Artsie Fartsie

Now ... I may not be an art critic ... heck, I might even say I am not an art person ... but sometimes "art" is stupid ... and some "artists" leave me speechless confronted with the absurdity of a stupid lifeless piece of crap ... and here is a FINE example ... as seen at the Metropolitan Museum in New York ... ART ... please feel free to contemplate this so interesting so breathtaking so inspiring piece of crap I'm staring at trying to concentrate myself hard out of remembering the "artist"'s name ...

... and here is a piece of art I did like just so you don't say I'm a dorkey monkey that hasn't seen a painting in his life ... unfortunately it's blurry and cropped ... but I find it freakishly impressive ...

The Apple is big and sour

Mkay ... and here we go ... I have been postponing this post long enough ... time to get down and dirty (quite dirty actually) with New York City ...

For a long time have I had this image about New York ... a very crowded street, with people walking on both sides of the road, one big mass of people moving like one.

Well ... it's not really far from the truth ... First contact was pretty violent, as we got there on one of (arguably) the busiest days of the year (Labor Day weekend), there were just SO MANY people walking around Times Square ... it was crazy ...

What hit me was the fact that the metro rail was quite dirty, in no way comparable to Washington, or Paris. The dirtiness seemed to continue, as the streets were in no way squeaky clean ...

The city is best seen from the distance, with a quite impressive skyline ...



... the view from the top of Empire State Building is a must see ...





... but the Brooklyn Bridge view is not all that bad also and is another must ... the picture doesn't really do it justice ...


Apart from this, we've seen lady Liberty and it was nice ... Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Natural History, Madame Tussaud's ... and so on and so forth ... we'll get to those later ...

Oh yes, and if you get to NY, make sure you take the night tour ... it was tons of fun and I really hope you are lucky enough to have the same guide we had ...


And now for what I believe is the single biggest problem with NY ... the people ... The place is crowded by immigrants .. I mean, I have no problem with them, but, common, learn a little English, will you? It's not really normal to (try to) order a darn coffee milk shake (or whatever it was) and end up by pointing fingers in the menu ... Or the fact that people were speaking to you IN SPANISH and didn't get bothered by the fact that you were looking at them with a very puzzled face ... I guess the guide on the night tour said it best ... this is a place where you need to learn to tolerate a lot, because there are so many cultures that come together here ... and you should try to tolerate all of them, because they will hit you in the face at every corner... (the last part is added by myself)

And to conclude, here is the list of DON'Ts:
1. Don't go to chinatown at night (post to follow)
2. Don't go to Harlen
3. Don't eat anywhere else except Italian restaurants
4. Don't forget to know how to speak Spanish.
5. Don't even think you can see two museums on the same day (they're huge).
6. Don't even think about taking the ferry to Lady Liberty later than 10 A.M. (we didn't and you should take our example).

So to sum things up .... go see it ... take a bite ... I found it to be a little sour...

iLove

I'm not really the gadget man, but, still, I was pretty excited when I saw a lot of iPhones available to play with at the Mac store. We went inside, grabbed a couple of those suckers and started pressing away. I gotta say it was "love at first touch" or iLove as I like to call it. The interface is just so responsive and easy to use ... I simply gotta get me one of these ... No word yet on when this baby will come here ... I'm curios to see if it will be cheap enough to make me buy it :P...

The Tale of the HUMONGOUS Milkshake

by Me

There were once three men,
and they were three.
And while home in their land,
often would they zip
nor from coffee, nor from tea.
But from a milkshake would they zip,
the milkshake would be gone real quick.

But then, one day, the three men went
across the ocean to a land ...
The men would want, of course, to zip,
but used to milkshakes that go quick,
they without knowing made mistake ...
ONE GIANT milkshake they would take!

The first man took a zip then four,
Then took until he could no more,
He gave the milkshake to the next,
Take IT, my brother, I must rest ...

The second man zipped all he could,
Then he took more till he was full,
He gave the milkshake to the next,
Take IT, my brother, I must rest ...

The third, surprised he still had some
Thought he would zip till nausea come,
He made it there, there was no next,
Milkshake had won, he had to rest ...


