First Job Interview!!!

So Amy had her first job interview today! It was with a children's puppet theatre called The Shadow Box Theatre (shadowbox.org, I think). It went really, really well. Turns out the woman interviewing me also founded the company forty years ago, she's pretty cool. They work a lot like Whitman, very hands on and collaborative, with everybody doing a little bit of everything, from front of house to tech stuff to performing! I might have to go back and have a performance audition, which makes me nervous as performing is one of my weaker skills nowadays cuz I'm so out of practice. But if I may say so myself, they seemed pretty darn enthusiastic about me, so perhaps I won't have to do that. 

To be honest, the woman who technically interviewed me, the founder, was a little hippy-dippy for my taste (and this is me we're talking about, so you can guess just how hippy-dippy that is!!) but I felt really connected to all of the other production people I met, like the Assistant Director and the Technical Director and the head stage manager (who was an intern two years ago, most of their permanent hires start as interns!!). It felt like they were really on my team and kind of pushing me as their choice, but the hippy-dippy lady was being cautious. Which makes perfect sense, really. They said they'll let me know next week, but I'm feeling good about my chances!

The only bummer is that they're a super-non-profit theatre, so all their interns make NY minimum wage (5 bucks an hour, yuck) for about 20-25 hours a week. There will definitely need to be a second job involved, but because their work is all during school hours (a lot of their main business is school tours) the second job will have to work around that. Oh being a grown up... so exciting and yet so complicated!

Love to all

ps--

I nearly forgot!! This morning they SHUT DOWN THE SUBWAY!!! There was no A-train, and I was standing there waiting for 45 minutes before they bothered to tell us. I would have definitely been late if I'd tried to make it on the bus or walked to another subway, so I had to take a cab to my interview. I use the term "cab" lightly... the weather was horrible today, and the two guys in the car who picked me up were definitely just taking advantage of the increased number of people who needed cabs. I rode next to a car seat, and I WAY overpaid, but I was so worried about missing my first interview I couldn't think of anything else to do! Chalk it up to experience, I suppose. 

First broadway show!!!!

So yesterday Sam and I decided to go explore downtown for the first time because the Equity Fights Aids Broadway Flea Market was happening, which is basically a day where they shut down a huge chunk of 8th Ave and Shubert Alley and have a flea market/theatre celebrity auction to raise money for Aids  research. It was the biggest street fair I've ever been to, and it was all theatre related!!! I wish I'd had my camera, there were these guys in leiderhosen chatting with drag queens... classic. But on a whim we went to find the TKTS booth, which is this tiny little stand that sells half price tickets to broadway shows on the day they're performing, and a guy handed us a discount flyer for the musical [Title of Show] .... yes, that's actually its name, I'm not trying to be clever. So we went! 

Lemme tell you, we could not have picked a better show for our first outing. It's autobiographical, and the four stars of the show also wrote it, did all the music, and are basically just playing themselves. About two years ago they decided to write a musical about themselves writing a musical, and it's just been growing ever since till they finally made it to broadway. So for us it was two theatre nobodies who just moved here watching a show that starred theatre nobodies playing themselves who made it to broadway just by being themselves. Confusing, yes, but also very inspirational! 

Other small tidbits from life here so far:

- The New York Public Library, Inwood branch, has really really bad internet. 

- Chinese food is cheap, delicious, and they always deliver! Plus it's mostly meat and veggies, so not too horribly bad for you (shhhh dad, I don't wanna hear it.)

- Times square is ridiculous and intimidating, but broadway theatres are small and lovely! 

- People who complain about the price of groceries in New York clearly don't live near hispanic food markets. 3 loaves of fresh baked bread for  a buck and a half?!

- Dollar stores here are more like really cheap outlet stores. We have bought, to date, all of the following at the dollar store: pots and pans, dishes, an 11 piece king size comforter set, window blinds, real glass glasses, four book shelves, and all of our cleaning supplies. After we get our first paychecks (someday, oh someday...) I plan to buy rugs, lamps and mirrors there as well. 

