I'm on the train now from Lausanne to the Geneva airport.
There seems to be a lot of sunflower grown in this part of the country. Just passed some apples too, and of course vines.
<I just realized something that has been underlying my feelings about Europe since I first came; everything seems so tame here. All has been handled and manipulated by man for centuries and it shows.>
There is also a lot of corn here, and ostensibly potatoes as I saw a McDo sign advertising 100% Suisse pommes de terres. There is a ridiculous amount of vine east of Lausanne along the hills next to the lake.
Ok, farm report over.
I'm now on the plane to Rome. I left my fucking hoodie in the terminal at the airport.
I was slightly concerned about what was going to happen when I arrived in Lausanne. I had no SIM card for my phone and I had merely told Eric to text Layi when to meet me at the station, since he would be at work when I came. When I got off the train, Eric was standing right at the door. He'd overslept and decided to skip work. This was fortuitous because right then he got a message from Layi that she was sick and just woke up. Not that it would have been terrible, but definitely rather annoying. As it was, we had a fantastic time.
We walked up the huge hill through town to his apartment. Lausanne is a really nice looking town. There is a medium sized valley which separates two parts of town, although it is filled with neighborhood and there are ways to get down. This valley affords plenty of nice views from the bridges.
<This airline is amazing. I paid 128 francs for Geneva-Rome and they had a nice little seating area at the airport with an easy chair that I totally snagged. On board we got these little fruit juices, then these amazing muffin things with fresh fruit (I scored one of the leftovers), then coffee, then hot face towels. I think the treatment has something to do with them being new though.>
There are a lot of pedestrian streets and cars are very respectful. We climbed up to his place, which is on the top floor of an "East German shoebox." There is the smallest elevator, which doesn't have any internal doors, so I was praying as we went up that nothing on my body would get caught as I was crammed between the bicycle and the moving floors outside. Eric has apparently found the exact angle to turn his handlebars so that nothing drags.
We picked up some picnic food at the nearby shop run by this friendly Sicilian guy and then went for cheaper better beer and some more grub at this huge supermarket way out of the way. We laughed about the fact that they had imported Coors Light for 4 francs per can, more expensive than the imported Miller. They also had Brooklyn Lager, which was kind of shocking.
We climbed way up into this nearby park and hung out on a bench under some trees while we wolfed down our food, us being insanely hungry by then. As we drank our beers we reflected on how nice it is in Europe not to have to worry about such nonsense of not being allowed to have a beer in the park. Turns out though that backwards Rome has passed a law prohibiting public drinking.
Later we hiked up further to this lookout tower. It is constructed with these huge timbers arranged in a spiral for stairs. This makes it so that there are two separate stairways, one on either side of the spiral. The view of the city, lake, and mountains from the top was spectacular. We also saw what must have been the largest helicopter I have ever seen. It was at this tiny airport and was really just way out of proportion.
After coming down we went to this pizzeria with a sweet outdoor space and had cappuccinos and played cards. Somehow Eric had never been even though it is right next to his place.
<We keep flying over these really cool islands off the west coast of Italy.>
After chilling at his place awhile and hitting the email, we went to this nearby bar that allows you to drink out in this public space that overlooks one of the main squares. The square is totally modern and hideous, but still a great place for beers.
<Holy shit! Now we are getting hot chocolate on this plane.>
On the way to the next place I stepped in this huge pile of fresh juicy shit, but didn't get it quite as bad as the previous shmoe who went front and center.
The next place was this nice fondue restaurant where we spent an amazing 48 francs splitting a fondue and a bottle of wine. It was worth it though as the courtyard we were in was really nice and the wine was quite good. Fondue was not my fav, but ok. There were three German girls sitting at the same table and the one who lived there started talking to us after overhearing our discussions of my planned bike trip. She was friendly and impressed by Americans who could "speak" three other languages. She tried to convince me to take my trip on Sat because it sounded really awesome to her but she had to work and her friends would have wanted nothing to do with such a venture. But alas for her I shall be gone. But Eric and her exchanged # and she will get the info.
After dinner we went to two more bars. The first brewed its own beer and Eric and I ended up trading after trying and liking the other's better. The bartender played an entire Ratatat album, which impressed Eric. Eric taught me about 4/4 beat and the difference between Fender guitars because I am pretty much completely ignorant about music.
