jdenparis

 Welcome to jdenparis.com.  I'm jd, and I just graduated from college.  For one year before med school, I'll be working and living in Paris, and traveling the world with my job.  Below are my stories, photos, and videos.  Enjoy!

Thursday, December 25, 2008

My Business Trip to NYC :)

(October, 2008) After a few days in Cuernavaca, Mexico, I made it up to New York Citayy for the tail end of Rosh Hash and Yom Kippur. Being on the road for so long (at this point it had only been 1 month living out of a suitcase. Now, 4), I was happy to get back to America. There really was some reverse culture shock. Primarily, I was SHOCKED to always be able to understand and communicate with everyone! Language is something I can't take for granted anymore.

Since I came to the US a few days ahead of schedule, I had to live at home on Long Island and commute to the financial district for three days before my hotel reservation downtown kicked in. I'll just live close to work in the future. Luckily, I wound up working on Wall St. during the most fascinating time! There were a ton of protestors every day out there -- big rats, people scaling flagpoles, you name it. Apparently there was some economic crisis... I don't know.

In any case, it was great to be back, and I don't think I stopped moving for one second. I went straight from the airport to Rosh Hashanah dinner night 2, then home to LI, then to work the next 3 days, etc. I spent the weekend doing winter shopping and still commuting to the city to go out at night. The whole next week I lived at the hotel, woke up at 7 for work, commuted to NYU after work, got home by 12, and started over (my goal was to make my schedule as crazy as Sam's, but I don't think I could ever come close). I didn't even have the second weekend off! After a long night at nyu Friday, I woke up early Saturday morning to go hang with Dad's side of the family at Aunt Sandy's brunch. I really miss bagels and tuna, mmmm.

On my way to the uptown bus, I missed my subway connection by less than a second, and watched my early arrival to brunch pull away into the darkness. When I finally got out of the subway, I found out that Ken and the other NYC commuters had caught the bus 5 mins before I got there, and I had to wait an hour all by my lonesome for the next one. I took that opportunity to have a pre-brunch breakfast and get a quick haircut :) It was great to see everyone on Dad's side of the family - thanks so much for putting it together aunt sandy!

Straight from brunch, I went home to check on Mogen, as he had some surgery on his leg (see slideshow). When I decided he was doin alright, I hopped back on a train to the city to go to the Bloomberg Initiative Partner's dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Rockefeller ice rink / Christmas tree. The next morning (Sunday) I was up at 6am to go to the meetings. What a great experience. I got to meet so many of the LEADERS of the global fight against tobacco - people who have lobbied city and national governments for Smoke Free laws, tax experts, CDC representatives, and more. I met Tom Frieden, who's the commissioner of the NYC Dept of Health - the guy responsible for smoke free, no trans fat, and calorie counts in the city's restaurants! Sweet. They even let me sit in on the smaller breakout sessions where these people developed plans for the specific countries. I made the presentation that our representative gave to the whole group :)

The next day was definitely the highlight though. Monday, Columbus Day, I was up at 6 again to get uptown to the Bloomberg building for brunch with the Mayor.

The entire group of tobacco control experts was waiting with coffees and juices before brunch when the Mayor made his way up the stairs. He began shaking hands and moving through the crowd with his photographer, and settled first on the group of people I was standing with! In the photograph, you see Jose's hand and cup (my boss), Mayor Bloomberg, Stephen from WLF, me, and Peter from WLF (World Lung Foundation, The Union's sister foundation, conceived of and founded by my boss Jose).

When the Mayor walked up to us, he introduced himself, shook hands, and began with his clearly prepared, but very entertaining schmooze-script. "You know when you're mayor, you never get a day off. Right after this brunch, I have to go to the Latin Americans Columbus Day Parade. Yesterday, I had to march in the Italian Columbus Day Parade. Why can't they just join together and have one parade? One year, I closed fire houses, raised taxes, and banned smoking in the City's restaurants and bars, and I still managed to march in a parade in Staten Island. If you can do that, you can do anything!"

He was also hysterical when congratulating the entire crowd for our great work in fighting tobacco. "Last month, I attended the European Respiratory Society conference in Berlin with 20,000 attendees. One reporter asked if I would do a lung capacity test. Everyone with me kept trying to persuade me not to do it, it wasn't planned, we didn't know the results - it would be a PR disaster if I didn't pass. My people have great faith in me. Anyway, I took the test, and it turned out my lung capacity is just where it should be for a 66-year-old sex symbol!"

My trip home was amazing. I got to see just about everyone I miss while abroad, and I finally got to live in the city, if only for a few days! Look forward to being back in Feb (ish).

Merry Christmas, and a bientot!


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hurray! Love to see your posts return. And WHAT a surprise when you showed up at Rosh Hash dinner unannounced!! Bravo :)