Dago in New York

This weather...

2006-10-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

... is really tricking us again and again. For the third time we postponed a Friday day-trip to a close by national park due to the weather forecast just to see the blue skies and sun all the day. Next week, we will go for sure! Here are some nice pictures from Dennis, who enjoyed a rivercruise during the week. We also went to a concert of the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing Beethoven's second and third synphonie. A friend of a friend works in the Philharmony and could get tickets for free (normally $100). It was a perfect experience! We had a little box on the first level and really enjoyed the music. What a pity that the day was ruined by Alonso winning the Japanese Grand Prix later that night! ;-)

Strange feeling...

2006-10-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

... when the plane crashed into the building on Thursday. I was sitting in my restructuring class and just saw the headline on CNN ten minutes after the plane crashed. I haven't heard about a plane crashing into a building within 5 years now and it is really strange that this happened in New York again. The first thoughts were clearly circling around terrorism and you could sense the tension and curiosness in the whole class. Nobody was listening to the professor who hadn't heard of anything. Everybody was just staring at the Laptop, clicking "refresh" every now and then to see the latest development. It was clear that it was not terror even before the class was over but nevertheless, people seemed to be very worried and sad.

Many Visitors...

2006-10-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

... these days! Many friends paid me a visit and I am not talking about those imaginary people telling me always to buy more pizza and read cases, but real ones ;-). First, as i wrote on the blog last week, Daniel and David came over for a few days. Then Anne from Frankfurt had a stay-over with Lufthansa here in New York. And now, Dennis from Valencia is here just before Denis from North Carolina will arrive in two days. Further, the work load at NYU increased exponentially and everybody requires assignments, mid-terms and essays to be written. This week I have been to the Natural History Museum which was probably the best museum I have seen so far here in New York. The only disadvantage is its size. It is HUGE! There is no way you can read and see everything interesting within one day. I was a little bit puzzled by their extrapolation of world population growth in the next 50 years. If there numbers are right, there will be very little room for people on this planet in a cpuple of decades, when population numbers will pass 10, 20 and supposedly even 50 billion. Investments in real estate sound like a clever idea. I only saw a third of the museum and definitely have to go back soon. One very convenient fact is that they do not have a predefined entrance fee but a suggested contribution to their foundation. Theoretically you could just donate one cent to see the museum. Cheap education!

The Empire...

2006-10-03T04:59:00.000-07:00

… State Building is where we went yesterday. We had the day off for the Jom Kippur weekend and the weather was once more beautiful for early October. So we lined up at 9:30 am at the tallest building in New York. Built in 1930 in just 14 months, the skyscraper consists of 10 million bricks, 500 miles of steel and 1,100 miles of telephone cables. The organizational flow was organized such that the steel came directly from the mill and was placed at its destiny while it was still warm. 73 elevators transport the 18,000 daily workers and 3.8 million annual tourists up the building. A weird feeling to go the first 80 floors in just one minute. It feels like a plane is starting. It takes three months for a team to clean all the windows. Though there was no students rebate, the 16 dollars were well invested! The view is amazing and all of a sudden New York seems to be much more under- standable and much smaller. We spent more than an hour up there and just then the wind started to get a little bit chilly and we started our descent. I wonder whether there is a seven summit club for the worlds highest buildings? ;-)

MoMA...

2006-10-03T04:55:00.000-07:00

… was the program for Sunday. A little bit hangover, we lined up at the museum Sunday morning. Besides the other 2 million people who wanted to get in there at the same time, it were my two German friends, Daniel and David who went there with me. After seeing Reina Sofia, the Prado and Thyssen Bornemisza just a couple of months ago, I have to admit that the MoMA is definitely the best of the four. The “modern” is what I like about it. What is only one floor Reina Sofia, is basically the whole theme in the MoMA, the art starting in the late 19th century going until video installations and a light switch turning on and off the lights constantly. One of my favorites was definitely a tiny (real) helicopter hanging in the museum, some industrial “art” and design of the 60s and 70s and some pictures from Magritte and Klimt. For the third time, I was very, very impressed by the pictures of Yves Klein. Even though it is just monochrome blue for example, these picture seem to have so much energy! The four hours there were well invested and maybe I’ll come back here with some later visitors!