The second bar was one that Eric thought he hated, but turned out to have really good beer, great sidewalk seating area and not be filled with schmucks. I love the Francophone obsession with outdoor seating. We ordered one too many beers, ending up fairly wasted and not feeling so fantastic in the morning.
I got over it pretty quickly though since I was meeting Layi at 11 to do some biking.
Landing!!
Friday, August 7, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
French dinner and deflating my ego
Cutting transport close, as always. I arrived at Gare Lyon at 7:49 for my 7:48 train to Lausanne. The machine wouldn't give me my ticket b/c I didn't have a Euro Mastercard (thwarted again!). Then apparently I had to go to a different ticket counter, as the guy I asked pointed me in another direction. I ran over and there were about ten ppl in line. I quickly explained my situation to the lady who stands at the entrance to the queue answering questions and she told me I needed to ask the 1st person in line. The eyes of the guy at the head of the line got really huge when I said, "j'ai un reservation pour 7:58" and he quickly waived his hand toward the next ticket agent. I've been led to believe that French ppl don't move very quickly, but the ticket agent typed my ridiculously long name with amazing efficiency and told me I better run because doors close at 7:56. I did and made it w/a couple min to spare. I was happy to note that I did most of this in French. I am now sitting on the train.
Last night I was once again punished for my arrogance about directions. This is the second time in a month. I'm either becoming old, or just more of an asshole. The problem is that yes, I'm phenomenal with directions, probably much more so than the vast majority. However, while a good part of it is my ability to visualize everything, read between the lines, see through buildings, and memorize maps, a good 30-40% is due to my thoroughness. I recheck my map constantly, even though I know, I ask questions, make certain of the route, and question assumptions. So, from memory, my hosts' address is ## Rue du Jura, Stair B, 5th fl, rt. door, code ####B. I arrive right on time. I check the address, check the names on the door, and climb 5 flights, add one if you are American. Ok, which is right? Facing the doors, or facing the building? I guess doors but check names anyway. No name on either, only the middle door. But there is mail left on the floor in front of the left door and the name is wrong, perfect. Ring bell. Nothing. Ring again... wait ten minutes. Get bored and trudge down and wait ten more. Maybe she was in the shower. Climb back up. Ring bell. Nothing. Now I'm getting annoyed. She said 6:30. It's 7:10. I walk to the main street. Maybe I'll go to a kiosk and buy a phone card. Maybe I'll see a bar and leave a note on the door for where I am. A guy who could be CS type walks past and goes in the door. I follow and look to see if he went up the stair. Nope, back outside. ... CLICK <<eyes open wide>> I didn't verify the stair!! I used intuition - clearly A is left and B is right. I check. Huge silver letters clearly show that A is on the right and B is on the left. I climb again the 5 floors and Katia opens the door for me. She told me that she'd seen me downstairs and then I came in and they waited, but I never came.
<We just went past a river and I saw a guy reeling in a fish. I love when I get to observe these moments of action in the flash of time I happen to be passing.
These canned messages on the train are terrible. They are obviously computer generated. I don't see how it could be so expensive to just have someone record them. It would probably be cheaper than the computer software plus the tech support.>
Katia is from a suburb of Buenos Aires (she hates burbs) and Clement is from Savoie (French Alps). I think though that Katia spent many years in France. They had been neighbors in the neighborhood they lived in before and had met in a local bar.
After I got there and showered, they spent a bunch of time looking online for places to go out to dinner before we ended up going to a neighborhood called Butte aux Cailles, or literally, Quail's Hill. It used to be a separate village from Paris and still has a lot of small old homes. It is now a minor bar and restaurant district with two streets that are lined with several of each. We walked around for awhile looking at all the choices before going to one place that turned out to be full. K gave her number to the maître d’ who had huge bulging eyes, a giant smile and a leaning stance. He made a joke to me about how he wasn't trying to pick up my woman, but I didn't understand a thing and just smiled. We went off then to find an apéritif.
Clemente seems to like to let her lead, but she cannot make any decisions, so we spent a bunch of time wandering around. We tried a couple of places, but they did not serve drinks unless you were having dinner, which seemed pretty ridiculous especially for the one which was pretty much empty. We ended up going into a place which seemed pretty lame since it looked like a coastie posh lounge with red lights, faux leather seat cubes and tools sipping martinis, but the tool factor was lower than initially imagined and it actually turned out to be pretty decent. The waiter was really friendly, and I imagine quite funny although I couldn't understand a thing he said. We got rosé with which my only previous experience had been from a box or 5L jug. It was quite nice, and if I could tell the future from this train, I might say that I will buy some the day after I return home and drink it before watching a movie with Sal and Brandy.
