A week in review (6)

We have been on the move, then decompressing, and settling in. Not much else on the radar this week. A lot but not a lot, ya know.

A week in review

Move x 1. We’ve had our fair share of struggles with real estate agents back home, mostly from them trying to squeeze some extra cash out of us. Never in our lifetimes have we expected to be thankful for the governance of a property manager. We paid for 10 days of June; therefore, we anticipated having the whole 10th day, right up until midnight, if we so pleased. Wrong. We were informed that we were expected to be out by 10 am that morning. This lease was arranged directly with a landlord with no middleman to help us. We’re not sure why we were asked to pay for a day we weren’t allowed to have a home, but a loss is a loss. We met in the middle, asking if we could leave all of our bags in the wardrobes from 10 am until about 2 pm, when we were then able to move along to our next home.

Opening the door at 2 pm to collect our bags from two strangers, we quickly shuffled our heap to the street before throwing it all in an Uber XL. As our Uber pulled out, another Uber pulled in with the landlord’s family. Now, when we were initially told we could only stay at the first home for five weeks, the reason was stated to be ‘renovations’. We later found out that the landlord was actually wanting to reclaim the space, for just one month, to offer free accommodation while her family are visiting from Italy.

This (un)natural ending to the residency at Keap St. came in good time for us, to move onto a new home where the sunlight can actually reach…But as for our housemates, they are simply uprooted and rehomed for a month, within alternate apartments of the landlord’s owning, with little say in the matter. They’ll return to the original apartment when the month is up, and while we were offered the same possibility, we decided on another route. Renting here is rogue, but a true NY experience.

You may recall we had one night to bridge between homes, which we spent at Gramarcy Park, staying with an Australian Family in a beautiful brownstone. Our Uber pulled up in the most unfortunate car park, opening the boot above a dead rat. Felix was doing gymnastics to get the driver to avoid pulling every suitcase on top of the squished rat - even after Monty exclaimed, “ewww dead rat”. He must have lived here a while and be truly desensitised. Then there were the dog droppings on the footpath where our bags were being piled, which we wish we could say we missed...

To get our bags inside, Felix was doing some F45 circuit training, carrying each suitcase down the narrow & steep spiral staircase to the sub-basement room. He broke a sweat and almost his back. It was a lovely treat to stay in the brownstone for a night; we don’t know that we’ll have the chance again to stay in a home so nice, but one can dream. It was big and beautiful, three stories, with a garden and a glass sunroom out the back, where Felix could tap away.

Move x 2! We had planned to move into the West Village apartment at 2 pm, but the person we are now subletting from had their flight pushed back, and asked us if we could move in later. We couldn’t camp out on the street for hours with all of our stuff, so we asked if we could kindly leave our mountain of luggage in the corner of the apartment at 2 pm and return to stay once they’re gone - to which they kindly obliged.

Arriving at the doorstep of the new apartment, Monty went up first to meet the title owner while Felix waited on the street to mind the luggage. Puffed on the way up carrying nothing but the carry-ons, she wasn’t sure how to break it to Felix that there were many, many stairs to come. One flight of stairs at the Gramercy brownstone was just child’s play by comparison. But Felix moved all 150kg up three flights with little complaints, despite the humidity. We kept ourselves busy in the sun for the rest of the afternoon until the apartment was ready! We are very happy to be back living on our own again.

Settling into the West Village! Toto, I don’t think we’re in Brooklyn anymore! We are officially in the big city. It’s a different life here. We’re staying next door to where Phoebe’s apartment was set in Friends, just two blocks from the other Friends’ apartment. About five blocks from Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment. And after leaving the house and seeing many groups taking photos one block away at 23 Cornelia St, we have now learned that we are living close to Taylor Swift’s former residence. You can tell by the bodega prices that we’re living amongst the high rollers - they’re just making up prices to see who will flinch (us!).

The West Village is the current neighbourhood of the moment. If you haven’t lived here forever, you’re likely an intern here for the Summer or a student settling into the city who the algorithm has persuaded that this is the place to be. Staying here doesn’t quite feel like our reality, moreso we’re briefly living in the fantasy of a NYC dream, which we know with the eyewatering rent prices (we currently have reduced rent, thank god), we could not sustain. Every morning, someone comes to sweep up our street, we have a fire escape and a real-life tree outside of our window (gasp), and plenty of people to watch on the street. The hugely divisive article recently published in The Cut said it best: It Must Be Nice to Be a West Village Girl.

The apartment itself is a 1-bed studio, probably close to a century old, it has had its fair share of ‘landlord specials’. But hey, no complaints here, it is quite the upgrade from Keap St. Between the items from the previous two tenants, there is next to no storage. But let’s consider this training for living a more compact life, and hey, storing clothes in the kitchen isn’t so bad - it means I get to choose an outfit while I prepare breakfast!