First visitors…

2006-10-03T04:49:00.000-07:00

… Daniel and David, two of my friends from Solingen are just staying in New York for a five day short trip. They found a really cool offer putting them in a four start hotel at the cost of a youth hostel! I will spend some days with them exploring the city and talking about old times ;-). After a rainy walk to the museum, the sun came out later that day and gave us some pretty nice hours walking through Central Park, the Upper West Side and the Hudson River Park.

Heros for a day...

2006-10-02T07:02:00.000-07:00

I guess by now most readers of this blog realized that there is a rivalery between UNC and Duke. Both universities are located in the Raleigh/Durham area (with NC State being the third one) and both teams are always among the elite when it comes to College Basketball. While the Duke Blue Devils have currently a longer streak of NCAA tournament appearances, UNC has more national titles and the best player ever to play the game (Yes, Michael Jordan was a Tar Heel!!).

So, there shouldn't be any discussion about which school is better (UUUUU-AAENNNNN-CCCEEEEEEEE, UNC!). But the dark blue guys still challenge UNC teams every once in a while. So yesterday the MBA Soccer match was on, and it was our time to shine. Usually, the MBA schools of each university are not very well known for there athletic abilities but in every UNC-Duke game is going to be intense.

So after driving into the enemy's terretory, 14 Tar Heels faced 15 Blue Devils and after 2 injuries we ended up having only one sub. To make a long story short, we dominated the first half, but having too many Latins in a team means a lot of nice tricks but usually no goals. On the other hand, Duke played efficient and was up 1-0. After equalizing early in the 2nd half, Duke was up 2-1 with 10 minutes left. After some cocky remarks from the blue devil side, we turned the game around within 3 minutes and won 3-2. I repeat TAR HEELS WIN!!!!!!

Great day, great game, and we now hope to continue that way during next weekends tournament at Yale.

Coney Island...

2006-09-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

... is where we went last weekend. Cedric wrote about it a couple of days ago. It is actually not a real island but the southern part of Brooklyn. It is like getting into the subway in New York and getting out just 40 mins later in a completely different world. This place reminds me more of a little town in the mid-west than a part of New York. The beach (which is contradicting the mid-west idea) is surprisingly clean but the water itself looks just like you would expect it to look flowing out of East and Hudson River. No swimming!! Besides the New York Aquarium (which was really good) Nathan's is the biggest attraction. This fast food restaurant does not only claim to have invented the hot dog they also host the annual hot dog eating contest (Trace???). In former years, I would have been easy even for me to win that competition as a smooth 15 to 20 hot dogs would have been enough to win. Then, all of a sudden in the late 90's, a Japanese guy comes along and eats 50 (yes, 50!!!) hot dogs. And he weights barely a third of what the average contestant at this competition weights. Strange! He won the contest now for seven consecutive years and there is no end in sight. His appetite is unlimited! On Coney Island, you can even buy videos of his "performance".

Powerball

2006-09-28T08:07:00.000-07:00

I think everybody heard of the Powerball lottery. Every once in a while the jackpot is up to $200 or 300 million and everybody goes crazy and buys tickets. Then a week later, you see some random person on TV holding a check and talking about all the great things he/she is going to do with the money. Well last weekend on the way back from rafting, we all bought a ticket a gas station.

Today, I checked the numbers and.....I WON!!!!!! unbelievable but true, I won $ 2. Too bad, that I have to claim the ticket in West Virginia. Given the gas prices it is not really worth driving up 2 hours. It would have been soooo nice, it would have paid for 8 beers tonight at the Martini Bar. Well, I guess I have to pay the 25 cents per beer now out of my own pocket....

River rafting...

