grand central terminal (10-23-06)

the very best icecream i've ever had in my life!!

farmers market in the terminal

good german brands...

my weekend

my weekend was very nice! on saturday i went to connecticut with the family to a naming of davids niece. so we took the car and first picked up ilene's mother. with her we visited ilene's father in the nursing hospital. toby seemed to worry a lot about him - just like last time. but before we left he gave him a very big hug and they thought about their time they spent together some time ago. it was such a lovely moment that i could naerly start to cry... after that we went to the synagogue where the ceremony was. they had a lot of children there - especially toddlers. it was very nice and fast... before we left we had some bagels and (salty?) chocolate cake. we had our real dinner at a nice irish restaurant, together with ilene's mother. i ordered a good chicken pie :) i really enjoyed the whole day.

on sunday i worked from 9:00 am till 1:00 pm. afterwards i went to visit my first museum in nyc: the transit museum, a museum about the new yorker subway. it has only a short exhibition but i liked it. maybe it would be very interesting for my dad ;)

an article about the constructions at the nyc subway (look at the last part...)

in the evening i met ilka (a german au pair from the upper east side) and we went up 34th street through times square. we had great pizza at "sbarro" and were at the "hard rock cafe".

finally time to tell you about the last days. during the last week i was working like usually, spent monday, wednesday and thursday at columbia university for my english class and the time whichwas left mostly at the gym. i am there nearly every day :) last friday was my first working day at the gym kindergarten! :) i will work 3 hours every wednesday morning and get a free membership - great deal :) my first day was pretty easy. neither the boss of the gym nor the other babysitter was there. so i did my workout until one two year old girl came. she was very nice and smart and easy :)

the friday before i went to the social security office to apply for my social security card. i need the ss number for my drivers licence. and i also went to the department for motor vehicles (dmv) where i got a drivers manual. i studied the manual mostly in the subway on my way to columbia. my ssc arrived the last days. with that i have to go to the dmv again to apply for my drivers licence, take the vision and the written test. after that i can choose if i want to take driving lessons at a driving school or with someone else 21+. before my roadtest i also have to take a 5-hour-class. sounds not very difficult at all but i'm still afraid of driving because i habe absolutely no experience except my first very slow driving lesson with matti in berlin last summer ;)

last wednesday i went to the zoo in prospectpark with naomi. we had so much fun. you must have seen her face - she was so excited!!

washington d.c.

wow! i had a great weekend! i went to washington d.c. on friday night. (4:30 h / $35 roundtrip) i had to work longer than 6:00 pm and my bus left at 7:00 pm from 88 east broadway (chinatown). so i was really in a hurry because i needed to be there 20 minutes earlier. otherwise they could sell my ticket to other people. but i managed to be there at time when an asian girl braught some chairs and boxes to sit on until we waited for the bus. she was afraid that we could run away for some reason... it was so funny when we sat down on boxes in the middle of chinatown - and on the sidewalk! we all laughed a lot.

but the bus was okay. it wasn't that overloaded some guys had told me, the ac worked and we were only 30 minutes late :) but the "bathroom" was really disgusting! i was content with the "eastern travel" company - it was better than other chinatown-buscompanies i heard from. so remember that, if you need to travel from nyc ;)

yvonne (a friend from the orientation week) picked me up in nw d.c. around 12:30 am. the town is really beautiful! a very nice landscape, big and expensive houses with unfenced gardens. and there are no high buildings in the city... it't so different from nyc.

on saturday we did a sightseeingtour with a bus (free reboarding). so we visited

• the arlington memorial (jfk's grave, tomb of the unknowns, arlington house)

(there are guards 24/7 at the tomb of the unknown soldier; changing of the guard every hour)

• the white house

• washington monument

• capitol

• jefferson memorial

• f. d. roosevelt memorial.

but it was really silly to buy a ticket for $ 20 because we walked most of the way (the sights are close and the inner city isn't very big). and unfortunately we missed the last bus so we had to walk all the way back to the parking garage...
but the buildings are very beautiful! usually i don't linke the boring cultural tours that much but i really enjoyed our washington tour. next time i have to visit some of the great museums :)

oh and we saw the pentagon by acciddent when we got lost before our tour.

pentagon

yvonne and me at the museum of modern art

in the evening our disco plans failed but we were to the big tysons shopping-mall and had a lot of icecream at "cold stone creamery" and a cinnamon-vanilla-chocolate-cake at "cinnamon". you really have to try that if you are in the u.s.


on sunday we visited the lincoln memorial which we hadn't visited on saturday. after that we went to tysons again - but this time for shopping! it's so huge! but i managed not to spend so much money ;) and i'm so happy that we've got h&m over here :)

lincoln memorial

lincoln

tysons

german chocolate

habits

immer diese leute mit den ghettoblastern... bis jetzt habe ich das nur bei farbigen naehe der fulton mall gesehen... der kerl in der einen hand die musik (in form einer riesen anlage), an der anderen ein kleines kind. oder die eine frau (!) mit ghettoblaster und 3 kleinkindern! am geilsten aber war einer im rollstuhl, vllt so mitte bis ende 20. er hatte hinten am rollstuhl seine grosse anlage festgemacht und rollte mit bass in den ohren die strasse entlang. vor allem hab ich auch schon rollstuhlfahrer bei rot ueber stark befahrene strassen rollen sehen - schoen gemuetlich. die autos muessen dann halt einfach warten. oder aeltere menschen - nichtmal die kuemmern sich um traffic ligths. ziemlich gefaehrlich alles, da die autos ja auch nicht unbedingt langsam und vorchtig fahren... und die kleinen kinder machen schon alles nach. das finde ich immernoch am schlimmsten. aber wie sollen sie's lernen, wenn mama ihnen schon ein schlechtes vorbild ist? dabei koennen kinder entfernungen von autos noch gar nich richtig einschaetzen! zum glueck sind toby und simone in dieser hinsicht gut erzogen und warten an jeder strasse brav :)

simone

simone lost her front teeth!

saturday night

time to tell you about saturday night. i was with sylvia and carmen (an au pair from mallorca) at "webster hall". with clubplanet we got on the guestlist. the normal entry fee is $10 before 11:00 pm and $30 after. the disco is very huge and great - seemed like they made it out of a normal house... there were 4 or 5 floors with all kinds of music except house music :( in the bathroom they sold snacks, brushes, ponytails, braceletts and even comfortable shoes! i love that idea! selling shoes for those girls on high heels - that's great :) oh and we had some really good and cheap pizza :) the pizzaboy introduced us to the president of the disco because of carmens mother language (spanish). he was so nice to give us special cards for free drinks and we could choose anything we like! and the drinks are very expensive. you got a small vodka-redbull for $11. that's really crazy. but the president gave us his business card and next time we go ther we should ask for him. so we can get free entry and free drinks :) after our party i spent the night at sylvia's house of course ;)

acrobatic show

bathroom sale