Thanksgiving in the 'burbs

Another of my favorite yankee holidays just passed: Thanksgiving! And this year instead of spending it in the kitchen, we got to spend it in the suburbs of Philadelphia, in Holland Acres to be precise, eating a Moldovan/Russian interpretation of the wonderful Thanksgiving feast that leaves me salivating for the whole of November!

Our friend A invited J and I to spend this important holiday with his family and we took up the opportunity right away! And since J had never been to Philadelphia, it was like hitting two birds with one stone ;) We were warmly welcomed by A's family, the entire family! We were 20 at the dinner table with 4 generations present from grandparents to grandchildren and lots of cognac for the numerous merry toasts. The turkeys (yes, plural!) were nice and juicy and the sides (most Moldovan/Russian) were delicious and don't even get me started on the desserts! I came out with a couple of new recipes to try ;)

Thanksgiving is considered to be the most important holiday in the US as every family, regardless of their religious inclinations, travels cross country to give thanks with their family. It is the holiday where airplane, road and rail traffic is at its peak. We thought we would escape the madness by travelling on the day, Thursday, as most people travel the day before, but Penn Station was ridiculously crowded and we had to cram on the train desperately looking for seats! Luckily, the ticket collectors tend to be rather nice and forgiving on this holiday, making us pay a little bit less than if we'd bought our tickets before getting on board - it's usually the reverse!

Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks for the things that you have, and even though I don't agree with the whole 'let's sit down with the Indians and then kill them after' history of the holiday, I think it's a great holiday nonetheless, and one of the very few where presents aren't involved! Most of the shopping around this holiday revolves around food and I can't argue with that. If only Black Friday didn't mar the whole idea - honestly, why spend Thursday giving thanks only to spend Friday shouting and fighting for super deals, Christmas shopping is supposed to be fun, people!

For J it was his 2nd Thanksgiving, for me it's now been quite a few since my mom decided to export this tradition when we left and we've celebrated it since (it's great food, why not!). It was, however, my first time celebrating it with people that moved to the US to make their lives better and it was a very humbling experience. A's family immigrated to the US when he was 8 and after becoming naturalized they were able to sponsor the rest of their family so that they too could come safely to the US. They have since prospered and grown as a family here in the US. As the toasts kept pouring in for the evening, everyone was thankful for this country and for the life and safety that it has provided them, it was hard not to be teary-eyed, maybe I'm just too emotional these days!

But at a time when the US keeps getting bad press and its popularity keeps going down in the rest of the world it's definitely something new and refreshing to hear all this thankfulness but I guess that's what the US gave to hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees, a possibility to attain the American Dream and for lots of families, moving here did mean the difference between life or death. So, I'm thankful for the things I have, for the people in my life, for my parents and the opportunities that they've provided for me and I guess to the US at the moment for being my temporary home (if only it wasn't so bloody expensive!).

And to A's family for welcoming and taking us in this year and for their delicious Thanksgiving feast!

This city is resilient!

Happy Halloween everyone!

You wouldn't think that there would be much to celebrate after the havoc and devastation that was caused by Hurricane Sandy but New Yorkers are resilient and this city will survive.

Kids are out and about going from apartment building to apartment building collecting their candy in their costumes that they have been eagerly waiting to wear, crossing their fingers that Sandy doesn't stop them…and stop them she did not - I've already had a ninja turtle, a wolverine and a Minnie Mouse at my door :)

Over the last three days, this city has seen its worst. The MTA system was shut down due to major flooding and the damage is overwhelming, to the extent it has never experienced in its 108 years of existence but the buses are up and running (they are even providing FREE service to some customers depending on areas) and the MTA employees are doing everything in their power to restore the subways to their everyday glory.

Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange, which has never been closed for more than two days since 1888 (!!) is back on track to buying and selling of shares and bonds and what not - wreaking its own havoc on the economy in its own special way ;)

Downtown Manhattan and most parts of New Jersey are still without power and ConEd customers have been told it will probably be quite a few days (if not weeks) until the power is back but they’re flying over employees from all over the country to add to the manpower to guarantee that service is restored. 

The waters have finally receded leaving the damage visible and the insurance companies crying for lost revenue. The news have estimated the cost of damage in the billions. 

