Seems not an age but several ages have passed since my last post. Yepp, I am not such a good blogger as Siim, cause I don't wake up with urge to write something to you all. BTW, I want to post my pictures, but now I am waiting, while my new web server gets running. Should get done in a week, but will see.
My life since Nov 22 passed mainly finishing fall semester and doing exams, being with Eva 3 weeks and then spending a week extra in New York. That's it. Now I have too many things in my mind to write about that I don't know where to start from and how long book should I write.
Anyways, most important has been that Eva was here and we had some real fun (damn those 4+ months waiting again.
New Year in New York
Well, this is something. I found out I sometimes learn only by living through things. I thought that the NY event on Times Square can't be too special, but still had something in the back of my mind telling that when I am in NY I have to be together with 750 thousand people witnessing the great fall of a ball. As me and Eva were told, one has to go quite early to the place to get in the security area. Well, we arrived on 42nd Street at some 8.30 PM just to see that the gates are closing. Well, wishfully thinking we still decided to get in and so speed-walked 17 blocks to the north to find an entrance where policemen were still letting people enter "Times Square". And we got in! How lucky we felt at that time, even though we were on the corner of 59th St & 7th Ave (Times square is on the crossing of Broadway and 7th Ave, happening in the length of about 42nd St and 48th St). So then we thought, what we will do next 3 hours without any booze. Luckily policemen had figured out a nice game of letting people go forward 1 street at a time and this kept us buzy for about an hour and moved us up to 55th St, still some 10 St from the action.
2 hours were to be killed and this envolved mostly watching some people having party in the houses along 7th Ave. One party had good supplies of toilet paper at home, so they were constantly throwing out full rolls of paper that would start flying around in the winds of NY in the middle of skyscrapers. Another piece of amusement was seeing the big billboard on Times Square showing 10 seconds countdown when we got one hour closer to New Year. This fun lasted only so long. What else. It was fun to see a people utilizing their cell phones telling their friends how fun it is to be on 'Times Square'. I must say, it was quite boring. Well, what do you expect of people, who are not allowed to take booze with them, when they came to such public event at least 3 hour earlier!!! Standing on streets, not hearing any music, looking at watch. Only some small groups enjoyed themselves more than the mass and they obviously had smuggled in some alcohol in Coke and Water bottles.
And the final falling of the ball? Yes I could see a dot somewhere on Times Square, but that's it. As I told, the 750 thousand people did not know a shit of what was happening on the real Times Square. And when real New Year arrived, there was some poor fireworks on the Square and in the Central Park, but it was not even distantly comaprable to the shows seen in Tallinn and Riga. People were forced one way out of the area for cleaning. You will soon see some pictures of the trash left by the masses. Amazing it was. No broken champaigne bottles, but just pure trash.
I just want to tell, that the events we have had last couple of years in the snow covered Sodyba-cottage in Lithuania and Võsu just beat it all 10-fold. Damn, I miss sauna. I miss it for too long already. I guess I have to build one sauna here, but I don't have money for this.
And now
I am back in Atlanta. It feels very waming to be back at home. Especially because in NY showed last week temperatures topping at around -10 degrees and Atlanta gives blessing +15. Sun in both places, but sun with +15 feels different.
I came to Atlanta with bus, because I had spent too much money before (I don't want to mention paying $85 for parking car in wrong place). Anyway, bus took 18 hours from station to station together with 1-hour excursions in bus stations of Washington, Richmond and Charlotte. The travel was quite bearable, because the night busses were half empty leaving me double seat for lieing down. The coolest thing of bus stations were the TV seats, where one can enter few quarters and see useless TV programs on a built-in TV. No, it was not fancy new flat-screen stuff, but real old-school small TVs.
And another incident was about cell phones. A driver of a bus told to turn off cell phones, because their ringing disturbs. Well, when he heard one ring later, he had to remind that he had asked people to turn off cell phones. It is even more amusing, as my father just told about the incident he had had few years ago in States. He travelled in a bus and a driver also asked to turn off cell phones. When he heard ringing for a second time, the bus had stopped and driver came personally to complain to person. When my father told it, it seemed unbelievable and I thought the driver must have been one of a kind. Now it seems this is reality and several drivers here are true freaks.
Not to mention, that my phone battery ran dry during 24 hours, probably because of being out of zone during long stretches between cities. I long for GSM phones that last for at least a week. Yes GSM networks exist here, but Verizon has best network and I chose it.
That's it. I quit. I see no end. You can now return sooner than 2 months. I promise.