... there is a lesson there ... if you go to the USA and want to buy a milkshake at McDonalds, buy MEDIUM ... the BIG one is freaking HUMONGOUS

George DoubleU's house is white

The pic is actually taken in New York... But, in case you didn't know, that's George doubleU. .... and now here is his big white house ...


I know, I know, it's fuzzy, small, and you can't see squat, but I'm afraid that that's the way it is ... if you look closely you'll see Georgie boy in his jammies at the window ... nice fellow ... he invited us for a cup of tea ... but it was late ... and I don't really enjoy all his blabbering ...

Streets of Philadelphia

...........


Na na nana nana,
Na na nana naNA,
Na na nana nana,
Na na nana NAna
...

not much to say here ... Here lies the first department store which used price tags! ... Riiiiight ....

A nice city, not as clean as Boston, not as wild as New York ... The planetarium sure sucked. The idea is that you have to look UPWARDS! The chairs were in full vertical position and with a big headrest, so that you were actually looking downwards ...

There was ONE interesting thing there: The Rodin Museum. Surprising, even. They also have another BIG museum that we didn't get to visit. And the monster building that's not yet finished looked nice.

Oh, yeah, and we went inside THE BIG HEART ... it was sooooo not interesting ....

Oh, yeah, and the Liberty Bell is around there somewhere...

Been there, done that, on to Washington and George doubleU's big house...

L.E.: It looks like them streets of Philadelphia are getting fixed ...

Who the heck is Paul Reveere?

Now here's the deal ... the USA don't have many years of history, and we all know it. But, when you get a tour guide of the city, they need to show you things, right? So what they do is they give you all sorts of very interesting details ... Like, for instance, did you know that Paul Reveere bought his first ice cream when he was five at the corner of 5th and 24th? Or that he first held a shovel when he visited the grave near the port? Or that he first though of building a church while buying bread from that very store? now that's all VERY INTERESTING, I thought to myself, but WHO THE HECK IS PAUL REVEERE?

And leaving Paul Reveere aside, the city of Boston is very very nice. It is my favorite American city without a doubt... I'll put on some pics later on. I was even there when the Boston Tea Party caught fire AGAIN.Yap, I was right there. It was kinda fun in the beginning but got a little freaky when it became hard to breathe because of the smoke ... again, I'll post the pics later on ... don't have them out ... yet.

LE. them pics are up ... there's Paul on the right ... and the Tea Party on fire ... and Boston ...

Kings of the JetLag

To begin with I have to say that I hate flying in airplanes... there ... I said it ... I don't like getting on an airplane and I'm not ashamed of admitting it. Helicopters ... now that's another story, but more on that later ...

A few years back while arriving in Morocco, I've had the beautiful opportunity of a jet lag like experience. I woke up at 6AM for a month or more, but I wasn't really mad about it since it meant I got to work early. So, the perspective of a 7 hours jet lag was not very exciting. I was in anticipation of the 10 hours flight and what followed afterwards...

What actually happened is that I sat in a cinema and watched 3 movies while some strange men and women in black clothes were continuously bringing me food and beverages, and after I got out of the theater I went to sleep at about 10'o clock and got up early in the morning. And that was that ... no dizzy heads ... no confusion ... the jet lag had been defeated swiftly ... HA




as for what happened when we returned ... now that's another story ... 2 days and counting and the jet lag is still the winner ...

back from Mars

Well, it's not actually Mars, but it sounded more impressive like this, so I thought what the heck ... I'll start writing my Memoires from the US of A shortly ... there are many things that need to be said ... I'll put some pics also to show off my new camera, the S5 IS. For the moment I will just note that I am back and well ...

Let the 'US of A Memoires' begin ...
I'll post some sort of contents here (note that it is a work in progress and may suffer changes):
* Kings of the JetLag
* Who the heck is Paul Reveere?
* Streets of Philadelphia
* George DoubleU's house is white
* The Tale of the HUMONGOUS Milkshake
* iLove
* The Apple is big and sour
* Artsie Fartsie
* The road to Chinatown
* Riding the Chopper
* Famous and Friendly
* The Island of Peace

Later Edit: I am starting to add them pics ... Here's life on Mars (S5 only with the color swap on). There's Andreea (hearts) frightened of the Martians in the bushes, and Donca, my aunt, who's not afraid of them green midgets...