We then had a nice long dinner at the other place with good wine and eating marmots (yes there is a dish called the marmot). We talked about our countries and they actually got my humor very well. I tried some of Clement's blood sausage and verified that I still despise it. This one didn't taste so much like a scab as like chalk. A step up no doubt, but a step from runny poop to corny poop is not such a step indeed. I had a pork calf over lentils, which was decent and we got an order of these cheesy mashed potatoes that were amazing. We were sitting on the street and they had a special table for pulling the potatoes, since they were more like cheese with mashed potato and could be pulled like taffy. Of course they immediately captured my heart. By the time we got our desert we had become extremely tired. This consisted of some strong berry sorbet with this Everclear/Moonshine type liquor. Yikes. I was ok, but a bit much. I dropped 30 euros, but it was a great time.
The high Alps are looming in the background and I finish this just in time as we are arriving in Lausanne.
Last night I was once again punished for my arrogance about directions. This is the second time in a month. I'm either becoming old, or just more of an asshole. The problem is that yes, I'm phenomenal with directions, probably much more so than the vast majority. However, while a good part of it is my ability to visualize everything, read between the lines, see through buildings, and memorize maps, a good 30-40% is due to my thoroughness. I recheck my map constantly, even though I know, I ask questions, make certain of the route, and question assumptions. So, from memory, my hosts' address is ## Rue du Jura, Stair B, 5th fl, rt. door, code ####B. I arrive right on time. I check the address, check the names on the door, and climb 5 flights, add one if you are American. Ok, which is right? Facing the doors, or facing the building? I guess doors but check names anyway. No name on either, only the middle door. But there is mail left on the floor in front of the left door and the name is wrong, perfect. Ring bell. Nothing. Ring again... wait ten minutes. Get bored and trudge down and wait ten more. Maybe she was in the shower. Climb back up. Ring bell. Nothing. Now I'm getting annoyed. She said 6:30. It's 7:10. I walk to the main street. Maybe I'll go to a kiosk and buy a phone card. Maybe I'll see a bar and leave a note on the door for where I am. A guy who could be CS type walks past and goes in the door. I follow and look to see if he went up the stair. Nope, back outside. ... CLICK <<eyes open wide>> I didn't verify the stair!! I used intuition - clearly A is left and B is right. I check. Huge silver letters clearly show that A is on the right and B is on the left. I climb again the 5 floors and Katia opens the door for me. She told me that she'd seen me downstairs and then I came in and they waited, but I never came.
<We just went past a river and I saw a guy reeling in a fish. I love when I get to observe these moments of action in the flash of time I happen to be passing.
These canned messages on the train are terrible. They are obviously computer generated. I don't see how it could be so expensive to just have someone record them. It would probably be cheaper than the computer software plus the tech support.>
Katia is from a suburb of Buenos Aires (she hates burbs) and Clement is from Savoie (French Alps). I think though that Katia spent many years in France. They had been neighbors in the neighborhood they lived in before and had met in a local bar.
After I got there and showered, they spent a bunch of time looking online for places to go out to dinner before we ended up going to a neighborhood called Butte aux Cailles, or literally, Quail's Hill. It used to be a separate village from Paris and still has a lot of small old homes. It is now a minor bar and restaurant district with two streets that are lined with several of each. We walked around for awhile looking at all the choices before going to one place that turned out to be full. K gave her number to the maître d’ who had huge bulging eyes, a giant smile and a leaning stance. He made a joke to me about how he wasn't trying to pick up my woman, but I didn't understand a thing and just smiled. We went off then to find an apéritif.
Clemente seems to like to let her lead, but she cannot make any decisions, so we spent a bunch of time wandering around. We tried a couple of places, but they did not serve drinks unless you were having dinner, which seemed pretty ridiculous especially for the one which was pretty much empty. We ended up going into a place which seemed pretty lame since it looked like a coastie posh lounge with red lights, faux leather seat cubes and tools sipping martinis, but the tool factor was lower than initially imagined and it actually turned out to be pretty decent. The waiter was really friendly, and I imagine quite funny although I couldn't understand a thing he said. We got rosé with which my only previous experience had been from a box or 5L jug. It was quite nice, and if I could tell the future from this train, I might say that I will buy some the day after I return home and drink it before watching a movie with Sal and Brandy.