2006-09-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

...this weekend we went to West Virginia to the Upper Gauley which is one of the Top 5 rivers for rafting in the world! As a complete rafting rookie, I felt kind of nervous when the trip started. But with a great team effort and thanks to a very experienced guide we managed to get down the river without falling off the raft or major injuries (little stitches dont count).

As you can imagine, it is kind of hard to take pictures in the raft while fighting the river, so instead I posted a group picture from the dinner on the night before. The place we ate at is called Dirty Ernie's Ribs (no comment).

It was a great experience that I highly recommend to anyone who is close to West Virginia. The company we rafted with is called Rivermen and offers discounts for students. So to all of you, who will go one day: have fun, come back healthy and if you find yourself under water close to a big undercut rock, DON'T GIVE UP!

9/11...

2006-09-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

... Many of you asked me ow it was to be here on 9/11. Well, it was ok. We had an even of NYU remembering not only the members of university that died that day but also those who were volunteering to help where ever they could. I didn't go down to the WTC site on that particular day but have been there a couple of times already. It is impressive and kind of depressing. But what strikes me most is what little goes on there. Taking into consideration that ground zero is in the heart of the city I as mayor or construction manager would do everything to get this scar away asap. But not really much goes on there! Funny though is this sign warning of blasts. A thing you would not expect in a city center! The pic above is one displayed at the site. I was impressed by the sheer panic in the eyes of the people. It is really a terrifying even now just to see these people and try to imagine what they might have felt on that particular day in this very moment. Since then, feelings for the event itself and the tragedy for many individuals haven't changed. But there is a movement questioning the source of this terror which tries to earmark the whole attacks as a conspiracy. Yeah, like the moonlanding you might say. Just another stupid conspiracy theory of people who don't know what else to do. But apparenty (according to the 'trustworthy' source www.youtube.com more than 36% of Americans question the official media coverage) it is something to be at least aware of. To be honest, I was shocked after watching THIS documentary! Check it out and tell me what you think!

Another Sunday in the park...

2006-09-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

... where we enjoyed the magnificent weather. We found this place where you can do International Folk Dancing. And all for free! Plus, you meet some interesting people who can tell you stories out of their often 90+ years of life experience. I left Cedric there for the rest of the day where he made some new friends ;-). Later that day, I enjoyed Roosevelt Island which has nothing really to offer besides a funicular (--> Seilbahn) connecting it with Manhattan. Other than that its just a hospital and some big apartment blocks that drive people to this small island between Manhattan and Queens. After that, I picked up Cedric and we wanted to go for a boat tour on Hudson River. But apparently even in the city that never sleeps boats are leaving only until 3 pm (???). Doing the laundry in one of these nice washing centers where American politics seems to be made finished off a rather quiet weekend.

What to say...

2006-09-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

... when being called on your mobile phone? Well, an easy question for Europeans, just as muchg as you want because its the caller who decided to call you so he is paying the bill and you don't have to bother whether he is calling from a landline or a mobile. It's different here in the States. Anybody who receives a call bears part of the costs. That means if the Off Campus Housing Center calls me from their landline to ask whether I still need the little yello card asking for accomodation (btw the firs call I ever received on that yellow card) which I put on their blackboard, I have to pay part of the calling fee. In this case 30 Cents! This screws up the business model of many, many firms that operate more or less successfully in Europe. What about these nasty telemarketing companies selling you lottery tickets? You say that there is an even better environment for them here as they do not have to pay the full costs? Not really true because a caller who doesn't want anything I want is not only wasting my time but here also my money. So I guess that unsolicited calls will trigger some nice lawsuits. It also changes the behavior on the phone ;-). Smalltalk is out. Get to the point! Tell me what you want and don't waste my time (Time = Money)!!! Mmmmhhhh, I think in this regard I have been americanized before! Best from New York to the rest of the world!

Fantasy Football...

2006-09-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

...a big part of American culture. At least for guys that are interested in sports, which is a vast majority of the US male population. So, this year for the first time in my life, I joined a league. Its members are mainly MBA students.

