The life of an unemployed expat

We never did go back to Philly but something from Philly came to us ... Sophie! Having left her acting studio under stressful circumstances, Sophie decided to spend her last US days with us in NY. We did plenty of fun stuff together, most notably a tour of the UN (with Lucy's bestie Steph who was interning there) and a visit to the WestSide Market, the most exciting supermarket I've been to in a while. Hey, I really like supermarkets.

The UN was pretty special - I'd never given it a thought and was pleasantly surprised by how cool it was. Granted we were on a secret VIP backstage tour so that probably made it cooler. Steph took us down onto the main floor of what looks like a superhero filmset with gold walls and podiums and everything. I learned a little about how the UN works and even discovered some countries I've never heard of. I was tempted to steal a UN pencil from the podium but didn't think getting arrested was a good way to go. Not with my parents arriving so soon.

Sophie stayed with us until the eve of my family's arrival on the 21st December and a fun time was had by all. It's nice to get to know people you (used to) work with in an outside of work situation.

Sometime around this time Durell and I hosted a Farewell Greenacre Park Fried Chicken Party. Durell had long been promising me a feast of fried chicken, prepared in his portable deep fryer, so we made it happen. Everyone assembled in the man-cave below the park and we chowed down on Scott's Super Guacamole, fried chicken and Julia's Trick Vegemite Scrolls (the trick was that noone knew it was vegemite until I told them!). Margaritas were made and Scott even brought out a Four Loko or two. Sophie crashed the party and regular Jack's alum joined in, including John Cho, Dan and Sydney. There was plenty of merriment and some very inappropriate jokes but in the end we put everything back together (so Charles wouldn't know) and went our separate ways. The sad end of an era :(

The final thing I remember from before my family arrived was the Kava Christmas Party. Held onsite, the party was catered by the cafe which meant delicious salami, cheese and basil pesto mini sandwiches and lots of awesome wine. We got pretty drunk pretty quick and spent most of the night photo-bombing Timon's workmates. The night ended at the Brass Monkey (bar around the corner) with Dwight be poured into a taxi by his fiance and Timon and I staggering home full of nachos and wine. It's really awesome that Timon ended his NY employment at a great place with great people as opposed to that hellhole that shall remain nameless at the South Street Seaport. Starts with a J and ends in Acks.

                                              Timon with his boss John and cook Chris