Back home! God, but the US is fun.
The first thing that says "home" is stepping out of the airport and being slammed in the face by this invisible wall of heavy, hot humidity. Oh, August in Israel. It took a while, but you've finally arrived.
I'm not actually bummed to be back - but man, was this trip awesome, both the work part and the vacation. I'm planning on posting pics, but who even knows when I'll manage to go over all of them (just over a thousand, ugh, why), so for now I will just summarize in short, here's what I was up to:
First weekend in the US: Baltimore! Stayed with a good friend from home, had an awesome steak dinner with the sibling of an Israeli Olympic medalist, hung out in the suburbs and watched the first seven episodes of Orange is the New Black. Hopped on a train to DC and met bironic :DDD and a host of other fangirls at a party hosted by
cinco and
alpheratz (thanks for the invite, everyone <3). Note to self I still owe them a ton of hockey recs like I owe the entire universe okay carry on.
Monday: Took the bus to New York, met my dad on the tail end of his own business trip to the States, had an awesome dinner with the wonderful linaerys who is wonderful and amazing for serious. She also accompanied me to the NHL flagship store which was SO EMBARRASSING TO BE A PART OF and like being in Disneyland at the same time. I managed to find a Blackhawks t-shirt that doesn't have their logo on it *score* and paid them all of the money, but oh well.
Tuesday to Friday: Work work work. Was fascinating to work in a US office and working environment for the first time in my life; a lot of fun, but intense, tiring, and mentally challenging. I hope I did a good job. In the evenings my Israeli colleagues and I were a) invited to go drinking with the local office (awesome) b) invited to a sunset cruise around Manhattan with the local office (pretty awesome) and c) went to the Sleep No More theater show which was preeeeetty cool, followed by a rooftop lounge party which I don't even know how we managed to get into and was bizarre and clubby and had a gorgeous view of the city, followed by a 1AM pizza.
Which led to me being utterly exhausted by the time Friday evening rolled in, which might have been but was not entirely the reason I was so unimpressed by the Friday evening performance I saw of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, but man, that was torture for me to sit through and I ended up walking out during the intermission, which I had never done in Broadway before, but there's a first time for everything.
Saturday-Sunday: I met up with sabra_n! Ugh, it was so much fun to see her again. We had breakfast at a diner (meep) and dinner at a Thai place and dinner at a Thai place and then I abandoned her because there was only one rush ticket for Kinky Boots and I have no excuses but she loves Broadway too, she understands /o\ Saw the play, waited for the actors afterwards and possibly lied to Stark Sands by telling him he has a ton of fans in Israel but
marina AND I COUNT AS A TON OKAY, and he seemed pleased. The next day I spent about two and a half hours standing in various lines and failing to get Book of Mormon tickets, and ended up going to a matinee of First Date instead, with Zachary Levi and Krysta Rodriguez, which was an overall very cute romcom which kind of felt like seeing How I Met Your Mother: the Musical. In the evening I walked by Central Park a bit, but as I had to work and was in desperate need for a coffee, salad, wifi, socket, couch, and to finish some stuff up for work, I ended up going to the Aroma coffee place on 72nd and settling down there for a few hours, attempting and mostly failing to work. Ended up working until 5AM from home so... that was dumb.
Monday: Philadelphia! Wandered around the Old City with a friend and saw the sites, had lunch at the ultra-touristy City Tavern and dinner at a ~gourmet Israeli restaurant~, that's right, that is a thing that exists in Philadelphia, it was kind of fun. At the end of the day I had about 40 minutes of free time, completely blundered a potential meeting with
via_ostiense because I suck, but successfully sneaked in about 20 minutes with
merisunshine36 who is a bike-riding superwoman who managed to speed-bike to my bus station in time to hand out before my bus departed. It was super short but SO GREAT.
Tuesday-Thursday: Rainy morning in New York! Spent the morning sheltered in a cafe, eating breakfast and coffee, chatting to Marina on the phone and then to the occupant of the neighboring stool, who turned out to be a hairstylist who'd done hair for Mariah Carey, Blink 182 and "a bunch of other bands like that" (!!!!) (I did not press but I choose to believe she has touched the hair of ALL OF BANDOM personally except possibly Gerard Way who probably dyes his own hair in the sink). Oh, New York. Then - took a bus to Boston, stayed over at my best friend from high school's, went to dinner at a Texas Roadhouse, met her chinchilla, discovered what a chinchilla was, and spent the next day in Salem, Mass, mostly wandering around witch-tourism-themed shops and out in the town in beautiful weather, with a little bit of museuming along the way and the prettiest used book store I've ever been to. In the evening I met up with
thedeadparrot back in Boston (hiii!) and we had dinner and then breakfast and her place still has one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen.
