-”Who are you?”
-”I’m me, who are you?”
-”I’m me too”

Cirkus

So a lot has happend since I wrote last. I took the bus up to Rochester to meet one of my friends I met in Edinburgh. From there we made trips to the Niagara Falls in Canada and all the way down to Virginia Beach. After those adventures I took the train to Chicago… well not really Chicago but Naperville which is about an hour away on the train. There I stayed with two friends I met in Hollywood at their collage campus before I took a 20 hour train back to NYC.

But the flight out of NYC on my way back to Sweden was something different. I’ve been on a couple of flights in my time and I’ve never been on a flight like this. I was sitting by my gate just waiting and browsing their really slow wifi. a couple of seats over was an emo midget and a blond rocker girl… well not girl she was a bit old to be called a girl but lets call her a person rocker of the female gender. More and more people proper hipster people straight out of the hippest NY bars, not that I’ve been to them but I can imagine. So for a little while I think maybe they’re like a traveling freak show or circus? they had a midget after all… Then film cameras E news and others show up and start interviewing some model looking people standing by the gate. What’s going on? More and more hipp looking people and models show up. I’m almost starting to feel under dressed for my flight, not having shaved for a couple of days because my electric shaver broke down…

Anyway I get on the plane and I get to my seat at the back part of the plane, the hippsters and models start filling up the front part and scurrying around drinking drinks. They look more like their at a bar then on a plane. Camera flashes everywhere. But apparently we got taxi privileges and what would have been an hour long taxi was shortened to only like 10-15 minutes. During the flight I find out that they are going to some event called LifeBoat or LifeBuoy or something like that and that they are all models, artists and media. My part of the plane however is just full of old easter european people so I popped a couple of sleeping pills and sleept for the whole flight and wako up just as they serve breakfast. After that landing wasn’t far off.

As we land they tell us, well they tell the party people that they are going to exit out on the red carpet where drinks and media will be waiting. Me and my part of the plane however has to exit out the rear end of the plane like the crap we are. Only getting short glimpses of their red carpet luxuries as we get pushed into small airport busses.

Världen är liten ibland

So I was meeting up with my friend Maria and her friend who just arrived from Sweden at Grand Central Station. I found Marias friend at a Starbucks on 40th and Lexington which wasn’t where I thought she would be for some reason. But there she was so I sat down and we talked a bit about stuff until Maria arrived straight from work. I had barely said hello to Maria before I get jumped by some guy.

I was quite surprised when it turned out to be Magnus and Robert, my classmates from back in Stockholm. I knew that they had arrived in NY the day before but I hadn’t heard from them and I suddenly didn’t expect to just bump into them at some random Starbucks on manhattan. I usually don’t even go into Starbucks because I don’t drink coffe. But there they where. It was all a bit hurried because Maria needed to get back to her place and dump of her friends bags before they headed to IKEA and I needed to follow them because I need to get my hands on my laptop for a bit that I had left at her place. So we kind of quickly said hello and then parted ways. But they are staying quite close to my hostel so I think I’ll see them again, might even walk into them by chance again, who knows…

Gamla trotjänare

I really should throw these old shoes away, they feel like they are going to fall apart as I walk through the streets of New York. But we have been through so much together. We have been crawling through mud, climbing ravines lost in the Blue Mountains of Australia, we have been to the Grand Canyon and all around the western part of America. I need all the space in my backpack I can get. But it would feel like I’m tossing away an old friend… Well f*** it!! I’m keeping them and when I get home I’m going to hang them on my wall!

Jag kommer vara där för dig…

According to our local New Yorker guide Philip, two german tourists and a huge american tourgroup, this is building was used for the TV show Friends.

Det våras för NY

På vägen

I’m reading this book On the Road by Jack Kerouac. My trek leader and a german called Ruben told me to read it so I picked up a copy before I left LA. There is a lot of legend surrounding the book and how it was written. It is said that he wrote the whole book in three weeks on on long roll of paper to symbolize the road. I’ve never read anything like it before. The book doesn’t have any sections it just flows from beginning to the end. I haven’t gotten too far yet but I already like it. It’s a sort of autobiographical story about his and his friends road trips across america in the 50’s. Thats probably one of the reasons why I find it so interesting.

I walked in to one of the bars in brooklyn yesterday night and saw this girl sitting reading a book. And I quite quickly saw that it was just a full page of text no sections just a block of text. So I said to my friend Maria ‘I bet thats the same book I’m reading’ so I went over and asked what book she was reading and it was the same version of On The Road that I was reading. Was a bit funny that it was so easy to spot.

Jajaja…

So what have I done so far.

I’ve been to the the Metropolitan Museum, and got yelled at because my
phone rang
I’ve been to MoMA on a free friday, it was very crowed
I’ve been to the apple store
I’ve been hanging out with Maria, Kamie and Angela
I’ve had Donuts, Hot Dogs, 1$ pizza slices but still haven’t had a cupcake
I’ve ended up in Brooklyn every night, so far
I’ve left Manhattan and moved to a hostel in Brooklyn now to save me traveling back to manhattan every night 

Well thats a bit of a quick run down of things.

glömt foto

Dag 2 i NY

So I’ve never been good at planning, I usually take things as they come. So when I woke up rather late I didn’t really have a plan for the day. All I knew was that I needed some food so I went down to the reception to ask for some good lunch place. I ended up talking to the two receptionists Angela and Kameron for a little bit and they said that they were going to take the ferry to IKEA when they got off work so I asked if I could tag along, because it felt like a random thing to do and they seemed like fun people. So I went for lunch had a BBQ beef wrap which was quite good then came back to the hostel and headed out to IKEA.

So we headed down to pier 11 where we just missed the ferry so we walked about a bit in the rain before the next and last ferry arrived. I should have been able to see the Statue of Liberty from the ferry but because of me being a bit slow and the weather being really bad I missed it. But no biggie I will probably get another chance. 

IKEA! so no I’ve been to IKEA in 3 different countries, Sweden, Australia and USA, Whoohooo!!  It was fun we wandered around for a bit Angela had never been to an IKEA. And I tried to translate the names of different furniture and stuff. then we had swedish meatballs and äppel cider!! Before we got kicked out because the store was closing.

So how do we now get home from IKEA, the last ferry and the last bus had already left. So our only choice was to walk through brooklyn in the rainy night. Angela had printed out directions but they didn’t really work much. But it was all good fun, more of an adventure that way. We did find our way in the end so it was all good.