I feel more or less as I did after about a month in Canterbury. When all the new impressions and things to see start to become routine, all the little things that don’t work the way they should start nagging at you, and you start to wonder if it was worth coming here in the first place. It took me 5-6 months to get over that feeling in Canterbury.

I won’t be here in the US that long, and so I will leave with a bad impression of the US. And that’s not totally fair. There are loads of good things about the US, and I have experienced quite a number of them. It’s just that when I leave, I will tend to look at the negative things, simply because I will be at that particular stage of experiencing a foreign culture. I apologise for that, but it’s my psyche (and others’, I believe).

One very relevant thing that bothers me about the US is exactly that nobody seems to understand exactly that – that thing get to you after a while. Most Americans never leave the country – in fact, only 23% of the US population owns a passport, and less than 10% of those (that’s less than 2,3% of the entire population, or less than 1 in 40, for those of you who are not so mathematically inclined) ever leave the country, according to a Google search I just made. Take away the people who just take a quick trip across the border to Canada (which is basically just a more relaxed, laid back, and hence more sensible, version of the US) to have a lapdance in a country where strippers are allowed to be nude, you’re looking at a population that is basically ignorant of what it is like to live “somewhere else”. Sure, there are differences between east and west, and especially between north and south in the US, but life is basically the same – the same chains of shops and restaurants, the same language, the same ideology, the same common knowledge, the same frame of reference – only the climate changes, and, to a lesser extent, the dialect.

It was worth coming here. I have seen things, experienced stuff, met people, smelled air, walked streets, travelled roads, lived a life that I would not have had the opportunity to do back home. But I am full. There is only very little room left for more impressions, and I need time to digest. I need time to relax, to contemplate, and to get rid of the incessive belief that just around the corner is something I haven’t yet seen, and that I might not get to see ever if I don’t go there right now.

It will be 3-4 weeks until I can go home. And I wonder what I mean by “home”. Is it Canterbury? I hope so. It was when I left – or at least more so than Denmark was. But I’m going to Denmark before the new academic year starts, so I will see home one way or the other in September. But 3-4 weeks is a long way still to go when you don’t want to stay.

I don’t know how to cope, but I will have to. There is still work to do, before I can feasibly say that I have finished the piece of work I came here to do. But in many ways, I wish I could just go home and finish the work there. Except, at home I have a mini-thesis looming…

I wanted to go to Atlantic City this weekend, to drown my sorrows in poker, but I was too tired and ill. Hopefully, I will be able to put in a solid week of work, so that I can justify the trip next weekend. Unfortunately, I doubt it will happen – feeling like this wrecks havoc on your ability to concentrate.

(No pictures this time – the internet connection at the hotel is really slow, especially when uploading, and I want to go to sleep. I will catch up with all the photos when I come home. I know that’s a bit late, but think of it as a postcard that arrives after the person sending it has returned and told you about the trip. )

There is a reason, though. Yesterday, I was completely partied out, having gone to two concerts at the Blue Note Jazz Club in Manhattan Friday night.

The first concert was ok without being great. The performer was Chuck Mangione, who has two Grammys to his name, plus various other distinctions. Of course, being a Grammy winner basically means that he plays music that everybody likes, i.e., not the sort of music that makes you feel that you have just heard something unique. In other words, not my style, but I felt like getting out of my room. The style was a mix of stuff that was way too conventional for my taste (e.g., a jingle he had written for ABC), and stuff that was actually quite allright.

Chuck plays trumpet and keyboards, but it is obvious that he is much better at playing the trumpet, so I wish he had just stuck to that. He didn’t, which meant that whatever brilliant musicianship I was going to hear would mostly come from the other musicians (from what I could gather, they were all house musicians). They were not at all bad, but at the same time, they were also not the people I paid to hear.

Another thing that bothered me was that whoever was in charge of the sound must have had an off-day. The background (house musician) keyboards were loud and intrusive, while Chuck’s own keyboard was almost inaudible, even though I was sitting no more than 8m from the stage, dead center. The sax/clarinet/flute/piccolo player also had a tough time being heard whenever he picked up the flute or the clarinet.

