Frustration

Yesterday was pretty disappointing. We ran in the morning before breakfast which was pretty good except that it was already so hot. We ran through Chinatown and over the Manhattan Bridge. By the time we got back to our apartment we were hot, tired and hungry. We spent a lot of the day uptown wandering around looking for places we needed. We visited a Social Security Office, but they couldn't yet take my application for a Social Security number as they hadn't received my details from Immigration. They said to come back on Friday.
Throughout the day we took a lot of wrong turns, got confused about where to go etc...and by the end of the day I felt we had achieved very little. We went to a hospitality job fair, which we thought would be similar to a career market in Australia - where you see different jobs represented and ask questions about them. However, it was really just a mass interview session. As John is looking for work as a cook, we went in anyway. He (and about 30 other people completed application forms and then waited for someone to call them for an interview. There were about 10 people having interviews at any given point in time.
We decided to buy a printer so that we can print various documents we need in order for John to apply for work and just generally so we can print stuff. We didn't end up getting it yesterday for various reasons.
Last night I also discovered that I'd somehow managed to use up 150 minutes of talk time on my phone. I was very depressed to find that because I had neglected to lock the keypad, the phone had called Yellow Pages (which I had called earlier in the day) and because it was an automated voice recognition computer, I ended up being on the phone with them for over 2 hours. Stupid, annoying mistake! To make matters worse, the earlier phone call with Yellow Pages was unsuccessful because they couldn't recognise me saying "no" to one of the questions with an automated response call. All I wanted was a copy of the New York Yellow Pages! (By the way, if you want our 'cell phone' number, email us and we'll send it on to you.)
Anyway, after a good night's sleep, I decided to use our time more efficiently today, and we got a lot done. We ended up buying our printer, a small ironing board and a pair of walking shoes for me.
On a lighter note, we've found ourselves getting to know our new neighbourhood better and find that people are actually stopping US to ask for directions! Which even more surprisingly, we are able to respond to!
Tomorrow I go to a luncheon at my new school.

This is our apartment building. We are on the third storey at the left as you look at it. The first two windows are ours.