Meeting Levi! We’ve landed the dream job!!! Pet sitting a corgi named Levi. When a friend asked if we could look after her four-year-old Corgi because he was too long to fit in the pet carrier to accompany her on the flight to Canada, we jumped at the chance. There are lots of dogs here, and they’re so different from home. For example, everyone has Border Collies, but they call them Aussies, and they’re half the size, with no tail. The catch to being in a dog city is that people don’t care for a stranger to interact with their dogs.

After six weeks with no dedicated dog time, we are super excited to be Levi’s faux parents for a few days. So on Friday night, we shook paws at Levi’s home and allowed him to get a feel for us. We think he likes us, and he definitely likes munching on our arms. We also met another dog, Lily, while we were there, who was a crazy mix of Basset Hound x German Shepard. She was so cute and bear-like, fluffy, long and low to the ground, which made Levi and Lily look like step-siblings.

Eleven Madison Park! You can take the line out of Melbourne, but you can’t take the Melbourne out of the line. On Saturday morning, we woke up and debated what time we should leave home to join the queue for Eleven Madison’s last Bake It Nice croissant sale of the summer. Having read some anecdotes in Instagram comments from previous weeks about the length of the lines and how early they sell out, I (Monty), the biggest pastry lover among us, was ready to camp out overnight. While Felix, with a slightly more level head, pitched that we leave the house just before 9 am since they began sales at 11 am.

Felix guessed that we would be the 19th people in the line by the time of arrival, and he was just one place off (we were spots 17 and 18). But in the next hour and a half, the line grew and grew, and we were pleased with our eagerness to jump in early. This is where we would also learn about professional line sitters, who do the dirty work for you, so that in the final 20 minutes, you can come along and take their place for a fee.

The croissants were worth the wait. This restaurant has a lot of lore behind it, and with three Michelin stars under its belt, and 10 years operating as an omnivorous venue, the owner decided to U-turn in 2021 and change the menu to be completely vegan. A bold move that has paid off, it has held its place as a victor even with its (self-imposed plant-based) limitations. It retained its accolades, deeming it the only vegan 3-Michelin star restaurant in NYC, which we will dine at when we win the lottery.

The two flavours of the day were candied apricot cream & orange blossom, and the second being chocolate with a raspberry & dolce de lece filling. Immediately after purchasing, Felix had an unmissable errand, which left Monty at home, alone with the pastries, which felt like the ultimate test in patience, just like those jellybean tests parents do with kids. But when Felix came home, we got to enjoy them together and have that ‘how is this even vegan’ experience. Maybe it’s good that this is the last sale of the summer; otherwise, we would see this being a more frequent occurrence.

Live Podcast! Last year, we went to the live Podcast of CMBC in Melbourne. On Saturday night, we went to their last ever live show. Remaining successful, they have just decided that travelling is wearing the hosts thin and they can’t focus on their main projects while on the road. A different show from last time, some parallels, and some lines rung a bell, but it felt more refined.

The premise of this particular show was an ultimate smackdown to see which person was more insane - Yolanda Hadid or Alec Baldwin. Pulling lines from their memoirs and real incidents from their lives, the hosts plead their case to the audience, for which each round gets a vote. Both celebs are shocking in their own way, but the winner came down to tooth and nail, ultimately with Yolanda Hadid taking the crown (but at what cost). If it truly is the last time we can see this show live, we were lucky to be there!

Best food of the week!

Now we are back in our own space, we are back to cooking for ourselves for nearly every meal, and feeling a lot better for it. But on that night of limbo, when we were waiting for our new apartment to be ready, we found an Indian restaurant that served our favourite meal and probably the meal we miss the most—any guesses? We were drawn to this restaurant because they had an indian version of West African Fufu, which was super yummmmm, but we were most happy to discover the menu had palak tofu!! As many of you know, when Felix makes palak tofu at home, it can take up hours and many dishes, which has not been something we have been able to achieve here yet. We’re so glad we now have a spot that serves our fave meal!

What we miss this week!

Elevators in apartments. If we complain about moving house in Melbourne ever again, please tell us to shut up. The luxury of an elevator is something you take for granted. Felix has done the hard yards of lugging the suitcases up the stairs. But I (Monty) am truly embarrassed when I enter someone’s apartment puffing after walking up 3-4 flights of stairs. There’s only so much blaming on the asthma you can do before you start looking very, very unfit. Most apartments are walk-ups, the subway stations are too, and most stores have escalators. I can’t remember the last time we went in an elevator, but now we are just sounding lazy. All of this is mostly to say, moving house is much easier with the modern magic of an elevator.

And of course we miss you!!