On the Other Side of the Pond: NY Diaries: October 5

Hey guys!

Last night I decided to walk to Wall street from the place where I am staying and it is actually just 15 minutes away. While looking for the right turn to get there I stumbled on the famous bull and a flock of tourists taking turns to take photos. Mostly everyone preferred to hold him by a horn, but there were others, more creative that almost tried to climb on the poor animal. One landmark less to see already :-) Sorry the pics are not that good, it was rather dark...

From NY Diaries

This morning I headed to a building located on Greenwich street to have my HR paperwork sorted out and open a bank account. It took about 3 hours to get everything done:

- sign a bunch of forms

- get finger-printed

- get my new badge (on which I look very evil for some reason...)

- get drug tested (I did not know, but this is a urine test, so it is best to come prepared.... if you see what I mean)

- open an account with a guy who did not understand that my passport was Greek and not Belgian and then asked me "How do you spell Brussels?"

I arrived to the office close to lunch time and met my boss and my new "colleaguers" :-))) everyone seemed very nice, some really shy... some already wanted to recruit me as a cheerleader for their favorite soccer club... tough choice.... :-)

I was shown to my new desk or as they call it my "cube" and both me and my supervisor realized that probably no one sat there for at least 6 months. All of a suddenly I had a picture of a Snow White in my mind and how she was cleaning the house of the seven dwarfs while twirling graciously with a broom to pickup up all the cob-webs. I already see myself picking up some cleaning towels and giving a good go at everything that I will call my cube now.

After a couple more minutes it also became apparent that both the monitor and the mouse are dead and no attempts to re-connect/restart seemed to be bringing them back to the land of living. At this point my manager declared that he will take them to the "dead monitors place".... guess a lot of them did not survive the crisis :-)) I would like to see that place - I wonder if they show it to the newcomers?...

Security here is much more austere than in our offices in Europe. I could not access any outside websites... the browser was pretending that it could not find them... at least there were no scary red messages of the sort "WE KNOW WHICH WEBSITES YOU VISIT! AND WE RECORD EVERYTHING!" I guess it is done more undercover here... :-)

Later on, while sitting in my cube and trying to make some phone calls, I realized that I could hear my neighbor in the next cube, with whom we share a cube wall. I don't know his name yet, and I don't know how he looks like, but I know how his mouse scrolls and clicks and how he sighs once in a while.... I think I will have to walk over there soon to take a look.

There are so many places to go have a bite at lunch, you are really spoiled with choice. If you saw the movie called "The Hurt Locker", there is a scene where the protagonist comes back to the US from the war in Iraq and blanks out at the cereal isle where there are so many boxes that he just can't pick one and in the end he just grabs whatever is in front of him, that is kinda how I had lunch today. I stepped out of the building and saw a trolley with pretzels (yes, they have these here too!!) and just grabbed myself one and quickly regretted it when my colleagues showed up with takeaway soups from a japanese place... next time!!

Anyways, today I am done early, which will probably be the first and the last time, considering that their motto is "we work till the work gets done" (read: don't expect to get out of here early). So I will be going to see some apartments this afternoon, wish me luck! I already got myself a basic SIM card for my iPhone and I already feel handicapped as I will not yet be able to use maps and email (can you imagine???!!!) :((( Have to get a social security number first

Oh, and lastly: remember my yesterday's fretting about what to wear?? Forget it, I had a major fashion disappointment so far seeing girls in work suits and flip flops, as well as various degrees of semi-casual / semi-ironed / semi-washed attire and being called "sexy mommmaaa" by another woman in the street....

Here are some more pics of Wall Street for you: