Entries Tagged 'Travels' ↓

After my little ranty last week about not being able to find buttons in Wellington, Lucy told me about a shop full of buttons in Sydney. And today I think she’s been to visit it in order to send me this fantastic photo – I actually squealed in delight and have asked for it to be put on the official itinerary when we visit them in November … never mind the Syndey Harbour Bridge, I want to go see the buttons!

It was great to see Aidan again after 6 months – my first comment when I saw him was “he’s huge!” He’s becoming a real boy now. When we left he wasn’t saying anything very understandable, maybe “mummummum” and “Tessssssssss” (the dog). Now, 6 months later at 2 and a half, the stories we’ve heard from his parents and the mumblings we’d heard in the background over Skype are in fact true – he speaks in pretty full and quite understandable sentences. The most used sentence at the weekend: “Where’s Craig?” (guess who was Mister Popular?!) I was called “Taffy” most of the weekend but slightly better pronunciation by the time we left had me as “Coffey”. He also did an excellent rendition of “GO YANKEEEEES!” that he’d been coaxed to practice in the weeks leading up to our arrival which was pretty tear jerking (for The Mister!)

He has quite a determined mind of his own now and does everything a little boy should – rides around the garden on his bike bashing into neatly trimmed lavender, outdoor furniture and fathers; is mad on cars (toy ones and real ones) especially emergency vehicles; can do everything for himself including pushing the buggy, ‘making the coffee’ (any old excuse to climb on the bench and get water everywhere!), keeping you informed about what the neighbours are up to and other general boyish activities like farting proudly, leaving clothes all over the doorstep, being an idiot in front of the camera and getting furious when something doesn’t go to his liking!

This is one of my favorite photos from this trip – apart from the fact he’s wearing the vest I knitted him, he’s just taking a break in a suitcase snacking on a piece of frozen bread!

Starting to come out the other side of my man flu thankfully – have had to lay pretty low in Blenheim this weekend. However this afternoon I got out for a bit of a slow walk

then sat on the sunny steps at Dean & Steph’s for afternoon tea (got Steph to sit still enough for the once-every-5-years photo!)

while Aidan played with the hose

Got summoned with a week’s notice to head up to Rod’s place in Hawke’s Bay with a couple of the guys from our marketing team to meet with Andy, our Advisor to the Board who was visiting from the States. We met him a couple of times while in New York, and being the ex CEO of dell.com he’s rather famous in tech circles and when put together with our CEO and marketing guys, they spoke a whole other language of marketing jargon that I struggled to keep up with at times.

However, I was chuffed to be invited and really enjoyed the experience of a business retreat to the boss’s beach house. Had to drive a giant Ford Falcon, automatic, to get up and back, rather a monster to drive for my first time out behind the wheel in 5 months!

Rod & Andy served up a great meal of beef, roast vegetables & salad.

Andy & I rode on the back of Rod’s quad bike to the shop – via the beach!

We spent the morning drinking coffee (from a machine like ours), eating Rod’s banana choc chip muffins and talking strategy.

In all my raving about great coffees in New York I haven’t actually written specifically about Ninth Street Espresso, the one that tops our list of coffee favourites. We’ve mostly had their coffee in Chelsea Market but started out at the original cafe on 9th Street in November 2008.

The coffee is always good, the milk a great consistency, and it’s known all over New York as a benchmark and often other baristas train there (the guys at Saturdays Surf did … which explains a lot!). It got to the point at Chelsea Market that The Mister always ordered 2 coffees because they were so good! I have a Ninth Street Espresso pin I wear in my jacket and one time when I was ordering coffee the barista was very concerned that I wanted it in a takeaway cup, wouldn’t I prefer the experience of a real cup … I wasn’t sure why his concern that I get the best possible coffee until he pointed to my t-shirt! It was my Supreme shirt that used to be the official Supreme shirt worn by Supreme-qualified baristas in cafes in Wellington – it has a coffee handle on it so he figured I was some kind of expert. He also spotted my Ninth Street Espresso badge (only available at the 9th Street cafe) and was impressed to hear that we often went there to Chelsea Market from Murray Hill just for the coffee!

