Back in New York

I'm back in New York (actually right now I'm in Jersey City which is a much cheaper place to stay but only two stops on the PATH train from WTC) for a kind of economics conference and the NY Blogger Meetup. This particular economics group is a tight knit community (e.g. Snork Maiden's PhD adviser is the big star here) and the news that I'm quitting and moving to Australia is circulating fast. People seem confused when they find out I don't have a job lined up in Aus and I haven't been looking for one and don't really want any help in finding one. I make some noises about networking on the ground there and having various ideas. Only a couple of my students know what the real plan is. It's interesting that two of the people I know here at the meeting have never been to New York City before- one lives in Washington State and one in Alaska. But the Alaskan was a fellow student with Snork Maiden back in Maryland... still all the time I lived in Boston (7 years) I never went to NYC either. It's always shocking again how expensive it is here e.g. $6 for a bottle of beer in the bar we went to this evening.