To top everything off, the three middle aged couples sitting at the table next to me spent the entire concert chatting amongst each other, despite the club’s request at the start of the show to not do so. Some people are just too thick to be let out of the asylum if you ask me.

On the positive note, the drummer, the guitarist and in particular the bass player were really good, and so was the 750ml bottle of Brother Thelonius Abbey Ale from North Shore Brewing Company that I enjoyed during the concert.

Anyway, Chuck Mangione wasn’t the main reason for going to Blue Note that night. The main reason was the 00:30 show, featuring the hip-hop/jazz fusion band Mental Notes. Hip-hop jazz is probably my favourite subgenre of music, and these guys did not disappoint at all. The put on a fabulous show of rap, cool guitar solos, soothing trumpet moods, and DJ-ing, and not only was the music excellent – the band (the rapper Spiritchild in particular) put on an amazing show which had even the 50-60 year old geezers at one of the front tables get up and dance. Five guest rappers and singers provided the icing on the cake.

The concert was supposed to have ended after about an hour, but after 75 minutes, Spiritchild apologised that they were not very good at keeping time, then went on to play a 15 minute song, after which it was announced that their time had been extended, to the enthustiastic approval of the crowd.

As it turns out, Mental Notes are touring Europe and the Middle East this autumn. They told me that they were coming to Paris, but their tour schedule doesn’t seem to reflect this at the moment. I hope they will be there, though – I’d love to see their show again.

Another intern (Diego, Argentina) drove me home. We arrived at about 4am.

I would have loved to show some photos of all this, but I didn’t think the club would allow me to take pictures, so i didn’t bring my camera. As it turned out, non-flash photography was allowed. However, I have lots of pictures from other stuff I’ve been doing. We’re back to pictures taken with my phone, so don’t expect to be able to see much. The pictures are from my first weekend here, when we went to a park to play frisbee and football, and from my walk around Manhattan, this final part being from Greenwich Village:

That’s about it for this time. I’m going to the pub across from the sushi place to get a burger. Those guys know how to make burgers.

Next weekend takes me to Buffalo, where one of the other interns (Ian, the camera geek) and his recently acquired wife have invited me and a few of the other interns to their wedding reception. At least, that’s what Ian tells me. I haven’t actually received the invitation yet. But hey, I can always gatecrash.

The following weekend takes me to Toronto, where Don Ross is giving a concert. Interestingly, that trip takes me right through Buffalo…

Another observation to round things off: The movie Brüno premiered last week, causing some protests here and there. Most notably, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) criticised the film for “promoting a stereotypical view of homosexuality”. What is interesting about that statement is that the alliance supports (and in some cases even takes part in) practically every single Gay Pride parade in the US…

/J

There are lots of things I would like to share with you. First of all, I would like to share is the fact that I am currently eating ice cream with Valrhona chocolate, bought in the local branch of Whole Foods (note that I am only sharing the fact, not the actual ice cream). Excellent stuff! And I’m allowed to eat lots of ice cream, because of the second thing I would like to share with you, which is that I have a sore throat and that I am on antibiotics.

I would also like to share with you that ‘The Algebraist’ by Iain M. Banks is an awesome book. Anyone who is not prone to nightmares should read it, and should you, as I am, be prone to nightmares, reading a chapter just before bedtime will provide hours of entertainment.

So, anyway.

One of the interns (Ian, Canada) is a camera geek. He went with me to my trip to Staten Island a few weeks ago, and afterwards talked me into buying a decent camera, because he got tired of watching me take pictures with my phone. So this Sunday, we went to Adorama (a shop which mostly employs Jews, and which is hence open on Sundays, but not on Saturdays) in Manhattan, bought a camera for me, and spent the rest of the afternoon playing with it. Some samples:

I’m getting tired, and I still haven’t finished my book, so I’m going to stop writing for today. I believe I still owe you descriptions of Montréal, Staten Island, half of my walk around Manhattan, plus a few tidbits from around the place. With a bit of luck, I’ll find the time to write about at least some of it later this week.

