Sunday, October 29: Jane restaurant brunch

I'm starting to understand why it's so easy to become 'over-weighted' in the US. Last week I went to a pizza place, ordered a 20$ pizza and actually got about 1.5 square feet of pizza on my plate (that is a square of 40*30cm). When the waiter got to my table, he nicely noted that I actually ordered a 2-person pizza, thereby reducing his tip to zero...

Now today we had a brunch at Jane restaurant in the village; very crowded place but Bain folks had rented a separate room; I ordered a beef-sandwich with fries (weird concept of brunch they have here) and I think they almost processed an entire cow in my meal... On top of that came some banana-cake dessert of which everybody took about 2 bites just to be polite... Anyway, this just to say that it's quite a challenge to eat healthy here....

Friday, October 27: BXL

So, after 2 weeks I finally managed to visit the most famous Belgian bar in NY, the "BXL", which is located near Times Square, about 200m from the Bain office. I went there with Wouter & Yannick, and because I tend to be behave more 'Belgian' when I'm abroad than when I'm home, I drank a couple of beers that I would never even try in Belgium: Kwak & some Triple beer of which I don't remember the name anymore.

Besides the 5 television screens (which continuously broadcast sports -> without these screens you wouldn't be able to attract a single American to your bar), BXL has the look & feel of a brown Belgian café. The bartender Kevin and his girlfriend apparently came here to look for a job as an actor but then decided to open the bar. I'm definitely going to come back here :-)

Thursday October 26: Wharton Business School, Philadelphia

Amtrak is probably by far the most expensive railway company in the world. For my trip New York-Philadelphia (~1 hour) I paid 218$ , and that was just for the regular 'business class' (since on this route they don't have an 'economy class', 'business class' is actually their economy class).

Anyway, I had to go to Philadelphia for a Bain recruiting presentation at Wharton business school. After these presentations, there is a cocktail/walking dinner where we can talk with the students and where they can ask questions on specific offices. Together with Jens (from the Brussels office who is currently at Harvard) 4 other guys from London, I represented the European office.















Given that I only arrived at 5pm and that I had to leave the next morning at 6.30am, I haven't seen an awful lot of Philadelphia, but I managed to go for a 30' walk in the neighbourhood of the hotel, which was at Logan Square (see picture, the Swan fountain in the middle).

Sunday October 22: South street seaport & Brooklyn Bridge

Although Brooklyn Bridge hasn't been the longest NY bridge for a long time, it's still the most impressive one. I took the walk today from the Manhattan side (which is located at city hall) to Brooklyn and I must honestly say that I underestimated the lenght of the bridge somewhat (didn't walk back but I mistakenly got on the wrong subway again... I blame it on the unclear subway signs...)


This old man (76 years old) seemed to know the lenght of the bridge and he's using the bridge as preparation for the NY marathon in 2 weeks (which I plan to go to when Bart is here):






Before I got onto the bridge, I visited the South Street Seaport (with Pier 17) , a couple of ancient warehouses that have been transformed into a nice shopping area. Unfortunately a lot of shops were closed because it was Sunday. I did however had a terrific lunch in a Cuban tapas bar called 'Salud!' and even the bill was affordable for one time...

October 21: Staten Island Ferry & Roosevelt Island

The last 2 days have been quite intense; besides the regular working hours, we had ‘manager beers’ on Thursday evening at a place called Keria (strange thing however is that manager beers are actually not meant for managers but for the consultants; only 2 managers were there…) and yesterday night, I met with Wouter & his girlfriend Yannick in a roof bar on Fifth Avenue. Wouter is working with Fortis and has been here since August so he knows where to go…

My plan for today was to be a real tourist and to go and visit the Statue of Liberty. Wouter & Yannick however recommended not to take the paying ferry that drops you at the statue [you can’t enter the statue anymore anyway] but to take the free Staten Island ferry that passes the statue & Ellis Island (which is the small island where all the immigrants were dropped in the previoyus centuries before they could enter the city). Besides; I already saw the statue before I even entered the ferry (see below)


On Staten Island, the city of New York has erected an monument that honors the death of 9/11. The monument itself is not overwhelming, but the view on Manhattan is great.



Afterwards I took the metro to see the only gondola in New York. The gondola connects Manhattan with Roosevelt Island, which is a small island in the East River next to Manhattan that contains basically only residential buildings.



When I got back I accidentally visited Brooklyn also, something which I only found out when the subway that was supposed to go downtown came above the ground and onto Manhattan bridge...

Wednesday October 18: Getting into my appartment

Third working day: I'm starting to see some differences between the US way of working and the European one. Take for example meetings; when people here talk about meetings, in 90% of the cases they actually mean conference calls & when they talk to people on the phone, they keep using the other person's first name (e.g. Yes Pieter, I understand, but Pieter, you should know that... -> this is a very effective technique to create a feeling of involvement).

