Jac’s Journey

(If you’re interested, follow the links – shown in bold type - throughout this blog entry) 

Sometimes my job does my head in…other times it’s all worth it!

In an amazing stroke of luck, I was asked to join the sales team I work with on their incentive trip to NEW YORK!  All paid for by a third party supplier, I bit my boss’s hand off; right up to the elbow, lol.  Talk about over the moon – I was ecstatic!

We had an amazing time.  Imagine 49 people, who sell beer for a living, heading to New York for 4 days!  Sheer mayhem.

We flew Continental from Glasgow to Newark and onto the fabby hotel.  Lunch was followed by a bus tour with two native New Yorkers being hilarious and sarcastic yet informative – the perfect tour guides! 

We went through Hell’s Kitchen to Central Park, Strawberry Fields, the Dakota Building, past the Intrepid to the American Express Building/Winter Gardens, looking over to the Statue of Liberty and then to Ground Zero.  Seeing the site where the World Trade Centre used to be was chilling.  All excavated, just a hole in the ground.  Apparently the work has slowed as they have started to find people’s remains again.  Just awful.

From there onto the Rockefeller centre for dinner in the Rock Centre cafe.  By this time, I had been up for nearly 24 hours and the only thing to do was drink my way through the ‘wall’.  So I had my first Cosmopolitan in Manhattan – very Sex and the City!  At this point I learned about the NY ‘free pour’ approach to spirits.  No such thing as 25ml here!  Strong stuff!

While we were eating dinner, gazing over the ice rink, a commotion began.  Turns out Christina Aguilera was performing a song for some TV programme when they light the Rockefeller Centre Christmas Tree.  For some reason she was recording it a few weeks early.  So the celeb spotting had begun!

From there to an Irish bar nearby, followed by a stroll back to the hotel through Times Square.  That place is mad – slightly tipsy, I went shopping for make-up at midnight!  Luckily was sober enough to only spend 30 dollars!

Planning to turn in when I got back to the hotel, the Cosmopolitan kicked in and 2 hours later I was still in the hotel bar chatting with the folk I’d walked back with.  Massive entertainment was watching the high-class hooker try to land an older guy sitting on his own by the bar.  She was really stunning.  He bought her a drink, but then ignored her.  She moved on and then tried to land one of our sales guys.  Apparently her price was $1000! :-0

Next day, we had the ‘business bit’.  An hour’s presentation on the third-party brand that had paid for it all, followed by splitting into groups for a ‘day-in-trade’.  Our task was to vist as many pubs as we could within 3 hours and come back with one idea that could help us sell beer in Scotland.  Well, you can’t go into all those bars, steal their ideas and not buy anything…so by 2pm we were pretty pi$$ed!  On the home straight back to the hotel, someone noticed a ‘lady bar’.  Well – they are our customers too was the excuse given - and in we went – both males and females.  My first ever strip joint!  Fascinating.  Particularly how in control the girls were – male customers were kept to very strict rules.  It did beg the question exactly who was being exploited…

You can tell how pi$$ed we were by the idea that won the prize…  Another group had headed in the direction of Grand Central, but got caught at Fifth Avenue as the Veteran’s day parade made it’s way north.  One of the parade floats had a dog driving a Hummer!  So that was their idea – teach your dog to drive so that you can always get to the pub for a pint!  And a deserving idea too!!!

An hour spare for some shopping around Times Square was followed by a visit to the Heartland Brewery in Manhattan, and then out to New Jersey for an Ice Hockey game.

The New Jersey Devils were playing the Florida Panthers, and gubbed them!  “Let’s Go Devils!”  I really enjoyed it, but just didn’t get all the stopping and starting!  A game of three 20 minute segments took about 2.5 hours!!  I can’t imagine all that stopping and starting at Celtic Park – there’d be a riot!!  Live sport should never stop for adverts or quizzes with 5 year olds in the crowd!

After the ice hockey, we went to a really cool bar called Pop Burger in the Meatpacking District.  They did these delicious little mini-burgers and all the booze was free – as well as free pour!  The music was really excellent and the crowd very hip.  We all topped up on the alcohol from the earlier ‘day-in-trade’.  The group began to disperse as jet-lag kicked in for some and the music was too cool for others…lol.  I was there with the last of them, and delightedly realised we still had a bus outside waiting for us!

The bus dropped us back at the hotel around 1am, and I thought I would be sensible and turn in.  I wanted to go to a Baptist Church in Harlem the next morning and hear the gospel choir.  I popped into a 24 hour store to get some water and orange juice and on the way out bumped into Barry, who refused to let me go home and dragged me (and my shopping) into Smith’s where the rest of the gang were and a fantastic live band were playing.  It was excellent.  So, that was me (and my shopping) until after 3am!

You can probably guess – there was no gospel singing at 10am the next morning!!!

Instead, I wandered down to Grand Central Station, had a smoothie on Madison Avenue, shopped in the weekend market, had breakfast in Grand Central Station and bought a slice of the most delicious New York Cheescake from Juniors.  Wandered up Park Avenue, along to St Patrick’s Cathedral and then some serious shopping in Banana Republic, Abercrombie and Fitch, Tiffany’s, Sak’s and Bloomingdales.  By now the hangover was getting bad, so I jumped on the subway to go downtown to get the Staten Island Ferry.

A combination of a hangover, unhelpful subway staff and an out-of-date subway map meant that I ended up in Brooklyn!  I can travel the world but can’t even get a bloody subway!  What an idiot!  At least I got a great view of the Brooklyn Bridge!  Got the train back to Canal Street and by the time I got out of the station, it was absolutely tipping it down!  I bought a brolly from one of those people who magically appear when it starts raining in New York!  A brief stroll in it made me realise that even though I’m from the West of Scotland, we just don’t get rain like this.  This was rain that really meant it!  As my jeans absorbed water up to the knees, I stopped walking and decided that an hour’s kip and a bath would be really sensible and help me get through another evening with these crazy mad sales guys.  So that’s what I did!  It was bliss!

Dinner was at Gallagher’s Steak House where I had the biggest steak I have ever seen in my life.  Accompanied by wedges that were more like quarters of baked potato! It had huge pieces of meat hanging in the window – uncooked – like the backshop of a butchers!  Very bizarre.  And then, as usual, onto more bars!

Breakfast on Sunday was followed by the Empire State Building.  Even though foggy, it was an amazing experience. 

The rest of the day was pretty much spent in Macy’s – the biggest store in the world!  I loved Macy’s.  In there, I bought most of the stuff I brought home with me – some small pressies, some Christmas pressies – and some pressies for me!!  An iPod was the highlight.  Along with the iPod FM radio transmittor that you’re not allowed to buy in the UK!  Yeah!!!  Nothin’ to declare…honest!

For lunch I met up with a few of the guys and we found a typical New York Kosher deli – complete with stroppy Jewish waitress.  Just lovely!

Back to the hotel, crammed all that shopping into my case and got ready for the trip home.

An amazing experience.  So much to see and do.  I need to go back again to fit in all the things I would have liked to do and didn’t; Staten Island Ferry, close up on the Statue of Liberty, Gospel church, the Met, the MoMA, the Guggenheim, the public library (the one with all the green tiffany lamps in films!), Empire State Building on a clear day, the UN Buildings, Tribeca and Greenwich Village, Battery Park, Soho…ah, so much to see!

Travelling back to Newark, we had one final glimpse of Manhattan from the ramp coming out of the Lincoln tunnel.  Without a doubt the best view of Manhattan.  A great way to say farewell to New York…for now!