We then had a nice long dinner at the other place with good wine and eating marmots (yes there is a dish called the marmot). We talked about our countries and they actually got my humor very well. I tried some of Clement's blood sausage and verified that I still despise it. This one didn't taste so much like a scab as like chalk. A step up no doubt, but a step from runny poop to corny poop is not such a step indeed. I had a pork calf over lentils, which was decent and we got an order of these cheesy mashed potatoes that were amazing. We were sitting on the street and they had a special table for pulling the potatoes, since they were more like cheese with mashed potato and could be pulled like taffy. Of course they immediately captured my heart. By the time we got our desert we had become extremely tired. This consisted of some strong berry sorbet with this Everclear/Moonshine type liquor. Yikes. I was ok, but a bit much. I dropped 30 euros, but it was a great time.
The high Alps are looming in the background and I finish this just in time as we are arriving in Lausanne.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Paris first day
I am back home from my three week trip to Europe. I am going to attempt to write as much as possible about it, but we'll see since I do get bogged down with details. Since I wrote a lot of notes during the trip, I'm going to write as if I was writing it at the time/place of the note writing, although I will add to it as needed. I will also post date to correspond to when the notes were written.
I'm not sure where these first notes were taken, so...
My flight out was rather uneventful. I was annoyed as usual by the insane security measures that any four year old could defeat with five minutes of thought. Of course thinking people know that it is all show for the gullible to feel more safe, and I'm sure that some of the security does protect us, but damn is it a pain in the ass for and a boon for the bottled water industry. I am happy though that they lifted the ban on lighters.
I drank a couple little bottles of wine compliments of my friends at Air France, and watched some French movie about a teacher of troubled students that didn't seem to have a plot or an ending. It was reasonably entertaining though. I was entertained to find that my dinner was Bœuf Bolognaise, which happened to be the exact main dish I had made for my dinner party on Wed. For some reason I was kind of surprised to find that it was identical right down to the little pearl onions, although mine was of course much better. I think it is just strange that all of these random recipes that I find and make actually exist outside of paper and this might be the first time I've come across something that I've made, besides something that I sought after eating it.
I played some hangman in French and was pleased to actually do alright. I could understand a lot more of the French I heard around me - almost everyone on the flight was French - than I had expected, and I finally learned the proper pronunciation of 'ainsi' after asking the guy next to me.
Since I've arrived in Paris I've found my French to function shockingly well and have found the locals to be fairly friendly and helpful.
Right now I am sitting in a street cafe in a square at Rue Censier and Rue Mouffetard, near Ave des Gobelins. I find this name amusing and it is all over this part of the city. (I later will find out that it is named after a family of Dyers and Tapestry makers dating back to the 15th Century, who eventually became quite wealthy)
It's weird, all of this does not seem to feel all that foreign. I have been to Europe enough times, and Paris is quite typically "European" as I seem to have defined it in my head. While eating in a restaurant that could have been in New York, I even caught myself thinking, "man, there sure are a lot of French people here." My first impression of the city was that it's quite like NYC, but without all the cars and assholes. In a way this is true, but certainly not correct. For one, people are frustratingly slow for a guy who has gleefully embraced the NYC walk. And here, slow people do not get out of your way. But the pace is also part of the beauty. Nobody seems to work too hard. They take it easy. Take this cafe, they serve food, but the waitress doesn't blink an eye when I only ordered a 1.20 coffee. In fact, she smiled when she brought it, which was likely a mix between the way I ordered it because it was something I'd never had, and my hideous attempts at French.
Argh! I just saw a Velib go by. It is this amazing Paris bike share program. It is next to free, and there are stations everywhere. However, I am excluded because they are racist against my American debit card without the fancy pants microchip. The first thing I did after finding my way out of the maze of the Les Halles Metro station was to spend 10 min wrestling with the atrociously designed Velib terminal, only to find I was shit out of luck.
