Upstate New York and back "home"?

Its hard to say that I had seen enough of the city but after three weeks I think it was time to move on. If I stayed any longer I might just have never left. Luckily for me I have some cousins about an hour and a half North in a small town called Marlboro. The town, probably not more than a few thousand, is situated just inside the Hudson river valley. I'm not sure if you call it upstate NY but its further upstate than NY city so that's what I'm calling it. I am staying on a house which was built more than 200 years ago. It used to be a bed and breakfast and one at one time was the brightest spot for town nightlife. There was a small dance hall in the backyard, a 2-3 acre backyard at that. From here, outdoor thrillseeking is not too far away. Lots of good hiking, kaykaing, bike riding, fishing, and camping await. Yesterday I went with my cousins Alex and Sofia to a "mountain" top to explore Lake Minewaska. The weather was perfect and the views were spectacular. Another. The lake was very tempting to take a swim. There were multiple areas where amatuer cliff divers could launch themselves safely into harmony. Hopefully I will be back with some swim trunks. There was also some life in the lake...a tadpole here and outside.. a hawk.

We left a little early because I had made plans to go to a previous home of mine in Ridgefield, CT, a small town of about 20,000 tucked just inside the Western border of Connecticut. I lived here in the summer of 2005 where I had an internship with Schlumberger. I stayed with an unbelievably great family. I don't think I've lived a better summer. I had an entire upstairs attic with a TV and bedroom all to myself. I had a really sweet house Mom whom prepared dinner almost every night of the week and would also take me to soccer games and even went hiking with me once. My summer Dad is an outdoor enthusiast who took me out in the water by boat a couple times (see also: fishing, hunting, and traveling through rockies with son for a week with no contact from civilization). My house brother is actually set to star in a nationally released motion picture this coming fall called Margot at the Wedding with Jack Black and Nicole Kidman. My house sister is a ginger haired beauty planning for college. So crazy, last time I was here she was just finishing freshman year.

When I came back, the whole experience from 2 years ago seemed to instantly come back and revive itself. A delicious dinner was prepared lots of catching up was eagerly done. I even ended up spending the night in my old room. It felt fantastic to be back.


Random observation and question...

As I was driving to the hiking area yesterday there were quite a few motorcycles on the road. The good weather probably helped. For a small period of time there happened to be one of the motorcyclists directly infront of me on the road. Every time that he passed an oncoming motorcyclist he would put his left hand out as if to signal that they were in some kind of bike cult or something and the other guy would do the same. Thoughts? (Thanks Alex)


Picture note: I am now using picasa.google.com to host all my pictures. This software by google even lets you digitally edit photos and seems to have many more features than photobucket.com which I was using previously. (Thanks Marion)

I can't seem to get the slideshows to work in my original post...why is there no pause button?? My blog entry about NY is below the slideshows.

Trade center slideshow

Zoo slideshow

Slideshow

Slideshows

Day 60ish: New York City

It’s been a while. Oh...about one third of one percent of my entire life just passed by between blog entries. For the past three weeks I have been staying with my Aunt and Uncle in the Bronx who have very generously let me camp in an upstairs room. My car is on the way to making a full recovery. Luckily enough, the mechanic in Phili found the problem immediately and fixed it for about 150 bucks. It drove fine the second I took it out of the mechanic’s shop but then the very next day my clutch was dying again and needed to be pumped vigorously by my foot to revive it. For the past few weeks I’ve had to continually pump the clutch to get it to work properly. If my left leg is much bigger when I get back then you all will know why.

I’ve been doing almost all my site seeing in the city. See when people say “the city”, they mean Manhattan Island.

World Trade Center area
This was one of the very first areas I went to. It still appears as though a nuke just vaporized the 16 acre lot yesterday. The entire area is completed surrounded by metal chain-link fences which have some opaque sheath attached so that you can’t really get a good glimpse of what actually is going on. There actually wasn’t a huge memorial as I thought there would be. There is a small section on the east side of the towers where the official memorial is. There is a metal overhang shelter type structure and a few posters and a list of the dead that hang on the wall. It’s basically just a few large posters and a list of all those who died hanging on the fence. The re-building of the area is still more than a year away and they are still focused on determining how to fix the foundation. You can go here for more information
http://www.projectrebirth.org/

Wall Street
I’ve always taken an interest in the stock market and headed to Wall Street which is just a few blocks east of the Trade Center memorial. You can’t go inside without knowing someone and came by after the market was closed and so probably didn’t get an accurate feel for the area. The street itself is very narrow and not very long.
Since I have been here I have also decided to go all out in a pursuit to land a job with a large investment firm or hedge fund. My good friend Paul that went to Rice with me just landed a job with a hedge fund and knows the recruiting process very well.


Jewish Heritage Museum
I think the Jewish culture was one of the few that I never came in contact with as a young kid and have become rather curious about their history and especially their success in America. The Jews only represent 2 percent of the American public but make up 10 percent of the US senate, 23% of the wealthiest Americans and 30% of elite college faculty (check here for more facts). This seems pretty remarkable if the numbers are correct. I came here right before it closed at the end of my day and was the sole person in here. The lighting was rather poor and since I was the only person in here I could hear background noises from some video exhibits. It was rather creepy and I did my best to be careful when going up stairs and looking around corners for the unexpected. Seriously, the museum area was secluded far from the lobby down a narrow corridor...

Here are a couple slideshows of some nightlife...yup there is beer pong in bars
here.

I also went to the Bronx zoo...another slideshow below

Ive done quite a bit more, but it'll have to wait