Enter Phèdre

Good evening!

Hmmmm. I guess there's basically two ways I can do this .. I've inadvertently tried both in my last two blog entries. I can either write ahead what comes to my mind and later fill in some pictures for it like on August 8th, or I can pick the photos first like yesterday and then wrap some text around them. I think the former version is better, so I'll try and stick to that even though for technical reasons it's more convenient to paste the pictures into the blog first.

Soooo .. the first enthusiasm and excitement for the town has somewhat subsided, it's not all new anymore. Can you tell I get bored fast? :) It's not that bad yet though, boredom isn't the word I'd use. Naturally I haven't seen all of New York yet. Not even close. Still you get (at least I got) used to a lot of things very quickly. Like the size of the buildings around here. The smells and the incredible amount of taxis. The look and feel of the subway that still keeps reminding me of an old, ill-maintained haunted house, the type you have in amusement parks. Now that these things aren't new and exciting anymore, New York City will have to come up with new attractions to satisfy my spoiled hunger for new thrills and to keep its charm. So far it's doing a rather good job at the latter.

Today was the day that Phèdre was scheduled to arrive. We really did want to get her from the airport (cross my heart :) ), but then found out that riding the "Airtrain" connecting the metro to the airport costs 5$ per person per trip, so 25$ to get Phèdre with her luggage (which we mistakenly expected to be a LOT, can you say .. business class?) into a number of consecutive trains that'd eventually have us carry the luggage several blocks until we're finally home. The other option was for her to pay $22 for the same shuttle we used that'd drop her off right at the doorstep. So we wrote this to her in a cell phone message. What none of us knew at the time was that Phèdre didn't have a triband cell phone, so she had no service in the US and didn't receive the message. She ended up taking a taxi. What we also learned shortly thereafter was that our front door doesn't have a doorbell. So with Phèdre having no cell phone and no doorbell to reach us inside, no one was going to open the door for her any time soon. After what appear to have been some attempts at bonding with the locals in the food parlor below our apartment, apparently, someone did open the door downstairs and Phèdre knocked on our appartment door together with her one suitcase.

By the way .. at this point (9:45pm!) both skriehma and Phèdre have gone to bed. I'd better not comment on that. They may read this. Although probably not skriehma. Too much text.

What I initially wanted to write about is what skriehma and I did instead of going to the airport to get Phèdre. Since any more sightseeing we would do would have to be repeated together with Phèdre anyway we decided to go shopping. So we looked up the closest mall we could find - Manhattan Mall.We walked there, it was a really small and really boring place. Neither of us found what we were looking for - skriehma wants a black Eastpak backpack and I for my part would like a grey sweatshirt with a zipper but without hood or baggy sleeves that carries "New York" on the front. We ended up walking down Broadwayuntil it ended, stopping and snooping around in just about every other store and one of them actually had a sweater that somewhat resembled what I was looking for. Problem was that they wanted $65 for it. Na-ah!

So we did walk through the entire lower east side, passing a couple of parks (they seem to call almost any patch of green "park" around here, no matter how small ..), city hall, a cute little market with fruits and vegetables, Wall Streetand whatever else I forgot to mention.In one of the many stores, skriehma finally bought a huge black bag (out of desperation? overcompensating?) and I got a football- to skriehmas great but initial annoyment. Because of course I wanted to immediately start throwing the thing back and forth right there on the street. It was really hard to motivate skriehma for this - like he writes in his entry it seemed to have something to do with the people on the street. Hmmmm. We plan to go to the northern tip of Central Park tomorrow for throws that exceed the size of our loft.

Even Phèdre wants to throw now.

We helped ourselves to a very good pizza.Even though there were four of us (including myself, and I tend to eat copiously .. ask skriehma) - the fourth being Phèdre's aunt (please ask Phèdre why exactly she was here .. I'm actually not quite sure ..) - we didn't manage to eat more than seven of the eight slices. We'll have to fight about the eigth piece tomorrow then.

Allrighty, since both my colleagues/roommates/friends are now counting sheep I'd better round this blog entry up soon. After all, Phèdre is likely to be wandering around the apartment tomorrow morning at around 4 looking for breakfast. And unfortunately, she has to pass through the living room, where we'll be sleeping, in order to do that. So I should go.

Oh by the way. You probably find my ramblings too long. Yes, I mean you. Don't deny it. It's OK. I don't mind. I'll keep going like this anyway and for as long as I want to. But you may be in luck. Soon (Monday), I may have to actually work instead of stroll around town all day. Those blog entries will likely be more brief, concise and a lot less cumbersome. I cannot say that they'll likely get any less boring though. Sorry! But I want to remember these details later. And this is my "diary" .. I'm rambling again, aren't I. Good night!