After this disappointment I wandered over to where I was going to meet an American CSer to buy a phone. I sat around a couple of different fountains, one of which is in front of the ridiculous Centre Pompidou, which is the Paris MoMA. It looks like a huge ship with pipes everywhere, and I regret taking a picture of the monstrosity. After waiting around and withdrawing some euros, I met up with Sarah and had lunch a good, but unremarkable organo veggie type place. It was nice though to be able to get a verre vin rouge for only 3.20 that was definitely good. We then went off to find a place to buy a Sim card, but it seems as though all of the phone places are closed until Aug 15th! (wow, this girl just sat down to a nearby table and she has the deepest back I've ever seen. It looks like she doesn't have any organs in there)
After parting with Sarah I started walking around, making my way towards where I'd meet my CS hosts later that evening. I walked past Notre Dame, which was not surprisingly crawling with tourists. This was after passing two other places that my dim memory made me think might be it, since all of these cathedrals are the same type of cool. Yes, I'm pretty ignorant about the location within cities of all of the famous landmarks. Notre Dame is above and beyond cool though. But I cannot handle being around throngs of tourists, so I screwed pretty quickly.
I then walked past the Sorbonne, which sadly did not seem to have much of a campus to walk around, and was more of just a bunch of huge buildings right up to the street. I like to visit famous universities when I travel.
Ugh, the guy at lunch gave me nine euros in fifty cent coins and now I have all this damn metal to dispose of.
After the Sorbonne, I found this nice little park in front of this big, cool building with an unidentifiable purpose. I wanted to be a hotshot and only bring my regular school backpack. You know, travel light and look all cool with how little I was taking for three weeks. Unfortunately I seem to have brought too much stuff to be able to pack in a manner that will allow comfort carriage, hence I have many stops. I kicked off my feet, lay in the grass and konked out for a bit.
This coffee has been my next stop and after I shall head over to my hosts'.
I'm not sure where these first notes were taken, so...
My flight out was rather uneventful. I was annoyed as usual by the insane security measures that any four year old could defeat with five minutes of thought. Of course thinking people know that it is all show for the gullible to feel more safe, and I'm sure that some of the security does protect us, but damn is it a pain in the ass for and a boon for the bottled water industry. I am happy though that they lifted the ban on lighters.
I drank a couple little bottles of wine compliments of my friends at Air France, and watched some French movie about a teacher of troubled students that didn't seem to have a plot or an ending. It was reasonably entertaining though. I was entertained to find that my dinner was Bœuf Bolognaise, which happened to be the exact main dish I had made for my dinner party on Wed. For some reason I was kind of surprised to find that it was identical right down to the little pearl onions, although mine was of course much better. I think it is just strange that all of these random recipes that I find and make actually exist outside of paper and this might be the first time I've come across something that I've made, besides something that I sought after eating it.
I played some hangman in French and was pleased to actually do alright. I could understand a lot more of the French I heard around me - almost everyone on the flight was French - than I had expected, and I finally learned the proper pronunciation of 'ainsi' after asking the guy next to me.
Since I've arrived in Paris I've found my French to function shockingly well and have found the locals to be fairly friendly and helpful.
Right now I am sitting in a street cafe in a square at Rue Censier and Rue Mouffetard, near Ave des Gobelins. I find this name amusing and it is all over this part of the city. (I later will find out that it is named after a family of Dyers and Tapestry makers dating back to the 15th Century, who eventually became quite wealthy)
It's weird, all of this does not seem to feel all that foreign. I have been to Europe enough times, and Paris is quite typically "European" as I seem to have defined it in my head. While eating in a restaurant that could have been in New York, I even caught myself thinking, "man, there sure are a lot of French people here." My first impression of the city was that it's quite like NYC, but without all the cars and assholes. In a way this is true, but certainly not correct. For one, people are frustratingly slow for a guy who has gleefully embraced the NYC walk. And here, slow people do not get out of your way. But the pace is also part of the beauty. Nobody seems to work too hard. They take it easy. Take this cafe, they serve food, but the waitress doesn't blink an eye when I only ordered a 1.20 coffee. In fact, she smiled when she brought it, which was likely a mix between the way I ordered it because it was something I'd never had, and my hideous attempts at French.
Argh! I just saw a Velib go by. It is this amazing Paris bike share program. It is next to free, and there are stations everywhere. However, I am excluded because they are racist against my American debit card without the fancy pants microchip. The first thing I did after finding my way out of the maze of the Les Halles Metro station was to spend 10 min wrestling with the atrociously designed Velib terminal, only to find I was shit out of luck.