A small observation to round things off: There are at least three different brands of pill against male impotence being marketed on US television. Now, what is important to realise in this respect is that “being marketed on TV in the US” means that you get to see the TV ad every 5-10 minutes. In other words, at least 3 times every 5-10 you’re being told that “It’s allright if you can’t get it up. Don’t worry. Just take this pill. You don’t even have to put in an effort to get it up anymore. Just let it hang. This pill will do all the work for you when the time comes. You’ll never need to think another sexual thought again.” And ads like that are designed to creep into your mind without you knowing about it, and so in effect, these ads are designed to make you impotent! It freaks me out! So I have employed my own counter-measures: I have increased my daily dose of internet porn. For health reasons only, of course.

Independence Day is traditionally celebrated by getting together with some friends or family, eating barbeque until you drop, and watching fireworks. However, since I do not have any real friends or close family over here, since I don’t have a grill, since I am getting too old to be impressed by fireworks, and since I don’t really feel any obligation to celebrate the independence of a country that is not my own (or the loss of said country from another country that is also not my own), I have decided to go to Montreál instead. And what’s in Montreál? Only the biggest jazz festival in the world.

I have rented a car (it’s about a 7 hour drive), I have booked a hotel room (the Hilton, as a matter of fact, about 500m from the festival area), and I have managed to convince IBM that I should have Thursday off, so that I have all day to travel.

Anyway, since I haven’t left yet, I can’t really write anything much about the festival, so I should probably catch up on all the stuff I haven’t written about yet.

My last post ended with me and the guys having walked through Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum. A very impressive building, but I didn't really feel like going inside.
Instead, I took the subway to Lower Manhattan. This is how a subway station looks like. Unfortunately, my phone wasn't able to capture the very heavy smell of pee...

I got off at the subway station Brooklyn Bridge, which is not near enough to the actual bridge that I felt like going to see it. Instead, i just started to wander around the area. At this time, it was raining a bit, but my lousy camera makes it look alot worse:

Some sort of monument near Foley Sq. I haven't been able to find out what it is:

Some wet chessboards. I think this small park is called City Hall Park:

I think this impressive building is a US federal courthouse, but neither of our guide books mention it as a sight.

Walking north, I ended up in Chinatown. What surprised me the most about Chinatown was that English is in fact hardly ever spoken there. As you can see from the pictures, some shops don’t even have an English name. It’s a spectacular place, though. Lots of tiny shops selling almost anything you can think of, vegetable and fish stalls in the street, and lots and lots and lots of people hustling and bustling. Only one thing bothered me: It was hard to blend in.

At the south end of Chinatown. This arch commemorates the asian Americans who fell during World War II.	A look up Bowery, which seems to be the main street running through Chinatown.	A Citibank branch, with its name spelled in Mandarin as well, for the benefit of the locals.
Mott St., one of the small side streets.	Cramped shops.	Even more extreme than Citibank, this shop doesn't have an English name.
A restaurant's menu, again with no English. And yes, I have actually verified that this is a menu - my office mate is Chinese.	Dried foodstuffs from a street shop. I have no idea what is in the boxes. On of them looked like dried prawns, but my office mate suggested that it might have been dried prawn shells. Weird stuff.	Food!!! Fried fowls.
A street vegetable stall. Stalls like this are all over the place.	A fresh fish shop. Again, places like this were everywhere. Must be a great place to shop for food.

I didn’t get a picture of all the foot-and-back-rub shops in the area. There are loads of them, but I didn’t really feel that they were significant, until two ladies standing in front of one started talking in very luring voices to come in for a rubdown. I resisted the temptation, though.

Next stop was Little Italy. According to my guidebook, Little Italy used to be proper Italian, but it is slowly but surely being squeezed out of existence by an expanding Chinatown. Apart from that, i was getting really tired and thirsty, so I decided to take a look at Little Italy over a glass of wine at one of the very nice looking restaurants in the area. In other words, I didn’t get to see much, and so there aren’t that many pictures:

A welcome gate to Little Italy.