Although I never had a team before and my knowledge of the NFL is reduced to some superstars and 49ers players, I was able to put together a nice team (according to my friends in Madrid who reviewed my team). I won my season opener and hope to continue winning...

It is definetely fun, although a little overwhelming at the beginning. But being on exchange means to learn about the culture of that respective country and learn what hobbies people have. I can now make a tick mark next to fantasy football.

Given that I can do the same for tailgaiting, flip cup, beer pong, watching a football game and learning how to throw a football, I think I am off to a good start in becoming an Americanized student.

As always, GO HEELS and GO TO HELL DUKE! ;)

No business trash...

2006-09-13T06:51:00.000-07:00

... I wonder whether that is ok? Well, as Cedric posted on his blog (see links) the city really has a waste problem! Even if you say "eat in" at my favorite coffee place (Coffee + Breakfast Burger (!) $ 1.75) they wrap it up in two bags. Just so that the incredible weight of a coffee and a burger really doesn't brake through the bag on the way to a table. Since a couple of months, New YOrkers are asked to seperate their waste, just for me to see the garbage collectors throw everything into the same truck. Well, we had that in Germany too, some 15 years ago ;-). Walking through New York in the morning is still quite ok but over the day more and more waste "mountains" pile up along the streets so that by late afternoon great parts of the sidewalk are covered by a cloud of not so appealing smells. It's like sitting next to Karim after an indian dinner!

A picnic in the park...

2006-09-13T06:40:00.000-07:00

... Last weekend the sun finally came out for more than just 45 minutes and we went to Central Park for a really cool picnic. After just a ten minute walk from Broadway, you are in the midst of nothing. Almost forest-like, you can forget the city and all its hastiness for a few hours. We found a spot where just 3 or four other people were and it really felt great. If I only had some cases to read ;-). We had bread and Hummos (which I never had heard of --> apparently some mashed white peas) and some grapes afterwards. Mmmmmhhhh, New York rulez.

Thank you Mastercard...

2006-09-11T07:29:00.000-07:00

...Round-trip ticket Cologne-Raleigh/Durham: $ 900.
6 months rent: $ 2950.
6 pack of beer: $ 6.
Tailgaiting with friends in front of business school at 10 in the morning: PRICELESS!

So this was it. My first tailgaiting experience last Saturday. Before the UNC-Virginia Tech game (let's not talk about it), first and second year MBA students met on-campus to get ready for the game or just to drink (some people didn't have tickets).

What started as a classic tailgate with kegs and BBQ very quickly turned into a big party with beer-pong, flip-cup and some other drinking games. We had lots of fun and I can't wait for next Saturday: next game (hopefully the first win for the Tar Heels) and more importantly the next tailgate.

Where to invest your money...

2006-09-10T17:22:00.000-07:00

... if still something is left after your Harley purchase. Well, I am not a person with excellent prediction skills but if I had to foresee one stock to rise, it would be apple! When I came to IE almost a year ago, there were two people in my section using an apple notebook. And to be honest I didn't like them (the computers, not the guys!). During the course of the year, I saw more and more people switching. The latest converters were two good friends in North Carolina, who found that their budget are way too big after they realized a beer is 25 Cents. Even back in Solingen, my best friend switched to an Apple. Also my girlfriend was pressuring as she worked on one everyday. Well, I am not a trend setter, probably just a late follower. But the number of MacBooks you see around here is stunning! You can find at least as many Macs as PCs. In one of our computer labs, you can see 100 neatly lined up Macs, all shining in brand new white and waiting for you. Officially for Andrea, I bought one today. I am the proud co-owner of a MacBook now. And as an educational discount, I got an Ipod nano and a really cool priter/scanner/copier, too. Just the cable for the printer is missing (!). And probably the cardridges are already empty! But even better, I bought the whole stuff at 10 am, Sunday morning. And the exchange rate saved me another 400 Euro!!! I love America!

What to do...