After this disappointment I wandered over to where I was going to meet an American CSer to buy a phone. I sat around a couple of different fountains, one of which is in front of the ridiculous Centre Pompidou, which is the Paris MoMA. It looks like a huge ship with pipes everywhere, and I regret taking a picture of the monstrosity. After waiting around and withdrawing some euros, I met up with Sarah and had lunch a good, but unremarkable organo veggie type place. It was nice though to be able to get a verre vin rouge for only 3.20 that was definitely good. We then went off to find a place to buy a Sim card, but it seems as though all of the phone places are closed until Aug 15th! (wow, this girl just sat down to a nearby table and she has the deepest back I've ever seen. It looks like she doesn't have any organs in there)
After parting with Sarah I started walking around, making my way towards where I'd meet my CS hosts later that evening. I walked past Notre Dame, which was not surprisingly crawling with tourists. This was after passing two other places that my dim memory made me think might be it, since all of these cathedrals are the same type of cool. Yes, I'm pretty ignorant about the location within cities of all of the famous landmarks. Notre Dame is above and beyond cool though. But I cannot handle being around throngs of tourists, so I screwed pretty quickly.
I then walked past the Sorbonne, which sadly did not seem to have much of a campus to walk around, and was more of just a bunch of huge buildings right up to the street. I like to visit famous universities when I travel.
Ugh, the guy at lunch gave me nine euros in fifty cent coins and now I have all this damn metal to dispose of.
After the Sorbonne, I found this nice little park in front of this big, cool building with an unidentifiable purpose. I wanted to be a hotshot and only bring my regular school backpack. You know, travel light and look all cool with how little I was taking for three weeks. Unfortunately I seem to have brought too much stuff to be able to pack in a manner that will allow comfort carriage, hence I have many stops. I kicked off my feet, lay in the grass and konked out for a bit.
This coffee has been my next stop and after I shall head over to my hosts'.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Last weekend I went to one of best tournaments there is, Wildwood - four hundred teams playing ultimate on the beach. We alternate by playing one game, and then having one game off, where everyone runs into the sea. It was a lot of fun as always, and we camped at the same site as the last two years. We took two teams of Grey Till members. Since I did not "baggage" with any of the core members, I ended up on the new member team. This turned out to be great because the other team was taking things a little more seriously than we, and we had a winning record, unlike them.
We had a little snafu at the last minute on the way to Wildwood where my beloved van decided she did not wish to make the journey. Luckily, she made this decision while I was on the UWS picking up Sam, and some hot logistics action on the part of Brandon, Kara, and perhaps some anonymous heroes got us back on the road with only a couple hours wasted.
Of course, that still left me with a limping van with potentially very expensive repairs, 50 miles from her parking garage in New Brunswick, 10 miles from my apartment, and with me leaving town on the 3rd for three weeks.
On Monday, which was supposed to be a work day to finish up my Portland cycling project, I took the hour train ride to Sam's place with the intention of checking the differential oil as that was one of the possible problems found in my research. Alas, I had not the correct tool, which was a square. I wandered up to Harlem in search of a hardware store or auto parts store, sweating my ass off in the heat. I found nothing and became very frustrated. When I had been leaving my house that morning I spoke with an old Polish guy who has a van on my block, and he recommended a place in the neighborhood, as well as giving me an oral history of the maintenance of his van. I decided to make a go for it rather than trusting some random Harlem service station and was able to bring her home without a problem.
When I got home I went to a parts store nearby and asked for the part. The guy looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "it's square. They just use a socket wrench. You can put on the extension and it's still square." Indeed. So of course the problem was not the fluid, so I had to bite it and take her to a shop. This is something I've been avoiding since I moved here since I have a hard time trusting mechanics, and in New York, forget about it. Nobody has a car here, so I could not get any decent recommendations.
So by this time, it was too late to go to a shop and my day was shot. Wednesday it would be. I spoke with Sal, who has the same van, and he told me about another shop, recommended to him by an ex-mechanic friend who also has the same van.
On Wed I took her in, expecting the worst. One trip around the block and Junior told me that it was my universal joints and it would be $150! So the world is sunny again, at least in my head, and Gina is back on the road. I took this opportunity to finally get her inspected, and that dratted driver's side mirror is also fixed. I'm afraid though that the A/C is not, and never will be.