Same welcome gate, but from my position at the restaurant.

A very small protest in favour of stopping the 9/11 coverup. Keep up the fight, guys - who knows what kind of idiotic cause you would start fighting for if you gave up this one.

Next up was a walk through Soho. Not alot to see here, unless you’re in the mood for shopping for expensive brands.

The Evolution Shop. Looks spooky...	...and the window doesn't make it any less spookier.	Decorative shellfish.
And some very nice butterflies.	Some sort of fancy, way too expensive shop.	More fanciness.
A fancy furniture shop.	Broadway, seen from the intersection with Broome St.	Broadway, seen from the same place, but in the other direction (yeah, running out of inspiration here ).

Next up was a walk to Union Square, which took me through Greenwich Village. But I’m getting tired, and I really need to get enough sleep before my long drive tomorrow, so the Village will have to wait. And yes, I know that I’m falling behind by only describing a third of a weekend every week, but I find that experiencing stuff is somewhat more interesting than writing about it.

/J

The excursion started at our local bus stop. Five guys went - (from left to right) Cem ("Jim", Turkey), Luke (UK), Yohan (Trinidad), Øystein (Norway) and this humble author (Denmark, behind the camera) with no particular plan in mind, except to have a good time in New York City. As I understand it, only Cem had been in NYC before, so there was every opportunity to get lost. We didn't even bring a map.

First stop (after White Plains Station and Grand Central Station) was Times Square, for no particular reason other than to see what the place was like, to get some lunch, and because Cem was heading that way, and nobody else knew where they wanted to go. It’s surprising how lost you can feel in a city where most of the streets are organised in a square grid. I suppose the lack of planning was part of the cause of the confusion, but I don’t like to plan too much – getting lost is much more fun. On the way to Times Square, Luke decided to try out his self-devised strategy of buying whatever the shop clerk or waiter claims is the best choice. We ended up with a map of mediocre quality (lots of sights, but with lots of streets missing) and a guide book of questionable quality. (Admittedly, his strategy did work when he ordered his dinner)

Some pictures from Times Square:

Over lunch we discussed what to do for the rest of the day. It quickly became apparent that everyone but I (not including Yohan, who had gone to Queens to visit his cousin) wanted to go to the Metropolitan Museum, and since we couln’t think of anything we all wanted to do, we decided to walk to the Met and then split up.

The way to the Met went through Central Park, where we had quite a nice walk, without getting lost (Luke’s map was, again, of very little help). I took lots of pictures, but not all of them are very good, and about half of them are of stuff that I have no idea what is (buildings in particular). Some pictures of Central Park:

South-west entrance to Central Park	In the middle of NYC, with NYC in the distance:	A tranquil spot in the middle of the metropolis:
A large rock formation in the park:	On the rocks:	Cem doing some unimpressive rock climbing. Sadly, I didn't catch him when he really panicked.
An American black squirrel. Apparently, they are becoming extinct...	...because of the European squirrel:	There are fences around all the lawns in Central Park, which seemed ridiculous to me, until I saw this sign - the fences are there to protect the elm trees:
A soft, almost bouncy stone surface. I think they put some sort of rubber mat underneath:	An impressive house in the playgrounds. I think it's the toilets...	Slow traffic:
A beautiful and idyllic lake...	...until you take a closer look at the water. Yuck! (according to Cem, it's legal to swim here...)	But a nice looking restaurant by the lake. Can we get a discount if we sit right by the lake?
Ignored sign. As a matter of fact, the sign was exactly the same on the opposite side, so I can only assume the pedicabs are not allowed to enter the area I was standing in. But why would you ever print such a message on both sides of a sign?	The fountain in Central Park. Its name eludes me.