2006-09-09T07:36:00.000-07:00

... with all the time and money?? This is a very, very hard question in the lives of many New Yorkers. And apparently they come up with new stuff all the time to make their time here as interesting as possible. The latest seems to be the following: You just buy a Harley Davidson. Nothing new about that? Well, you not just buy it, but you take the loudest and biggest model and then you get a cool sound tuning. This makes you bike as loud as a 747 when starting. It is amazing, the ground is trembling and your ears are hurting. Still nothing groundbreaking? Well, then you can enjoy the following game. First you find a pal who invested the same crazy amount into his Harley. The you cruise down the Broadway. Not really quick, but accelerating every 20 metres just to brake again. YOu don't do that in the middle of the street but on one of the outer lines. To scare off pedestrians? Well, yes but thats not the main reason you do that! All the parked cars in New York have these fancy alarm systems reacting to trembling. See my point? I heard them quite often but yesterday I saw those two bikes coming down Broadway. And almost every car they passed had its alarm going off!! Those guys had lots of fun and were obviously competing on how many alarms each one could trigger. Nice game. And I guess the Hell's Angels membership comes for free! New Yorkers!

How to tip....

2006-09-07T05:30:00.000-07:00

....when the beer is just 25 cents? My dilemma on various nights out at Chapel Hill. There are a couple of places that offer Budweiser and other cheap American beer for a quarter at different nights. So what to do? Stick to the 20% rule and leave 5 cents? No, that's stupid.

Give a dollar and let him/her keep the change? Not really. Just order more beer and tip a dollar? Maybe. But what do I want with 5 Budweiser for example. It takes 5 minutes (the time it neeeds to be not ice cold anymore) and you realize that it taste like s#?* and you would rather spen $ 3 on a Beck's.

So far we have been sticking to the rule, buy a round, give 2 bucks extra for the friendly service. Still feels akward, but hey, after a couple of rounds you stop to worry about this. So, what else is left to say other than CHEERS!

First day of classes...

2006-09-06T16:52:00.000-07:00

... and again, many impressions, partly impressive but some also a bit disappointing. To start with the rather bad news, classes are a lot bigger than I expected. The counselor and international students girl told us that we should expect class sizes of 20 to 30 students but apparently the courses we chose are followed by 50 or more students. I guess still not a surprisingly high number if you take NYU's sheer size into consideration. I attended a Damodaran class, Corporate Finance, and guess what, 300(!) other students were enjoying his performance! (He is the real star of the university) A day earlier we already saw him but mistankenly thought he was some sort of technical assistant for his really young appearance. Gladly, we didn't tell him that! ;-) However, I will not be taking his class as I heard the topic before and apparently our professor (Chavez) did an excellent job having even a comparable style to Damodaran.

The other classes I had were impressive for both the quality of professors and students. I guess an exciting and also stressful semester lies ahead as the first readings remember me of the second term at IE. Participation is a lot less important :-(. Cold calling is done often (Sorry Karim, for you it would be the land of C's) and grades are curved comparably to IE!

Ah, one thing that really bothers e about NY, you never find a bar when you need one! If you decide to take a drink in Madrid, its 25 meters max to the next bar and here we walk for ages until we find a crappy little place selling a beer at 5$! Not good!

Wilmington and Outer Banks....

2006-09-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

We used the Labor Day weekend to go to the beach. After a two hour ride from Chapel Hill, we arrived at Wilmington which close to the border to South Carolina. The weather was amazing. We spend the entire Sunday at Wrightsville Beach. Today, we drove for another two hours to see another beach. We ended up at Atlantic Beach.

As you can see in the picture my healthy diet (fried stuff with cheese) and my commitment to workout has let to an unbelievable body.

As I realized during the last two days, I might have overcome the culture shock Madrid vs. Chapel Hill. But there is still a huge difference between people in Chapel Hill and people further south. When we went to a bar last night, it became pretty obvious. Not only were guys wearing cowboy hats, people were bullriding in the bar and dancing old school western formation dances. And it wasn't like the somewhat sexy version of Jessica Simpson's 'These boots are made for walkin' but more like 'Cotton Eye Joe'.

