!

For lunch, Lisa and Damien asked us over to JC, where we joined them for a picnic with a view at Liberty State Park. Cleverly I did remember to take my camera, but not-so-cleverly I forgot to put the memory card into it. Whoops! Oh well, you’ll just have to take my word for it that it was a delicious feast and a fantastic afternoon. We’ll miss Lisa when we move to London. I guess we’ll miss Damien too, but not as much as we’ll miss Lisa. (Just kidding, Damien! )

We came home quite exhausted, so after some more packing/organising, plus a wicked good salmon dinner that Kristy whipped up, we turned in and watched Garden State. Quriky, with an excellent soundtrack. gerrod.com rating: 7.5/10.

Cathy and Jeremy had us over for dinner tonight, and as always it was a pleasure to see them and their kids. Jade (4 years old) is currently seeking sponsorship for a fun-run she is doing at our local YMCA, so Kristy and I sprung a ten for her single lap around the running track.

Since it seems like quite good money to me (it’s a really, really short running track) I asked Jade, “So, since I’m putting up ten dollars, do you think you can win the race for me?”

Jade looked at me blankly for a second, and then in her fairly thick kiwi accent replied with: “look – I wrapped my pen in a piece of paper!”

Kids. You gotta love ‘em.

It’s been a busy – but relaxing – weekend. I wish it wasn’t over already!

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Lisa told us a while back about a quiz night that’s held every Thursday night at Rocky Sullivan’s pub, so given that Friday was a public holiday for us, we decided to give it a whirl this week. Our team consisted of Kristy and myself, Karl, Lisa, and Lisa’s friend Kersti, so naturally our team name was “Cher’s Spandex Tights”.

I’m actually a big fan of trivia nights, so I was very much looking forward to the quiz. I even thought that with all the extra study that I do, I may be able contribute a whole host of correct answers! But unfortunately for me, that was not the case. The questions were really hard! There was a few of them that I totally nailed, like, “Which two countries celebrate ANZAC day?”, but for the most part I was well out of my depth.

Still, mainly through the efforts of Kersti and Lisa, Cher’s Spandex Tights ended up in a tie with about four other teams, for third place! So in the end it wasn’t the miserable defeat that I had thought it would be.

So would I go back? Definitely, but next time I’ll stay away from the Miller Light; Karl and I suspect their keg was a few months old. But otherwise, it was an awesome way to spend a Thurdsay night!

Last night we gathered at The Overlook to farewell one of our colleagues, Santiago.

Actually, this was the second farewell that we’d had for Santiago, the first being a breakfast at work at the end of last week. And funnier still, he’s not really leaving, he’s just transferring to another department which is in the building next to ours!

Still, I guess it goes to show how well respected he is within our department. He’s always been the go-to guy and it will be a tough ride for his replacement to fill his shoes.

Worst of all, Santiago is an Aussie, so now we’re down to just Karl and I representing for our floor!

Tonight we took a leaf out of Team BaM’s book and tapped into some vegetarian Indian action at Vatan with Sibylle and Jurgen. Since Karl believes that the only thing worse than Indian food is vegetarian Indian food, he surprisingly decided against joining us.

I was a bit worried when we got there and we were greeted by a bloke in a dress. If he didn’t look like the Indian entry for the sumo wrestling medal then I perhaps would have asked, “hey buddy, what up with the dress?”, but since he must have had an easy 100 pounds over me, I decided to let it slide.

Of course it then turns out that old mate Dressy McDress was our waiter. He was friendly enough, or at least I think he was, because I honestly couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Not only did he speak in a whisper which was ironically quiet for a man of his stature, but he mumbled worse than a horse with a mouth full of peanut butter.

Anyway, the idea behind Vatan is that it’s all-you-can-eat, but instead of being a buffet, the food is actually served to you, and in three distinct courses no less. So out comes the first course, and Dressy mumbles his way through the description of each of our dishes, and of course for each one I just stare at him blankly and wonder how I’d look in a sumo suit, and how long I would last against him in the ring. I decided by the end of his speech that it would probably be about seven seconds.