I spent the rest of the day walking through Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho and Greenwich Village, but it’s getting really late, and I have lots of things to do tomorrow, so the pictures and stories from that walk will have to wait. But before I wrote all of the above, I uploaded some random stuff to end this post:

By request, I have taken a few pictures. First, here is a rush hour photo of the street I had to cross to get to the diner:

And here are some pictures from the sushi place I can’t stop myself from going to. The name of the place is Ichi Riki, in case someone reading this is in the White Plains area some time:

Oysters:	A local specialty - the Crystal Roll:	Another specialty - the Lobster Roll:
Luxury sushi - Salmon eggs, full fat tuna, sea urchin, white tuna and a tuna maki roll:	Fresh water eel:	Red snapper:
The chef who made this magnificent feast:

And finally, a few observations about the US:

• 
  

  An exit one of the highways: One can only assume that the exit leads to a cinema...

• One of the news stories this week was about this high school in Minnesota (or somewhere) where the girls could earn up to $2000 for their college studies, provided they didn’t become pregnant during high school. A very commendable idea, I think, given that teenage pregnancies is quite a big problem in this country. What stumped me, however, was the final sentence of the news story: “Should a girl become pregnant, the money she has earned will be distributed among the other students.” In other words, any particular girl actually gains if she can somehow get one of the other girls pregnant, e.g. by handing out defective condoms to her friends…
• The labels on beer bottles in this country encourages people to “drink responsibly”. One can then but wonder why none of the beer bottles I have looked at (and I assure you I have looked at many) tell you the alcohol percentage of the contents…

/J

As a matter of fact, I’m not in New York, except I am. I live in Elmsford, which is rougly 35km north of Manhattan, I work in Hawthorne, which is a few km further north, and neither of those cities are part of New York City. Except it’s hard to tell the difference, because there’s nothing but city from here to Manhattan. But anyway, Elmsford (and Hawthorne) is in New York State, so I guess I am in New York. Except not. You pick.

As of today, I have been here for 18 days, and I’m getting the hang of the place. Fortunately, I’m only here for 3 months, so I can still convince myself that I’m just a visitor, and that I therefore do not need to get used to all the things that make USA USA. Hopefully, I will be able to avoid the emotional crisis that happened to me after about a month in England. I doubt it, but I hope.

The first particular American (sorry, Marjory, but no-one understands what USian means) thing I noticed is the traffic. It took less than an hour from my flight landed until I was stuck in New York traffic, and can you name a more particularly American thing than that? Things got even more fun when I arrived at my hotel at 7pm (after having been on the road since 12:30am eastern time). I was starving, I was exhausted, and I just wanted something to eat and then have a nice long nights sleep. So I decided to try out the diner across the street.

This is the diner: This is the street I had to cross to get to the diner: .

In other words, I had to spend about an hour in my hotel room for traffic to settle down a little, before I could get something to eat. The food wasn’t even very nice – imagine a chicken taco where you cannot taste the chicken The best that can be said for that meal was that the rice and beans were nice, and that the meal was huge. Oh yeah, and so was the dessert:

The following day I found a very, very nice sushi place, which I have visited way too often since then.

Fortunately, I have not fallen into the fast food trap. I was really worried about that when I came here, so I have actually made an effort to eat healthy. I have later found out that US fast food is of exceptionally poor quality, so you do not fall into the fast food trap unless you insist on doing so. As a matter of fact, I haven’t drunk soda for a week now, but that’s not so much a conscious choice as it is a consequence of the amount of sugar in American sodas. My stomach simply cannot handle a bottle of Coke, so I make due with water, orange juice and tea. And beer, of which most restaurants have a varied, plentyful, and tempting selection. Sadly, the tap water in this area is full of chloride, and my stomach handles that even worse than the sugar, so I have to buy destilled water. Still, I’d rater pay a few dollars every week than to have constant stomach ache.

As another part of my health trip/living the American experience, I have started playing in the IBM softball league. I completely suck at it, but so do most of the others. And anyway, it’s not like you get lots of exercise by playing softball. Mostly, you just stand around waiting for your turn to bat, or for someone to hit a ball to your area of the field. But hey, with a bit of luck, I can pick up a few tricks that will be useful when I start playing cricket in September.

Anyway, I have 18 days of stories to tell, but only a few more minutes before I want to go to sleep, so I think I will just stop here. I will try to write some more tomorrow, or later this week. Or maybe not. It depends. Or not. You pick.

/J