We have a bit of a history with them, having gone there on most of our visits to New York so I’ve dug out some photos.

Our first visit to the 9th Street cafe (November 2008)

Our first visit to Chelsea Market (November 2008)

Taking friends there for the first time (June 2009)

Some of the many visits to Chelsea Market this year

Ninth Street Espresso: 700 East 9th Street (Between Ave C & D) or 341 East 10th Street (Between Ave A & B) or Chelsea Market 75 9th Avenue, New York

We farewelled New York outside our apartment on 3rd Avenue in a balmy 31 degrees on Friday lunch time

and got back to a freezing New Zealand early Sunday morning – it was 4 degrees in Auckland when we went outside to head across to meet our domestic flight to Wellington.

Many of you will have seen me wearing, or my photos of my range of Tweet4yourtee shirts – a company started in Wellington recently by friends-of-Xero who are building their business using social media alone, mostly Twitter (twitter.com/Tweet4yourtee / www.tweet4yourtee.com). Hence ‘tweet 4 your tee’ – you visit their site to see what your Twitter name would look like on a range of tweet-themed shirts and then order online. I have 3 (one of them super super special and a 1-off because it has orange on it):

Hi, my name is @orangegirlnz

I heart @TeamXero

I tweet @Xero

Recently the company made a promo video and asked Tweet4yourtee wearers to join them in Wellington to take part – of course I couldn’t be there and was so disappointed, but have always sent them photos of me wearing my t-shirts (from both sides of the globe it turns out!) and if I could’ve joined them I would’ve!

However, I got a really nice surprise today when the promo video promo was released as a teaser …

Then the real video was released a few hours later

Famous me! Am getting a spot up the front when they do it in a year – I wonder how many tweeting t-shirts will be around by then?

Have spent the last 4 months commuting downtown on the subway – the sights and sounds and stops have become second nature. Thought I’d immortalise our view of the stops in a photo series.

We get on at 33rd Street

Then stop at 28th Street

23rd Street

14th Street – Union Square

Astor Place

Bleecker Street

Spring Street

And get off at Canal Street

Have really enjoyed getting to know another Community Manager over here – Karen’s from Harvest, a company that Xero knows about as many of each others customers want us to integrate. It turned out that the Harvest office is just around the corner from the office we were in so we’ve had a couple of lady lunches and other meetings. Nice to chat about common quirks of our jobs, things we do the same and things we do differently. I’m not sure that I have an easier job; other Community Managers I’ve met here seem to be the conduit for all customer queries where as I’m really just at our social media doorway. However, have picked up a few good tips and will miss having Karen so close by.

I know I’ve got to stop going on about the heat, and obviously it’s going to be a shock to go from 38 degrees to 7 degrees when we get back to Wellington, but there are strange things to experience when it’s hot that I hadn’t noticed before – things other than the most weird prickling sensation coming from the roots of your hair when every pore in your body is trying to get cool:

• When you first get outside from being in the air-conditioning you feel like you are walking in a warm bath if you have shorts on (yes, talking about me here) – the heat is so enveloping and so hot it feels just like water
• The floor in the apartment is almost hot, like underfloor heating has been left on high and it doesn’t cool down, not even by 4am
• The metal bars on the subway entry carousels are very hot to touch
• Liquid that comes out of pump-pots, hand soap, moisturiser and the like is warm
• Glasses and plates from the closed cupboards are warm
• Potato chips are warm
• Window glass is almost hot
• I now have a new appreciation for labels on bottles and packets that say “store below 30 degrees C” – I always used to think that was some kind of warning to not keep the item in the oven for some dope that might, but I know now that ordinary cupboards in ordinary houses can actually become like ovens in some climates!

Boy I am sick of looking at my greasy face in the mirror, pores wide open gasping for air so from that point of view, winter will be welcomed.