UN life

At the start of each working day at the UN the flags of all countries go up, delegates from some 190 nations go to work and at the end of the day the flags come down. The neighbourhood around the UN headquarters - with streets named after diplomats - is full of office buildings housing the "Missions" of each country. The new U.S. building is over 30 (?) stories tall, the UK mission has air lock doors to deter terrorists, and the Grenada Mission where I work, has...well it has a single suite on the 4th floor of a building shared with many other island countries that are part of the Commonwealth. The Israeli consulate is also in the same building, so we have significant police presence in the lobby and the occasional loud protest outside.

There is always something going on at the UN. The Queen came to the UN came a couple weeks ago to give brief remarks to the General Assembly of the UN. Her speech was quick (she is in her late 80s after all) and her hat was lovely, but mostly it was just a nice excuse to sit in the General Assembly hall of the UN which is soon closing due to renovations - it hasn't been updated since it was built and has asbestos. Reminiscent of the UN itself?

getting around town

I gave directions to somebody yesterday. I must be a local now. Not that it's that hard....Avenues run north-south, Streets run east-west. Apparently it's so ordered that there is a basic formula to find almost any Avenue address in Manhattan.

Example:

Let's say you want to go to 826 Lexington Avenue but don't know what the nearest cross Street is...

1. Drop the last digit from the address...so 826 becomes 82

2. Divide the remainder by 2.....so 82/2 = 41

3. then you need the magical key number (they are listed in tourist books), the key number for ddresses on Lexington Avenue is +22

4. add the numbers together....so 41+22 = 63

and presto! the nearest cross Street to 826 Lexington Ave. is 63rd Street.


...no wonder that guy asked me for directions! I think I'll stick to a map/a sense of direction.

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to the big apple we go...

This blog is back - on the other side of the Atlantic.


For the next 9 months or so I'll be reporting on the sights and sounds of New York city. As I've been reminded by an Oxford colleague, these concrete jungle streets can make one feel brand new, I hope the blog can keep up.

The (short) explanation for the switch to the USA is that I've taken up a post at the United Nations doing climate change related work with small island developing states. I've settled into a tiny apartment in Manhattan on the Upper East Side (surely a feature of future blog postings) and am looking forward to hosting friends and family over the course of summer - drop me a line!