I'm Just Here for the Food

Here's a little bit on each of the places I've eaten thus far:

Wednesday at my first day of work the office went out to lunch and they treated. We went to Harry's Burrito a Cal/Mex restaurant on about 71st and Columbus Avenue. It was good, it reminded me of Julio's, the Tex-Mex restaurant I waited at last summer in Omaha. It was a fun little place, I wouldn't say it's a must go to in New York City, but it was good and seeing as it is only a couple blocks from work I could see me going there again for lunch. I would recommend getting the enchilada, instead of the burrito, despite it being Harry's Burrito.

Thursday Ahmad took me out to lunch at one of his favorite local Chinese restaurants, Ollie's on about 68th and Broadway. I'm a tough critic when it comes to egg drop soup and they passed the test with flying colors. It was extremely good. When I went to PF Chang's, for the Divine Comedy banquet, I got a beef entree, but tried a friend's sweet and sour pork and it was delicious. With that in mind, I ordered the sweet and sour pork. It was still good, but PF Chang's actually has Ollie's beat on that front. Ahmad offered me some of his Beef and Broccoli, which I almost ordered, and it was extremely good. That is what I will be ordering next time, for sure.

Thursday after returning from work, a fellow BYU Intern and I went to go eat dinner. We decided to go to Cafe Lalo on 83rd and Amsterdam Avenue. It's the cafe featured in "You've Got Mail" with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. I really loved the place. It's so charming and cozy. I ordered an Italian soda with a shot of almond (per the server's suggestion), lentil soup and a slice of midnight chocolate cake. Mhhhmm, so good. I was pleased with the Italian soda and the lentil soup had a lot of flavor and the cake was good, though after having a slice of my friend's desert, I deduced hers was better. It was a cake with various fruits, with almonds lining the side. Very pretty, very good.



Yesterday, Friday the BYU group met at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which I'll talk about in another post. Afterwards, Kaitlyn and I went to the World Famous Carnegie Deli on 55th and Seventh Avenue. My friends it is world famous for a reason. Everything is fantastic and it's done in a unique way. First you are graced with a plate of pickles. I'm not a huge fan of pickles but was told I must have them. I really liked the really green ones, which weren't in pickle juice very long. They were like sweet cucumbers. I'm a fan. Not long after diving into the pickles, we received our sandwiches. They are HUGE! And very tasty. I got the #9 which features roast beef, lettuce, tomato and onions. I almost ate half of the sandwich. But you can't go to Carnegie Deli and not get a slice of cheesecake. IT IS DIVINE! PURE UNADULTERATED BLISS! I got the fresh strawberry cheesecake. Oh my goodness. So good. A must go to for anyone visiting New York.

Work, work, work

Wednesday was my first day of work at my job, in case I haven't mentioned it enough I'm at the Public and International office for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On my first day I got the traditional tour of place. The cool thing is my office is in the Manhattan temple building but it is an non-temple portion of the building, which is the southern part of the building, Public Affairs is on the 2nd floor. There is a "meetinghouse" on the 3rd which is currently under construction and a distribution center somewhere, that wasn't a part of the tour.

The big project I will be working on for almost the entirety of my stay in New York City is on what my boss Ahmad Corbitt said is "the biggest event of the year" LDS Public Affairs is hosting. The BYU Philharmonic Orchestra is going to be playing in Carnegie Hall on June 4. We have two tasks: getting dignitaries from the UN and Consulate Generals to fill the box seats and to fill the remaining 2,600 seats.

Things have been good at work, we've had some major computer difficulties but as I was leaving on Friday it looked like everything was figured out. We'll see if that is really true on Monday.

Also related to computers, I finally got to the bottom of my power cord issue for my laptop, and it should be here in the next few days. It only took them about a month. (Shakes fist in general direction of Office Depot warranty people.)

LDS Newsroom

I've known about the LDS newsroom on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Web site for a while, but with my internship at LDS Public Affairs I am to keep up on things and read it everyday. Here's a quick little bit from the article "Mormon Youth Put Careers and Education on Hold to Serve as Missionaries," I thought was cool.

"Three years ago, Guillermo Franco interrupted his professional soccer career in Argentina so he could be a missionary for the Church. Now that he has returned, he is once again making his mark on the soccer field.

Franco told Argentine newspaper Diario Uno that he has been blessed in his life and that he was truly happy. “I am coming back in football and in 2007 I married my wife Lorena!'”

I too know that I will be making sacrifices financially and perhaps in my career as well to serve. But I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the one true church on this earth and I look forward to sharing it with others.

I will blog more about New York tonight, hopefully, last night the Internet was down at the I house.