Other parts of New York and New Jersey were unfortunately damaged beyond repair. Governor Chris Christie has lamented over the loss of the historical Jersey Coast and the Atlantic City pier. There are thousands of homes along the coast that have been damaged beyond repair bot to mention the roller coaster rides on jersey Shore! Breezy Point in Queens seems saw its worst, with fires ravaging around 80 homes and Rockaway in Brooklyn also bore the brunt of the storm when its historic boardwalk was stripped clear off! Trees have knocked out power lines, cars and houses and the death toll for the US is currently at 90 with rescue workers still trying to evacuate people to safety.

Looking back we were very lucky. North Williamsburg suffered minimal damage compared to other parts. Walking around yesterday all we saw was tree debris, mostly leaves and branches, and the worst was a park bench that caved under next to the East River, that was about it…

We never lost power, water or internet. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for some of my friends in the other boroughs. Some have been without power now for two days, some even without running water! People have been gathering at points to recharge their cellphones and the shelters are full with people who have been left homeless!

I was actually very happy that I decided not to evacuate, in the end it wasn't necessary as the flooding was so minimal here it didn't affect any of the buildings on Williamsburg ‘coast’. We did, however, get to see the explosion from the ConEd building, bright flashes of green and white, scary! 

The bridges are now open and people are venturing out across the ‘pond’. Most are actually coming our way to get supplies as a lot of stores in downtown Manhattan are still closed due to damage. People have also started going back to work. I’ll be trying the bridge tomorrow to see for myself how Manhattan is faring. I know I will be pleasantly surprised, this city is resilient that way.

check out this website for photos of the devastation caused by Sandy...
http://galleries.apps.chicagotribune.com/chi-hurricane-sandy-photos-20121028/

Bracing for 'Frankenstorm'!

As most of you know, the north east coast of the US is about to ‘welcome’ hurricane Sandy, which has been devastating the Caribbean islands for the past few days!

Sandy has been charmingly nicknamed Frankenstorm as it’s due to arrive just in time for Halloween…I guess, sadly, the parade will have to be postponed this year! Luckily, though, most people got to enjoy their Halloween parties last night before the mayhem starts!

With the arrival of Sandy we've been told to expect 70m winds, heavy flooding and some power failure for the next three days and all the news site are sending out lists to help people prepare for it and businesses have already told their employees not to come in tomorrow. The subways are now closed and their air vents are being shut in to prevent flood damage.

After last year’s overblown Irene, it makes you wonder whether we are not all just overreacting but I guess it’s always better to be safe than sorry!

So, in order to prepare for Sandy/Frankenstorm, my friend and I (yes, I’m husband-less during this chaos as J is experiencing his own little disaster as he is ‘buried’ under 1.5m of snow in a house in the French Alps due to an unannounced snow storm! And some people still don’t believe in climate change, honestly!) set out to the store to pick up on some necessary items, like water, candles and canned food. The store, close to my house, is usually quite empty, you bump into your neighbors on occasion but it’s pretty nice and calm. Today though, a totally different picture as the queue to the registers went all the way to the vegetable section - you have to pass the bread, meat, deli, dairy, fish, and beer sections before getting there, just to give you an idea of how long that queue was! Everybody was rushing to get all the essentials before they were sold out but everybody seemed calm and collected.

Surviving in Timor-Leste with no electricity was tough but it wasn't a problem because our cooking stove ran on gas and we had plenty of flashlights and canned goods, not to mention a generator when the darkness just got too much…here though, everything in your house revolves around electricity, even the water supply so it’s actually harder to prepare for a power outage in the city!

As we were coming back to the apartment, laden with all our shopping bags full of water, crackers, popcorn (why not!?), cheese, cans and what not, a cop was just behind us eager to enter our building…I asked him what was wrong and he calmly told us we would have to evacuate!!!! So that’s about the time I started freaking out!

Apparently our building, since it faces the East River is in Zone A for evacuation…Now, spending the next three days cooped up at a friends’ house is not my idea of weathering the storm in style, as much as I do love my friends! So, I started checking with my neighbors to see if they were evacuating. My next door neighbors are Dutch and they have a 15 month old and another one on the way. They assured me that they would not be evacuating and that if I needed anything they were happy to help…

Well, if they are staying with a toddler in the house, I don’t see why I should have to leave the comfort of my house, especially after all the food I had just bought. Turns out about half the building is sticking around and the building next to ours and closer to the waterfront still has a lot of lights on as well. So we started weighing the odds (we are on the 5th floor after all) and doing our utmost to prepare, including mask taping our windows in case they break, and now we’re patiently waiting for the proverbial shit to hit the fan.

