NYC

Went to NYC as my RTW is based on flights and there were not direct to BsAs from Boston... Regardless it gave me a great chance to hang out for a few nights, stay with my sister and Leon and Noah were around too, so it really felt like stop #1 on what will be a long journey.

Saturday I arrived at around 6pm on a long bus ride (had internet, but using a computer on a bus gives me motion sickness...). I was able to meet up with my cousin from Switzerland, Alex whose here working for an architecture firm and my sister for dinner at a nice italian restaurant in West village. My sister and Alex had been there before and knew the owner of the store, who was really nice and I enjoyed the spaghetti and prosciutto.

Afterwards, we went out for a drink at some kindof dark almost emo'ish place before heading down to meet up with 2 friends from high school, Zander and Sue. We picked up martinis and I got to catch up with Sue, who was a production manager for the show Ugly Betty. Zander just moved into a new place with his gf pretty close by and is looking for work. Anyways, from there we headed to a bar called the 'fat cat' which Jake had mentioned to me from his trip to NYC last year as being a great spot. So we headed down there to meet up with Leon, Noah and Chris and it was pretty cool- had a ton of pool tabes/ ping pong tables. Sue's boyfriend, Andrew is korean so theres some ping pong in his blood so of course we had to get a few games in. The wait was a while, but it was quite funny as he was very excited to play so whenever a table opened up somewhere he'd walk around all of them and alert the waitress who organized it all so we could play. It was fun to play (i represented my high school club etc quite well) and it made me think I might want to have my parents airmail me my racquet when I'm in China and I can try and get some lessons there. But we'll see later on how much travelling I want to do and how often I want to settle into one place and just chill.

From there we went to a bar called Phebe's which was a great spot as it seemed to be packed with a young attractive crowd who all seemed to be having a great time. In general I could say that was just the vibe I got from NYC. Distinctly different from Toronto - which too me would be the closest match, but I came to the conclusion that if you're young, have money and want to meet others like yourself, new york city (and probably this area of west village and neighboring burroughs) is the place to be. We were at Phebe's until probably 3:30 am where we left and found a french fries place where Leon and I picked up some poutine.

Sunday I woke up at around 11 am a little hung over. My sister's friend Rachel, whose a big tennis fan had tickets to the US Open and couldn't use her tickets as she was out of town, so she passed them over to Geneve and I. I again lucked out as I was able to see Roger Federer and Andy Roddick play in the afternoon at Aurthur Ashe stadium. It was just awesome to watch the tennis match and of course see Roger play. I added some pictures. The thing about Roger- that i think people like so much is just how classy he looks when he plays. I have pictures of Roddick serving and his body is a contorted mass and he looks extremely athletic as he seems to put everything he has into hitting the ball 140 mph. On the other hand, I could not take a picture that shows Roger doing the same- his motion when serving or doing anything is just so natural and fluid it is really a sight to see (which of course belies the fact that he serves at around 130 mph).

After tennis, I went with my sister out with a friend of my swiss cousin Claudia, who had just spent 6 months travelling around the united states alone. He was a nice guy and had a lot to talk about and just a general love for America. It was a bit inspiring, as I often here foriegners (read: canadians) talking shit about america. Don't get me wrong- there is much here that is not perfect, but I think the problem is not something you can pass to the individuals who live here.

At around 9pm I then headed to Nobu for a fancy dinner. It was unbelieveable- all the food melted in my mouth but I think it was a bit pricy for what you get (but in my opinion at its price, nothing can really meet my expectations to be a "fair value"). After this Chris had to leave as he is moving into a new place, and Leon Noah and I met up with Zander and his gf to go to a bar in West Village called "Little Branch". It was a former speak easy during prohibition but generally known in this part of NYC of having the best "mixologists" as my sister calls it. It was nice, I have a picture near the end of my pending album from there (no flash was allowed) but it was dark and the drinks strong. I was a bit tired after this day and the last, so from here I went home to get some sleep.

Today has been pretty chill, I got breakfast with Geneve in a little restaurant and then hung out near the water with Alex and Geneve. Now I'm back at Geneve's place and counting down to leaving. Noah and Leon just arrived so I gotta go but take it easy and next time I post i'll be in BsAs!

edit: pictures added from airport terminal. View them HERE