On Wed I could not do my Portland project either since I was having a dinner party, and for me this is an all day affair. It was a great time as Sam from my team, Lauren, Seth from CS and a Russian CSer, Luva, Brittany (a girl who lives in the neighborhood and plays disc) and her roommate, and Lilli and her boyfriend attended. Besides appetizers, I made scalloped kohlrabi, couscous salad, and a French beef dish that came out excellent. We played Werewolf and Lilli confessed! which was the second time this happened this week as Kara did the same at Wildwood. Dang Brandy used her intimate knowledge of my nuances to figure out that I was the other. After that, and a bit too much wine and sangria a la Brandy, we went on the roof to smoke cigars. All in all it was a great night, but going to work the next day was not a lot of fun.
Friday I was able to work most of the day and got a lot of my project done. That evening I went to Seth's, since Karrie, a CSer I had met long ago in Philly was in town. Our roommate Dan stopped by for a bit to get the keys since he was staying in our house that night because his sister kicked him out so she could have a slumber party (i.e. get totally wasted without your brother). The funny thing was that Dan had met Karrie a long time before that at Beauty Bar and she was the first one to tell him about CS. It was a small gathering and we hung out for quite awhile before Karrie, her German friend, and I caught a cab to the LES to meet up with Brandy.
We went to this bar called D.B.A. on 1st Ave. The moment I walked in I said, lame! There was nothing interesting about it and it was filled with tools. But then, I looked behind the bar and saw that beautiful sight, the giant chalkboard covered with tiny writing. This can only mean one thing, beeeer! The price was typical, $7, and the beer was delicious. Yet, the place was still fairly lame and we were getting tired so we headed out. We walked up to 14th St and then decided to show Beauty Bar to the German guy. They were stealing identies at the door with their fucking swipe thing, so Brandy and I opted for home while the other two entered.
Ok, it sounds conspiracy, but we are convinced that when they swipe your ID at the bar they take your info and sell it to marketers. After all, there is no need to do the swipe. Also, Dave got swiped once and shortly thereafter he was mysteriously on the Marlboro list and got inundated with offers and also started getting other ads for drinking related shit. This may be circumstantial, but there is enough evidence to have concern.
Yesterday we were a little toasted in the morning so we lounged around and then went to Eat Records with Dan for brunch. We hadn't been here before and this place is awesome. They sell mostly local organic food, so they are a bit pricey, but they also have this amazing outdoor area. It is in this little brick enclosed courtyard with lots of trees and foliage and there are three long, communal tables. There is this novelty store across the street with lots of stuff like bacon bandages and bacon scented soap. We also stopped at a yard sale where we got The Truman Show and some other movie on VHS for a buck, opting to not purchase the stone penis for $8.
After that I spent much of the day working on my Portland project and finally finished. We then took a nice walk through Williamsburg. These little exploratory walks is one of my favorite things about living here. There are so many cool places to see that we almost always discover something new. Of course, we also almost always see some new yuppie condo and this time we saw a new Subway invading Bedford Ave. We checked out this video store we just heard about that is a block from our place, Film Noir. It is this hole in the wall place with videos stacked all over the place and a pretty decent foreign selection. I can't believe we've been walking all the way to Greenpoint Ave. We were tired and excited to try out the new projector, so we rented a Korean 'horror' film called the Host, which turned out to be pretty decent.
Today I have to take Gina down to New Brunswick and we may check out Princeton, although the rain is pretty formidable.
Tomorrow I leave for Europe for three weeks. Sweet.
We had a little snafu at the last minute on the way to Wildwood where my beloved van decided she did not wish to make the journey. Luckily, she made this decision while I was on the UWS picking up Sam, and some hot logistics action on the part of Brandon, Kara, and perhaps some anonymous heroes got us back on the road with only a couple hours wasted.
Of course, that still left me with a limping van with potentially very expensive repairs, 50 miles from her parking garage in New Brunswick, 10 miles from my apartment, and with me leaving town on the 3rd for three weeks.
On Monday, which was supposed to be a work day to finish up my Portland cycling project, I took the hour train ride to Sam's place with the intention of checking the differential oil as that was one of the possible problems found in my research. Alas, I had not the correct tool, which was a square. I wandered up to Harlem in search of a hardware store or auto parts store, sweating my ass off in the heat. I found nothing and became very frustrated. When I had been leaving my house that morning I spoke with an old Polish guy who has a van on my block, and he recommended a place in the neighborhood, as well as giving me an oral history of the maintenance of his van. I decided to make a go for it rather than trusting some random Harlem service station and was able to bring her home without a problem.