Cop cars keeping coming around announcing on megaphone that we have to leave by 7pm and that if we refuse to evacuate we could be charged with a class B misdemeanor…It’s 7:28 as we speak and I've just made cheese scones and T is preparing dinner - I guess we’re staying!

So Frankenstorm, do your worst, I’m ready! Well, not literally please, let it be just like Irene and give us only very strong rain…at least my pantry will be full ;)

Right, I’m off to fill my bathtub with water…

It's debate season!!!

This past Wednesday we had the first presidential debate between Obama and Romney. J and I have a TV but no cable and this was actually the only occasion I regretted not having cable but it all turned out well thanks to Youtube live stream. 

We gathered a few friends, lots of cheese, crackers, beer and wine and sat down to watch what ended up being a pretty unexciting debate. It was however, the greatest event in twitter since it’s debut back in 2006! At times I even found it more interesting to watch the twitter comments rather than listen to Romney prattle on, especially when Romney said he would cut PBS and Big Bird with it, the response on that was phenomenal!

It was a bit disappointing though in the end. Obama is usually a great orator but he seems to have trouble when it comes to retort, losing his fluidity in speech and hesitating far too often before replying, something that I had already observed back in ‘08. Unfortunately, most of the audience is looking for the bloodbath in how many zings each opponent throws rather than the content of the actual debate so in that front it was an unfortunate win for Romney. 

Other than the RNC, this was the only time I’ve hear Romney speak and I’ll admit he does have charm (and good hair!) but hopefully people won’t be fooled by it when it comes to voting time. I’ve never seen an opponent go back and forth on his promises as often as this guy does! That’s what I love about fact-checking though; it weeds out the lies from this campaign!

And can we please stop with the blame game! Obama did not cause this recession, he did not cause the crisis, he did not cause unemployment growth!

Can we just take a minute to reflect on something…imagine that Obama had been president right after Clinton…I seriously doubt America, and the world for that matter, would be in the state that it is now! Clinton left the economy high and unemployment low and if Obama had followed suit he would have built on what Clinton had done, instead of destroying it like the Bush administration did! So please let’s not talk about whether or not the US is better off than 4 years ago (itis better off by the way!). Bush destroyed the economy in 8 years, it will probably take just as long to get it back on track. Especially when Congress is so hell bent on voting down any democratic proposition. Government should not be about taking the biggest slice of the pie home, it should be about sharing the pie equally among everyone and you need compromise across the line to achieve that.

But who am I to say anything, I don’t get to vote! There was a joking petition at one point during the 2004 elections going around in Europe saying that actually the whole world should be able to vote for the American president seeing how his decisions affect the whole world, so yes, I do wish I could vote but since I can’t then I hope that people will vote according to their beliefs, I just hope their beliefs take their pencil to tick for Obama come November!

I can’t wait for the next debate this coming week, let it be on foreign policy, that one should be rather interesting!

I wonder whose flag pin will be bigger next time and please no more threats of making Big Bird homeless!

An evening with Paul Auster

One of the amazing things of living in this city is the cultural opportunities that abound everywhere…something that unfortunately was lacking in both of the ‘jungles’ I have come to know in the past couple of years.

However, being unemployed has actually been a bit of an impairment to my knowledge of all the wonderful events that are happening in the city…leaving the house requires spending money and when all your friends work during the day, leaving the house also becomes a lonely journey into the unknown, or errand running (which is more usually the norm for my leaving the house these days!) Thankfully, New York also provides us with visitors, lots of them these days actually! And through these visitors we learn about things that are happening right under our noses that we wouldn't normally know about. This past weekend, for example, looking for things to do with our visitors, we found out that it was the last weekend of the Dekalb Market before it closed shop for winter; we also found out it was Dumbo Arts Festival weekend, events that we normally wouldn't be on the look out for on a lazy Saturday and which ended up providing us with a greater awareness of our borough of Brooklyn and its myriad of neighborhoods.

Today was the same…thanks to our visitors I learnt that Paul Auster was speaking at the New York Public Library on 42nd St this evening. 

