Sunday, June 10, 2007

Matt gets his life delivered to him in Singapore

Sorry for the great delay in posting new material. I was all over the place, and found myself unable to actually work on this until I got to Asia - weird mental blockage, and Matt hasn't had non-JPMorgan-sanctioned internet access until I got here.

Not-So-Brief Update:
Matt has been working for four weeks now - he is actually doing very similar work to what he did at the bank. He enjoys the people he's working with and the work he's doing. He has been working long hours, which I super hope will not continue from now on. He was living with a dude, and that dude was super interesting, but he moved into our apartment last weekend (thank god). When Matt is awake, we will hopefully hear more details from him.

Melanie had a SUPER-FUN good-bye party in NYC on Tuesday (click here for pictures), moved out of their apartment on Thursday the 31st, and had 5 wonderful days in Toronto mostly with Shana, Daniel and Jer. She also had great visits with Tamara and Ami. (switch to first person) Toronto was fun to mostly relax and just enjoy being with people I like, but we also did some fun stuff. Shana and I walked a good part of the city, we got to see Daniel in a bail hearing in Old City Hall (just like the movies!), had a great bar-b-q with Shana's sister, Mara and Jer - Oberon included, went to the Distillery District, ate hilarious Pakistani food (okay the food wasn't hilarious, but the place was), went gay dancing with Jer's super hot friends, ate Alfonso Mangos, made a super amazing dinner, saw a movie, ate sushi and relaxed.

I got back to NYC on Tuesday for a whopping two days - got to hang with Eli and Damian, at shakshuka with Becca, interviewed for a job with Moody's (update coming soon, hopefully), hung with Liba and Adin, played settlers, went to breakfast with Erin, went to the NY Transit Museum (TOTALLY recommended - take the free tour when you go!), walked across Central Park with Eli and Nina, saw Navit and said goodbye to NYC. :(

Everyone should fly business class. Okay - that doesn't make economic/capitalist sense, but holy shnikes!! I got to the airport, didn't have to wait in line, the turned their head to my extra .8 KG, I got access to the business lounge (free drinks, food, computer access, and basketball on tv!), and the service, seats and food were just outstanding. I flew Singapore Air, which is one of the best in the world. The seats were so big and went totally flat, so that when I was sleeping, I was curled up on my side, and it was nicer than my bed! I got to watch movies on demand, watched tv shows, read (with the option of two different reading lights!), ate many-course meals on real plates with real silver, had the option for drinks and snacks at any point and was just super comfortable. It was the first time in my life where I was sort of disappointed when the flight was over. I think I could have stayed there for about three days, and seriously not minded.

Matt surprised me at the airport, which was super nice, since it was about 6:00 in the morning! The second I stepped outside the airport, though, I realized I was in for problems. I don't think I have caught my breath since. It is soooooooo fricken hot here. I know that you're supposed to get used to it, but apparently that takes more than 24 hours. :) It's muggy, in the 90s, sunny as hell and doesn't have the greatest of all breezes. Whoa.

We got to our apartment - I'll write about that another day - but it's super great. It's a bit of a step up from our 400 sq ft in Manhattan...We got to take a swim, got all of our stuff delivered by three nice men, cleaned up a bit and relaxed.

I know one person in Singapore - Matt's friend, Christian from grad school. We decided to take a walk to dinner, and as we're leaving our place, we hear someone yell our names! Christian and his fiancee LiFong (sp?) were driving by! It was quite a coincidence. We ate Indian fast food for dinner - it wasn't the freshest food ever, but having pretty good Indian food in five minutes was pretty funny. We then took the bus to a HUGE mall called Suntek City. It is HUGE and FULL of people. It was a few too many stimuli for my just arriving and being tired as hell. We got a bunch of housey stuff - mop, broom, garbages, etc.

Somehow I managed to sleep through the night (with only one hour hiatus for a few backgammon games at 2 in the morning). We're heading downtown to have brunch with Christian and LiFong (sp?again!) and then explore downtown. All I have to say is that I hope that we can explore from indoors (air conditioning!). It's unreasonably hot. I think I'm actually going to jump in the pool right now to cool down my body!

Please email and keep in touch, and know that I/we will be updating this regularly now.

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