The New York office is very effective in involving transfers into the office live: from day one I have been enrolled in all possible mailinglists & since Monday I have received offers to go to opera, to go and watch a Mets game at someone's place, to try-out a new recruiting case with a consultant, to take over someones Pre-ACT training session for 20$,... Next week there will be a Halloween contest (every bay has 150$ of budget to decorate the bay 'Halloween style') and my bay (Intrepid) has won the previous 2 years so we have a reputation to defend...

Now off to the actual subject of this mail; since today I'm officially settled in my appartment. Turns out that the building is actually right next to ground zero, but I will go with Titi's advice (Titi is the girl from Goldman Sachs who's subletting this appartment to me); "Lightning never strikes twice".



The appartment is located in a full-service building, which is something that doesn't really exist in Belgium. My definition of full-service would be that you are paying way too much for your appartment and in return you have access to all kinds of services, for which you obviously have to pay way too much (the chique word for these services is 'valet').

Now seriously, I'm very happy to have found this appartment. At a certain moment last week, it really seemed like I would have to stay for 6 months in something which was the crossing between a YMCA (youth hostel) & an IKEA-furnished motel room. Anyway, all of this thanks to Craigslist!

Below some pictures of the appartment (click to enlarge):

Monday October 16: First day in the NY office

Well, to be honest, I haven't done a lot today, the day started with a tour of the office. The Bain NY office is changing so fast that they have put red Bain flags on the desks of people that joined recently. Everywhere you walk in the office you see these flags. No wonder they ask all 'new' people to spontaneously introduce themselves to other people...

I lunched with a couple of colleagues at an Asian place of which I have forgotten the name. Food was great though. Slightly annoying was the waiter who apparently believed he was a Broadway actor & therefore accompanied every message with a 5 minute monologue [I've been told a lot of aspirant actors take on 'temporary' jobs as waiters]

I also discovered a Belgian bar, called BXL, 200m away from Times Square. I'll check that out later.

Just returned back to the hotel & I have got a ticket for a FREE Scientonometric(tm) testing. I wonder why these Scientology people are so friendly to give away free IQ & personality tests in this city where you have to pay for everything :-)

Sunday October 15: MoMA

As of today I am officially a MoMA (Museum of Modern Arts) member, which means that will be able to enter for free and that I will be invitated to pre-view certain exhibitions. Visiting MoMA was nr1 priority on my to-do list.

MoMA's main section covers paintings & sculpture from late-impressionism to contemporary art. The museum was completely renovated in 2004.































MoMA has one of the most comprehensive Modern Art collections in the world. Picking the work that I was mostly looking forward to : Jasper Johns's "target with four faces" (1955), a painting with newspaper on canvas, to which Johns added 4 plaster faces. A stunning painting which to me [not being an expert] already shows the first signs of pop-art (which would only start a few years later). Anyway, since most of you are probably not interested in the details, here's the picture:



Oh, and just for Olivier (Campo) : I saw Donald Judd's minimal art and the craftmanship is indeed almost perfect (although I read somewhere that he didn't actually made his works, he only designed and drew them?)

Saturday October 14: Arrival in NYC

Hello all,

I've finally arrived, be it 2 weeks later than anticipated, but I'm here to stay [for the next 6 months]!!!

After what looked like a tremendously long flight [by the way, never fly SN/American Airlines economy class -> the meal is horrible, the movies are crap & the seats very uncomfortable] I finally landed at JFK on Saturday afternoon. Getting through immigration proved to be quite though. It took me approximately 2.5h to be 'accepted' on US territory, which is far worse than what I experienced in Moscow last year.

But enough bad news: sunny weather and temperature around 9°C (~ 48° Fahrenheit) welcomed me once I got outside the airport building. The taxi ride from JFK to Manhattan takes about 45 minutes. Most taxi drivers seem to be extremely talkative and this one proved not to be different; Amongst many other interesting facts, I've learnt that he is a Romanian engineer who came to the states after Ceaucescu's fall and who drives his cab as a second job to finance the refurbishment of his home...

Below a picture of my first view on Manhattan from the taxi (with on the left the Empire State Building)



Tipping people seems to be the national sport: Let's see who I had to tip to get my stuff to my room:
* The cab driver when getting out of the taxi
* The guy who took the luggage from the taxi to the reception
* The guy who stored the luggage (my room was not ready yet; to be honest, I didn't tip this guy)
* The guy who took my luggage from the storage room to my room
New York hotels (in my case the W hotel on Times Square) are bastards in stealing your money but fair is fair: the hotel is top class & when I entered my room I discovered this great view on Times Square:





Anyway, I'll be in this hotel until Wednesday when I can finally move into my appartment in Battery Park.