Today we're going to explore the park more and then see our first movie with my friend Matt, who is a film student at NYU. Ironically, we'll be seeing Battle in Seattle, a documentary about the WTO riots. It's not cheery, but we couldn't resist the seattle connection. 

Love to all!

Arrival

So, here are the last couple of days...

We arrived at JFK at about 6:32 local time, about half an hour early.  We got a taxi and proceeded to 75 Thayer St.  On the way the cab driver pulled over to a Dunkin' Donuts for like ten min.  Two min after he had left it became obvious that he had double parked.  After four min. of sitting the lady we were trapping wanted to leave and honked angrily for the next six min while we sat there awkwardly.  We eventually found our new home and got all our stuff in to the vestibule.  We were supposed to meet the building manager at about 8:00.  We met the super at about 8:20 and he had not been told that we would be moving in on that day.  He turned out to be a really cool guy.  His name is Zef.  He is an older Jewish man and is incredibly nice and helpful.  He let us know that the building management lady would be arriving at 10:00.  So we got to put our stuff in the apartment, then we went and got breakfast and explored the neighborhood.  Eventually the building manager showed up and  had the walk through, which took about 35 seconds because we had already seen the apartment via photo tour.  We were then told that we would have to go all the way to Great Neck Long Island to sign the lease.  I'm too tired to finish this story right now.  The rest of this story will have to wait for another day, when I am able to steal someone else's internet access.  Or until we get our own internet access.  TTFN.  Ta ta for now.

We're here!!

PS-- Ok, I don't know how to rearrange the order of things once I've added/written things, so this post is backwards. I'll try not to let it happen again, but I make no promises! So scroll down to read it in order, or proceed normally at your own peril!

So that's our situation, there will be many more updates where that came from, love to all!

This is the park at the end of our block, which also has several stages! It's like they knew we were coming...

Our front door makes it look like we live in a hotel. Go us!

The lobby/exit of our building. It's a prewar building, like everything else in the neighborhood, so the whole place looks classy, woot!

Our bathroom, please note the weird placement of the showerhead and the four faucet system, two for the shower two for the bath. It's interesting.

The kitchen! There is NO COUNTER. ANYWHERE. There is a fridge on the opposite wall, but still...

We have this fire escape outside one of our windows, and it goes to the roof, yay! We can have roof parties!

This is the main room! It has two closets, two windows, and this bed is very, very temporary, thank goodness!

We've finally arrived! It has been an epic, epic saga. Sam's going to post the story of our first couple days in just a minute here because I, to be honest, have already moved on to much I LOVE our apartment and our neighborhood!!!!! so beautiful! I'm going to attempt to put a whole buncha bunch of pictures, but I'm having a great time. I have already reunited with my best friends, and it's like we never left each other. At the moment we're hanging out with our friend Berta and blatantly using her for her internet (thanks bert!) but once we have our own it will be job application central. Ok, now for pictures, I hope...

So close!

Just a few days left! We're still struggling getting all the new paperwork requirements into the new landlord (we're at 35 faxed pages and counting!). It's frustrating, but we'll survive.

Ok, that's all for now, just didn't want to forget to post all the happenings!

love to all

First Post!

Hello friends and family, just doing a first post to see how this thing works. Not much adventure to report since we don't leave for two weeks, obviously...

oh! We do have an address (pending final confirmation). We've sent in the paperwork and everything (by the way, 22 page faxes are very expensive). We've bought a bed. I had my infamous shopping spree. I'm not sure there are any more ways for me to spend all my money before I leave, but I'll probably find a few.

Click on/paste this link:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=75+thayer+street+new+york&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=title


to see our new building and neighborhood! A google map will show up, and you can click the little box that says street view at the top of the map to get a rotating picture of my corner! (if the link doesn't work, go to google maps and search for 75 Thayer street, New York).

Love to all!