You Learn Something New Everyday

Do not iron a completely black pinstriped item of clothing in a hot room, when tired.

One word: Vertigo

New York City...I've Arrived

As I write this I've been on New York City concrete for 24 hours.

I had a lot of travel blunders yesterday, the first being missing my flight in Omaha. Yes, I'm from Omaha. Yes, it's an extremely small airport. Upon arrival to Eppley Airport my flight was delayed about 30 minutes. My mom and I decided to go get a quick bite to eat. After eating, I checked the boards to see that the delay was reduced and I needed to get to my gate ASAP. When I got to my gate, they had just shut the door and wouldn't let me on. It was extremely frustrating to see my plane right outside the window and they wouldn't let me on.

Two hours later I was flying to Minneapolis instead of Detroit. After four hours in Minneapolis (not a shabby airport), we took off for La Guardia. New York City was having a bad rainstorm and we had to hover for about 30-40 minutes before landing. Once we landed we were boxed in by two planes and couldn't "park" at our gate for 10 minutes. Luckily, I quickly found my baggage in the "unclaimed luggage land." (It was much larger than I expected, at least 25 pieces of luggage.) Finally, at about 11 p.m. I entered the I House with Elder Howell one of the people I will be working with at my internship at the public affairs office for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I quickly found some vending machines, ate and got started on settling in. I then made a quick little video blog or "vlog" on my experiences thus far and a tour of my room. (Unfortunately, it's not uploading. I'll try again another time, but here's a picture from the door)

Today we had I House orientation at 10 a.m. Thankfully, it didn't last very long. It appears that everyone that I've talked to had bad travel experiences yesterday, with a few exceptions and mine was not the worst of it. After the orientation, Brian (from Divine Comedy, advertising) and I went to Fairview grocery store to get some things. I got some shelf stable foods and laundry detergent. Funny story, rather two funny stories:

First, Brian and I couldn't figure out where the customer entrance was. We easily found the loading area for the suppliers, but couldn't find the customer entrance. Finally I decided to go through the customer exit, as I walk through I am staring at a New York Fire Fighter. He stares at me. I think he's going to reprimand me for entering through the exit, but then looked away.

Second funny story, (these are more "oh funny" stories, not laugh out loud stories), so I'm from Omaha, Nebr. and I go to school in Provo, Utah, both places are relatively cheap price-wise. I'm expecting to see a price hike on things, even groceries. At Fairway, I go to get some granola bars and on the price labels on the shelves had an orange section in the left corner of the tag which stated they were $7.89. "Holy CRAP," I thought to myself almost 8 bucks for a box of granola bars, no way. I walk away and see more ridiculous prices in the orange section of the tag. Finally, baffled by the ridiculous prices, I look at the tags closer. When to my pleasant surprise the orange section of the tag is the price per pint, pound, etc. The individual price is to the right in unflashy white. I go back to the chocolate peanut butter granola bars, which is actually $3.19 per box. I can handle $3.19.

At 3 p.m. the Comms group met up again for a scavenger hunt of NYC, for cash. Tour NYC with the possibility of getting some money, I'm down. I set out with Emily Peterson (formerly Bylund), her hubby Richard, Adam and Adam's wife Rebecca. We went all over the place! We saw Tom's Diner (the Seinfield diner), St. John's Cathedral, Central Park, specifically Strawberry Fields, Trump Towers, the Manhattan Temple (aka the LDS Public Affairs office), Times Square, Adam's internship office off of Prince Street, and Emily's internship office off of 51st and Madison. I think we went on at least 15 subway trips. I go from subway virgin, to well seasoned Metro commuter, okay that's a little much, but I feel pretty comfortable on the subway. Unfortunately, we didn't have the most points and we were 45 minutes late returning to the I House.

It's safe to say that as for the first 24 hours I'm a fan of New York City. I also really like the International House. Everyone is so friendly, I've already met someone from Pakistan getting his Master of Public Administration at Columbia and had a good chat with him. I've also met a guy originally from California who is working on his doctorate in Decision Making, which has to do with a synthesis of psychology and economics. This place is awesome!

In not New York news, as some of you may know and some may not have known, I'm planning on serving a mission after my internship. My availability date is Sept. 1, and originally I thought I would have to wait a bit longer to have them officially submitted, but the stake clerk seemed to think turning them in early would be fine. I submitted my mission papers on the 20th of April, so I was expecting some time next week. But I just got an e-mail telling me that my stake at BYU is going to hold them until the 24th of May, so I have to wait some more.

Friends, please give me suggestions as to places I should go in New York City, I live on the Upper West side so close things are good, but please don't limit your responses.