I was very recently introduced to Paul Auster just this year by one of my flatmates in East Timor. We had a lot of time on our hands and reading was one of our ways to ‘kill’ it. She had one of his books, Sunset Park, and she lent it to me. I devoured it in a matter of days (I think it was literally 2) and quickly moved on to the next one, Invisible, which I borrowed from her cousin and read just as quickly. I became enamored with Auster’s writing. And, unbeknownst to me at the time, I was already familiar with Auster’s wife, having 2 of her books in my collection, which I very much enjoyed. Auster writes in a completely different style than his wife and knowing now a bit more about his life from today’s talk, I wonder if (well, like most writers, surely) whether his novels aren't appropriated from parts of his own life.

Today’s talk was about his latest book, Winter Journal, which consists of biographical fragments of the author’s life in a bodily context, meaning based on physical rather than spiritual events. He was asked to read excerpts from his book and talk to some depth about the events that inspired the book. The speaker also talked about the Paul Auster archives that are now in the library open to the public, containing notebooks and essays dating from his earlier work up to the present.

Auster’s voice is soothing, he didn't dramatize his reading and made the audience comfortable with his self-abasement. He introduces himself as a wanderer, a husband, a father, a writer, among 3 other things, which I seem to have forgotten at the moment (should really start taking pen and paper to these things!). I love his way with words, he is elegant without wanting to be since his belief is that you write to live, to describe life, not to make words beautiful or elegant. But his words are elegant and beautifully written and they make me want to keep reading his books, his words. I need to thank my flatmate again for the introduction and our visitors for letting me know about these gems of the city!

A very enjoyable evening indeed!

Back to the city once again

From another jungle no less!

It has now been almost 2 months since I finished my contract in Timor-Leste. It was an amazing adventure and I met a lot of wonderful people but it is nice to be home (if you missed your opportunity to follow my posts you can find them on www.electionsbicyclesandcrocodiles.blogspot.com). It would be nicer of course if I had a new job to start in this great city but alas, the job market seems to be tough for everyone, even when you think you have a pretty good cv to stand on…

The summer has been wonderful, and New York always seems more fantastic during these hot, humid days. Sometimes a bit too humid and muggy for my taste but the possibilities are endless! A walk in the park, cinema in the open air, opera in central park with cheese and crackers and good friends, the list is endless… Clothing comes off and so do people’s inhibitions, you have more fun in the summer, you can stay out late and never worry about needing that jacket…It never seems to get late with the sun staying out as late as ever so you can actually enjoy the sunset outside of your office! I know, I’m writing for a lot of people, not just my experiences of the city. And at the moment I’m actually a bit too bummed to actually be enjoying all these experiences I could be having in this amazing city but looking for a job is tough, it’s frustrating and sometimes seems never ending. I always thought it would be easy, you know, you get a good education, you get good grades, you get a great first job that gives you a lot of experience and you figure it just keeps going on from there, but after sending out 20 resumes and 20 cover letters (which I know is not nearly enough!) and never getting an answer - well, I got one but it was negative but even just getting an answer felt good for once - it just gets frustrating and you kind of feel like what is the point! Yes, I know, you have to treat job searching like a real job and it can take up to 6 months to find something, but seriously, 6 months?! What do I do until then, go back to waiting tables? Not that I minded it, you actually get to meet pretty interesting people doing it but c’mon! I just wish there was a job tree that just keeps on giving…or maybe that companies just stopped posting job offers that are already taken, they could save me a lot of hassle!

Sorry, probably not the post you (yes, you, my faithful readers) were expecting to get after two months of literary absence but there you have it, I’m back in the empire city from yet another jungle and somehow missing the jungle because it actually meant I had a job! Even though there are a lot of free activities to enjoy in this city, you can’t really kid yourself, you can’t live in New York without a paycheck, you might as well just stay home!

But enough of the negativism…I have a couple of ideas for future posts, hopefully not depressing! And did I mention I went on a three week road trip across the USA?? I guess that’s something to talk about in the next one ;)

A brief hiatus...

I recently remembered that for those that have been following my blogs on tumblr/blogspot but do not follow via facebook you may not be aware that I am currently in Timor Leste and not in the Big Apple as previously foreseen!

So, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you see my change of situation, this blog will suffer a ‘brief’ hiatus of roughly 6 months while I’m in Timor Leste working for the UN as electoral officer to help Timor Leste implement their presidential and parliamentary elections! You can follow my adventure (and it has been quite an adventure so far!) onwww.electionsbicyclesandcrocodiles.blogspot.com

Look forward to seeing you there, otherwise, you’ll hear more from me here in 6 months ;D