Thursday morning I walked around the park, chatted some more with
marina, strolled by a movie set where RDJ and Denzel Washington were filming and totally didn't see any of them, and did not get a chance to meet
polarisnorth I did get to phone!pimp her into hockey, HOPEFULLY SUCCESSFULLY I don't know we'll see, bwahaha. The bus back to New York kind of broke down a little bit so it took five and a half hours to get there, making me a little bit late to my final work meeting which I'd scheduled for just before my flight back. But I made it, some final work was had, I got to see linaerys for one last time and then back to JFK and home.
Overall, an extremely busy but productive vacation, and I love the US, and I love all of you guys that I met and the ones I didn't get a chance to this time, and it was certainly very welcome downtime from regular life, and I can't wait to go back again. I'm such a sucker for North America. Hopefully this will not be the last time I post about this but actually will go into some more detail (and also: pics!).
*
You know what else happened while I was gone? PATRICK KANE CRIED A LOT. Because Patrick Kane is the gift that keeps on giving. The last thing I saw before my flight to the US took off was this gif of Patrick Kane wiping tears as he talks about what a disappointment he was to his family and team last year; and right before my flight back to Israel, I saw this gif of Kaner crying and hugging Jonny after they won the cup and talking about "their core". Which, like. This is the kind of thing that happens in this fandom, ugh. Stop it.
*
Just one last thing I have to squee about because omfg:
empathapathique posted the next part of the Kaner-has-a-kid fic, which, omfg, guys, I cannot even handle the emotions this fic gives me, it is SO GOOD. This is not my ~official~ rec of it yet, because there is one part more to go and I can't officially rec a WIP, but if you're the type of person who's okay with WIPs and you like hockey (or kidfic) (or good stories) (or humans) (or life itself) READ THIS NOW and then tell me all about it I will be there to hold your hand through all the feelings, which believe me, you will be having a lot of them.
comments on Dreamwidth.
I'm not actually bummed to be back - but man, was this trip awesome, both the work part and the vacation. I'm planning on posting pics, but who even knows when I'll manage to go over all of them (just over a thousand, ugh, why), so for now I will just summarize in short, here's what I was up to:
First weekend in the US: Baltimore! Stayed with a good friend from home, had an awesome steak dinner with the sibling of an Israeli Olympic medalist, hung out in the suburbs and watched the first seven episodes of Orange is the New Black. Hopped on a train to DC and met bironic :DDD and a host of other fangirls at a party hosted by
cinco and
alpheratz (thanks for the invite, everyone <3). Note to self I still owe them a ton of hockey recs like I owe the entire universe okay carry on.
Monday: Took the bus to New York, met my dad on the tail end of his own business trip to the States, had an awesome dinner with the wonderful linaerys who is wonderful and amazing for serious. She also accompanied me to the NHL flagship store which was SO EMBARRASSING TO BE A PART OF and like being in Disneyland at the same time. I managed to find a Blackhawks t-shirt that doesn't have their logo on it *score* and paid them all of the money, but oh well.
Tuesday to Friday: Work work work. Was fascinating to work in a US office and working environment for the first time in my life; a lot of fun, but intense, tiring, and mentally challenging. I hope I did a good job. In the evenings my Israeli colleagues and I were a) invited to go drinking with the local office (awesome) b) invited to a sunset cruise around Manhattan with the local office (pretty awesome) and c) went to the Sleep No More theater show which was preeeeetty cool, followed by a rooftop lounge party which I don't even know how we managed to get into and was bizarre and clubby and had a gorgeous view of the city, followed by a 1AM pizza.
Which led to me being utterly exhausted by the time Friday evening rolled in, which might have been but was not entirely the reason I was so unimpressed by the Friday evening performance I saw of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, but man, that was torture for me to sit through and I ended up walking out during the intermission, which I had never done in Broadway before, but there's a first time for everything.