I am not judging, only saying that is different. So, as always...
...GO HEELS! AND GO TO HELL DUKE! :)

With the sun....

2006-09-04T06:32:00.000-07:00

... came a room for me, too. On Saturday, a Lady whose room I turned down previously called me. She had another room available asap and I could take a look at it. I went there and found my little room which will hopefully give me shelter for the entire period I am here in NY. It is in walking distance to the university!!! And by walking distance I don't mean hiking for 4 hours but smoothly wandering for 12 minutes. I live on 15th street now in Chelsea. The room (see pics) has a mezzanine bed, a desk, drawer and closet and two relaxing leather chairs with a small table. I have a fridge and washing place within my room. No kitchen though. But as posted earlier, this will not give me huge problems. The bathroom is the only (big) compromise as I have to share this rather disgusting and plain thing with two other tenants of the house. I pay only 880 $!!! This is like finding a 2 bedroom apartment in Madrid for 600 € or a 3 Zimmer Wohnung in Solingen for 150 €! I am really happy now and started settling down. I can even steal an Internet connection at most times so that everything seems to be perfect.

Turn it blue!

2006-09-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

So yesterday the College Football season started for the UNC Tar Heels. The school is not very well known for its football team. The Tar Heels are very succesful in basketball and soccer. However, the season opening game yesterday was great fun.

Yes, we lost. To Rutgers. And yes that is not very good. But being at a college Football Game for the first time was quite an experience. Kenan Stadium is about 10 minutes walking distance from my apartment. So while most people had to come by car, find and pay for parking, I could just walk over.

Although there is no alcohol sold in the stadium, people can go pretty crazy (see pic). I am not aware of all songs yet, but I hope that it will get better over the next weeks. We have two more home games before the Tar Heels play on the road for the first time. So my upcoming two Saturdays are pretty much set in terms of afternoon entertainment. Next week also including tailgaiting...

GO HEELS!

Introducing...

2006-09-03T07:24:00.000-07:00

...me!

So Dago invited me to join is blog. From today on, I will try to add to this amazing blogging experience with stories from Chapel Hill.

I am studying here at the University of North Carolina. I know, it doesn't sound as glamorous as New York City, but it is really nice here.

The weather is great; beer, rent and everything else is a lot cheaper than in the city, and I can say that I study at the same university that Michael Jordan used to visit.

I'd love to write more today, but we are heading to the beach now. More from NC next week. So, go Heels! And GO TO HELL DUKE!

Cheers.

When in Rome...

2006-09-03T06:32:00.000-07:00

...do as the Romans do! According to this saying, we tried to adapt to the American way of living. This seems to be a very radical step which requires some of us to get rid of their cultural backrounds completely. But as you can see, the conversion was not so hard for all of us! Please do not report this to Mr Chirac or the French ministery in general but I think Ceddi and I are having a great time here. To not forget our cultural roots entirely, we burned some cars afterwards and read a couple of cases.

The city that never sleeps...

2006-09-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

... seems to be only awake to see it raining cats and dogs! Since I got here, so basically for 7 days, it is raining constantly. Not that the New Yorker would care. The streets are always full and even if only half the crowd has umbrellas, everybody enjoys the time here! If the rain goes on like that, I guess we see fisherman coming to try their luck on Broadway. It could look like this guy here...

I went to the movies today together with Cedric. We saw The Illusionist which was entertaining and sometimes even confusing. Further, we bought a glass table and 4 chairs for appealing 90 Dollars. Less work than IKEA and probably a good deal! Two days left until classes start and sometimes it seems to be really hard to kill some time when it is raining like that. No Central Perking nor Empire State Building. I was soaked two thirds of the day and tea and cookies seems to be more in place than a cana and tapas!

Tomorrow I will show you some more pics of NY and of Cedric, the car-burning gourmet, making his first experience with the american cuisine. Also there are some news on the house searching front! Stay tuned!