The only thing that I quite clearly understood was when Dressy pointed at deep fried lump in the shape of a chili. “That’s a chili” he said, “and it can be hot at times”. At times? What the? Turns out that “hot at times” actually means “we’ve plucked that baby straight from the fires of hell. And drink all the mango lassi you want, the chili will just laugh at you, mockingly! Ha ha!”

By the time the main course was served, the fire in my mouth had somewhat subsided, but I was full from drinking all my mango lassi, so I couldn’t really do the meal justice. I sampled each of the mysterious bowls in front of me, but once again had no idea what I was actually eating thanks to another Oscar-winning mumbling from old Dressy. (Why does vegetarian food not actually look like food?) I know that one of the dishes had potato, and another one had spinach, and one had ginger, and that’s about it. The strange puffy things were delicious though!

I am confident that dessert was mango ice-cream. Hard to go wrong with that one, really.

In all seriousness the food was actually pretty good, but if I went back I’d be hopeful that I got a waiter that I could understand, and I’d also make sure I don’t eat for about three days beforehand. Still, at the very least, it was an experience – and the company was good!

Once again it’s the end of a weekend, and though we’ve had a nice and relaxing time, I find myself wondering why weekends are only two days long.

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One of the cool things about where we work is that almost everyone is from somewhere different – at the most, you have two or three people that may be from the same place. (Well, with the exception of Phillipinos, they seem to be a dime a dozen! heh heh heh…)

This fact was especially highlighted for us on the weekend, when we were invited to celebrate Luiz’s 30th birthday, which Fabia kindly hosted at her pad. Wondering why we’re wearing the ears, aren’cha? Well, the theme was “psychedelic baroque”, and we were told to apply that however we felt appropriate. And in my mind, nothing screems baroque like a pair of mickey ears…

Anyway, back to my point. Luiz summed up the multinational thing the best in his post-celebration e-mail: During the party,you all had a chance to mingle with at least one representative of: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Colombia, England, France, Germany, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Romania, Russia, Spain and good old U.S.A..

Cool, hey?

As mentioned previously, our last visitors at E 52nd Street are John and Kirsty, who have trekked here all the way from London for a four-day weekend. Truth be told, we had never met J&K before they got here, but since they were friends of Ben and Michelle we figured they’d probably be fairly safe! Plus, we’ll be holidaying with them (amongst others) in February and March this year – but that’s a story for another time.

Anyway, one of their self proclaimed goals for this trip is to eat pretty much anything they can get their hands on. Wifey and I figure that the USA has two cuisines in particular that may be tricky to get in London – BBQ, and Mexican. So last night, along with Karl, we trolleyed up to Dallas BBQ to grab some ginormous portions of ribs, chicken, steak and wings. We’d never eaten there before, but reviews all raved about portion size, so we figured it was probably on the right track.

Turns out they’re also known for their “Texas sized” frozen drinks – and who are we to turn down the house special? Kirstin bravely headed up to the bar to order something for us all, and I stood behind her for translation support. First order was a peach margarita for Kristy. The bar girl said to Kirstin, “salt?”, and I quickly realised it was lucky I was there too, because Kirstin replied with, “Texas size for all, please”.

Anyway, the rest of the drinks went smoothly, as did our meals. Portion sizes certainly didn’t disappoint, yet we all managed to get through almost everything. Probably not a very friendly place for the vegetarians out there, but if you’ve got a meat craving then it’s not a bad place to stop. Prices are very reasonable (especially when J&K sneakily conspire to distract us while they fix up the bill! Thanks guys!), and I’d be shocked if anyone ever left hungry.

I think we can successfully cross BBQ off John and Kirsty’s list. I also think I’ll be at the gym for three hours today burning off the excess calories!