Saturday-Sunday: I met up with sabra_n! Ugh, it was so much fun to see her again. We had breakfast at a diner (meep) and dinner at a Thai place and dinner at a Thai place and then I abandoned her because there was only one rush ticket for Kinky Boots and I have no excuses but she loves Broadway too, she understands /o\ Saw the play, waited for the actors afterwards and possibly lied to Stark Sands by telling him he has a ton of fans in Israel but
marina AND I COUNT AS A TON OKAY, and he seemed pleased. The next day I spent about two and a half hours standing in various lines and failing to get Book of Mormon tickets, and ended up going to a matinee of First Date instead, with Zachary Levi and Krysta Rodriguez, which was an overall very cute romcom which kind of felt like seeing How I Met Your Mother: the Musical. In the evening I walked by Central Park a bit, but as I had to work and was in desperate need for a coffee, salad, wifi, socket, couch, and to finish some stuff up for work, I ended up going to the Aroma coffee place on 72nd and settling down there for a few hours, attempting and mostly failing to work. Ended up working until 5AM from home so... that was dumb.
Monday: Philadelphia! Wandered around the Old City with a friend and saw the sites, had lunch at the ultra-touristy City Tavern and dinner at a ~gourmet Israeli restaurant~, that's right, that is a thing that exists in Philadelphia, it was kind of fun. At the end of the day I had about 40 minutes of free time, completely blundered a potential meeting with
via_ostiense because I suck, but successfully sneaked in about 20 minutes with
merisunshine36 who is a bike-riding superwoman who managed to speed-bike to my bus station in time to hand out before my bus departed. It was super short but SO GREAT.
Tuesday-Thursday: Rainy morning in New York! Spent the morning sheltered in a cafe, eating breakfast and coffee, chatting to Marina on the phone and then to the occupant of the neighboring stool, who turned out to be a hairstylist who'd done hair for Mariah Carey, Blink 182 and "a bunch of other bands like that" (!!!!) (I did not press but I choose to believe she has touched the hair of ALL OF BANDOM personally except possibly Gerard Way who probably dyes his own hair in the sink). Oh, New York. Then - took a bus to Boston, stayed over at my best friend from high school's, went to dinner at a Texas Roadhouse, met her chinchilla, discovered what a chinchilla was, and spent the next day in Salem, Mass, mostly wandering around witch-tourism-themed shops and out in the town in beautiful weather, with a little bit of museuming along the way and the prettiest used book store I've ever been to. In the evening I met up with
thedeadparrot back in Boston (hiii!) and we had dinner and then breakfast and her place still has one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen.
Thursday morning I walked around the park, chatted some more with
marina, strolled by a movie set where RDJ and Denzel Washington were filming and totally didn't see any of them, and did not get a chance to meet
polarisnorth I did get to phone!pimp her into hockey, HOPEFULLY SUCCESSFULLY I don't know we'll see, bwahaha. The bus back to New York kind of broke down a little bit so it took five and a half hours to get there, making me a little bit late to my final work meeting which I'd scheduled for just before my flight back. But I made it, some final work was had, I got to see linaerys for one last time and then back to JFK and home.
Overall, an extremely busy but productive vacation, and I love the US, and I love all of you guys that I met and the ones I didn't get a chance to this time, and it was certainly very welcome downtime from regular life, and I can't wait to go back again. I'm such a sucker for North America. Hopefully this will not be the last time I post about this but actually will go into some more detail (and also: pics!).
*
You know what else happened while I was gone? PATRICK KANE CRIED A LOT. Because Patrick Kane is the gift that keeps on giving. The last thing I saw before my flight to the US took off was this gif of Patrick Kane wiping tears as he talks about what a disappointment he was to his family and team last year; and right before my flight back to Israel, I saw this gif of Kaner crying and hugging Jonny after they won the cup and talking about "their core". Which, like. This is the kind of thing that happens in this fandom, ugh. Stop it.
*
Just one last thing I have to squee about because omfg:
empathapathique posted the next part of the Kaner-has-a-kid fic, which, omfg, guys, I cannot even handle the emotions this fic gives me, it is SO GOOD. This is not my ~official~ rec of it yet, because there is one part more to go and I can't officially rec a WIP, but if you're the type of person who's okay with WIPs and you like hockey (or kidfic) (or good stories) (or humans) (or life itself) READ THIS NOW and then tell me all about it I will be there to hold your hand through all the feelings, which believe me, you will be having a lot of them.
comments on Dreamwidth.