Where to look for a room...

2006-09-01T17:59:00.000-07:00

CRAIGSLIST is the answer everybody gave me. The "secret" tool for the wannabe New Yorker and general globeetrotter. Millions and millions of listings. Probably thousands of chances a day to find your dream accomodation. What a dirty lie! I came here believing that the house search will be hard and quite some work but what I had to face was ridiculous and really disappointing. Apparently is the house market in New York so tight that even hostels are booked out weeks in advance. I actually met some students planning to stay the entire semester in a hostel. When craigslist says it is a private listing, there is a 50% chance that actually you are talking to a broker. I f you meet him, the original flat is "just rented a minute ago". But guess what. For a tiny fee of 2000 $ he can provide you with an even better apartment or room. If you are "lucky" to mail the other 50 %, three fourths will never answer. The remainder actually gives you the chance to come and see the apartment in what is called an open house. These events only miss professional beer sellers and hot sausages! You will meet around 50 people all looking at the room. I learned fast that it is a stupid idea to say that you stay for only 4 months. But even if you are pretending to stay 25 years, there are other people waving with thousands of dollars (no joke!!!) just to get the apartment. Well, if those crazy Bill's and Lisa's are not there, the landlord requires an american guaranto who earns 80 times a months rent! Think about that! Here a short calculation:

You want to rent a studio (1 room) in Manhattan, old style and torn down: 2,200 $ a month
A years rent would be 26,400 $; 80 times a months rent would be 176,000 $ a year.

Besides me in 20 years, I know nobody who owns that money and has an american passport. (Trace, do you earn that money by any chance???)

Well, there is another categorie of landlords. The ones living in the apartment themselves. On average, we are talking about a 50 year old woman with 4 1/2 cats. I saw rooms where the bed was used as a cat toilet, rooms where cats were born and died and rooms where the old woman was not distinguishable from her cats. Purrrrrrrrr - Cats are ok??? Nope! Cats are fine, but I don't want to sleep in their toilet!

So how am I ever supposed to find an apartment?????

My Hostel....

2006-09-01T17:38:00.000-07:00

During the first days, I stayed here in a hostel. I advertised with private rooms. Take a look at what that means! I know its not a sharp picture but what you see is the bed. And right behind and in front and on every side is a wall!!! The whole room is just the bed. They say that creates privacy. However, the rooms are open at the top so that generally when standing you can look into the next "private" room easily. And it is really loud there as everybody comes home at different times. Not a question that my room was next to the shower which was running 24/7.

First learning experiences...

2006-09-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

Just coming home from a very discouraging and depressing activity.... My first grocery shopping tour! I felt quite happy when a friend told me that he knows a nice supermarket where I can buy average quality food at really good prices. So I went there and bought the following items (well, you know me, the itms were really the cheapest I could find!):

- a six pack Budweiser
- a Baguette
- 100 gr. Cheddar Cheese
- 100 Deutsche Leberwurst (cheap german wurst mmmmmm!)
- Honey mustard
- one tin of tuna in oil
- 226 gr. instant coffee

Take a guess what I paid! It was 26 $ !!!!! Unbelievable! If it wasn't crucial to survive I would stop eating. I don't know how New Yorker survive at these prices!!! I am sitting here now, sipping the beer and concluding for the day that the times I go shopping are probably not many during the next months. My HUGE (maybe even massive ;-)) shopping tour will not even saturate me for a weekend whereas I can eat out for that money for two days! Well, no gourmet restaurant but nice coffee and salad and pizza for sure. And food will never go stale in the fridge. Plus I will have nutritional variety. So no more grocery shoppig for me!

2006-09-01T17:26:00.000-07:00

It seems as if all my friends opened their own blog by now. So again, I will just a follower willing to keep this platform to keep you all up to date and provide one more way to communicate with me. I will try to enable multiple users to create blog entries so that this blog becomes not just a collection of my views.