When I got home I went to a parts store nearby and asked for the part. The guy looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "it's square. They just use a socket wrench. You can put on the extension and it's still square." Indeed. So of course the problem was not the fluid, so I had to bite it and take her to a shop. This is something I've been avoiding since I moved here since I have a hard time trusting mechanics, and in New York, forget about it. Nobody has a car here, so I could not get any decent recommendations.
So by this time, it was too late to go to a shop and my day was shot. Wednesday it would be. I spoke with Sal, who has the same van, and he told me about another shop, recommended to him by an ex-mechanic friend who also has the same van.
On Wed I took her in, expecting the worst. One trip around the block and Junior told me that it was my universal joints and it would be $150! So the world is sunny again, at least in my head, and Gina is back on the road. I took this opportunity to finally get her inspected, and that dratted driver's side mirror is also fixed. I'm afraid though that the A/C is not, and never will be.
On Wed I could not do my Portland project either since I was having a dinner party, and for me this is an all day affair. It was a great time as Sam from my team, Lauren, Seth from CS and a Russian CSer, Luva, Brittany (a girl who lives in the neighborhood and plays disc) and her roommate, and Lilli and her boyfriend attended. Besides appetizers, I made scalloped kohlrabi, couscous salad, and a French beef dish that came out excellent. We played Werewolf and Lilli confessed! which was the second time this happened this week as Kara did the same at Wildwood. Dang Brandy used her intimate knowledge of my nuances to figure out that I was the other. After that, and a bit too much wine and sangria a la Brandy, we went on the roof to smoke cigars. All in all it was a great night, but going to work the next day was not a lot of fun.
Friday I was able to work most of the day and got a lot of my project done. That evening I went to Seth's, since Karrie, a CSer I had met long ago in Philly was in town. Our roommate Dan stopped by for a bit to get the keys since he was staying in our house that night because his sister kicked him out so she could have a slumber party (i.e. get totally wasted without your brother). The funny thing was that Dan had met Karrie a long time before that at Beauty Bar and she was the first one to tell him about CS. It was a small gathering and we hung out for quite awhile before Karrie, her German friend, and I caught a cab to the LES to meet up with Brandy.
We went to this bar called D.B.A. on 1st Ave. The moment I walked in I said, lame! There was nothing interesting about it and it was filled with tools. But then, I looked behind the bar and saw that beautiful sight, the giant chalkboard covered with tiny writing. This can only mean one thing, beeeer! The price was typical, $7, and the beer was delicious. Yet, the place was still fairly lame and we were getting tired so we headed out. We walked up to 14th St and then decided to show Beauty Bar to the German guy. They were stealing identies at the door with their fucking swipe thing, so Brandy and I opted for home while the other two entered.
Ok, it sounds conspiracy, but we are convinced that when they swipe your ID at the bar they take your info and sell it to marketers. After all, there is no need to do the swipe. Also, Dave got swiped once and shortly thereafter he was mysteriously on the Marlboro list and got inundated with offers and also started getting other ads for drinking related shit. This may be circumstantial, but there is enough evidence to have concern.
Yesterday we were a little toasted in the morning so we lounged around and then went to Eat Records with Dan for brunch. We hadn't been here before and this place is awesome. They sell mostly local organic food, so they are a bit pricey, but they also have this amazing outdoor area. It is in this little brick enclosed courtyard with lots of trees and foliage and there are three long, communal tables. There is this novelty store across the street with lots of stuff like bacon bandages and bacon scented soap. We also stopped at a yard sale where we got The Truman Show and some other movie on VHS for a buck, opting to not purchase the stone penis for $8.
After that I spent much of the day working on my Portland project and finally finished. We then took a nice walk through Williamsburg. These little exploratory walks is one of my favorite things about living here. There are so many cool places to see that we almost always discover something new. Of course, we also almost always see some new yuppie condo and this time we saw a new Subway invading Bedford Ave. We checked out this video store we just heard about that is a block from our place, Film Noir. It is this hole in the wall place with videos stacked all over the place and a pretty decent foreign selection. I can't believe we've been walking all the way to Greenpoint Ave. We were tired and excited to try out the new projector, so we rented a Korean 'horror' film called the Host, which turned out to be pretty decent.
Today I have to take Gina down to New Brunswick and we may check out Princeton, although the rain is pretty formidable.
Tomorrow I leave for Europe for three weeks. Sweet.
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