Home Again
Jun. 24th, 2005 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olorielI'll go to my lectures, then, and try to get as much as possible out of this last but one cost-free semester...
You know what? I lied. What I actually did was run off on a totally crazy journey that took me first to New York and then to Toronto. At least, it was more enjoyable than either the strike or the classeswhich I really shouldn't have missed, one month before the exams, oh sweet Eru allmighty WHAT WAS I THINKING?!.
New York is big, loud, hot and impressive. We spent the first two and a half days of our trip with Jörg's cousin Kurt and Kurt's boyfriend Richard. They have a flat on 44th street close to Times Square. Didn't get any of the touristy things done, not even Miss Liberty because of Jörg's pocket-knife, which is a long story. [You have to buy your tickets in Castle Clinton, which has nothing to do with the guy who did not have a sexual relationship with this woman, and there are huge signs warning you not to take weapons, large bags or the like. Jörg, conscientious guy that he is, asked one of the officers what to do about the pocket knife he always wears on his belt. The answer: “Sir, that’s no problem. You stand in line, you buy your ticket, you go through there into the white tent, and the officer there will tell you what to do.” So we stood in line and bought our tickets for the ferry to Liberty Island and queued up before the white tent, where Jörg asked another officer. “Sir, that’s no problem. You go through there into the white tent, and the officer there will tell you what to do.” So we walked in and towards the safety check, and Jörg told “the officer there” about the pocket knife. “THAT’S A WEAPON, SIR! EITHER YOU LEAVE IT HERE AND WON’T EVER SEE IT AGAIN, OR YOU LEAVE THIS PLACE AT ONCE!”
Seeing as the knife was worth around $80, we decided to give Miss Liberty a miss. At least we got a refund for the tickets.]
Instead, we walked around more or less aimlessly for two days. We saw Ground Zero, which, no offense meant, looks a lot like that excavation pit in Cologne where they're planning to build the new Anthropology museum, except for the part where you know what happened here that didn't happen at the Heumarkt. The site isn't overly impressive, at any rate. What is impressive is the timeline they put up above it; talk about goosebumps. We saw the UN building but didn’t go inside for lack of time.
We ate Chinese food and Mexican food and watched Batman Begins. 'tis a good movie, it really is. And that from someone who never liked Batman much.But LIAM NEESON OME SQUEE!
On Sunday, we flew to Toronto. I have been flying a lot in my rather short life so far, but this was the first flight that really, really scared me. You know, when you think about the USA and Flying, you immediately think of all sorts of safety measures and safety madness. But that’s all a lot of noise and little substance. [When we entered the country, they took fingerprints and a photo, for Eru's sake. [Is it bad that my first thought was, "Ah well, never mind, Lee can hack and erase that?" Yes, it is. I should explain at this point that Lee is![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elfy's character in the RPG we're currently at. Lee’s an excellent hacker, someone you need in your team if you’re trying to steal nanotechnological sea-horses from the Vatican in the year 2165. Trust me on that.] But when you leave? APPARENTLY THEY ONLY BEGAN SCANNING PEOPLE'S LUGGAGE FOUR YEARS AGO! When you check in, they put that sticker on your luggage, THEN someone drags it through half the airport to some makeshift safety area with an X-ray machine, where they put ALL THE LUGGAGE from ALL THE COUNTERS in the WHOLE COMPARTMENT on ONE HEAP, x-ray the bags, put it on ANOTHER HEAP, re-sort the luggage according to flights and THEN drag it to the respective airplanes. That's safety measures for you. You just have to seriously hope that the airport workers are all trustworthy and don’t stuff anything that shouldn’t be there into your bags in the process. Seriously, WTF?
That aside, arrivals and departures are handled on the same level, so people having just arrived run around among the people waiting to take off. The fun thing is that no one checks who is who once you have passed the passengers-only line, which means you could take anything from anyone arriving or switch tickets or do whatever you feel like BECAUSE NO ONE EVER CHECKS YOUR ID AGAIN.
The plane was last decade’s standard and they didn’t even close the cabin door, so you could look at the lights and levers in the cockpit from the very last row. *facepalm* The entire thing was so incredibly unprofessional that I wouldn’t have been surprised to find it if I had flown Air Togo* or somesuch, but not, I repeat, NOT for American Airlines.
At least the flight was very short. You gain height until you can see the Niagara Falls, then you drop until you have reached Toronto. It takes an hour if your plane has taken off too late and the pilot is trying to make up for it.]
Jörg unfortunately stowed the camera away in the overhead department, so we could take no pictorial evidence of the sun setting over New York or of the Niagara Falls from very high above. *le sigh*
In Toronto, we met Pino and drove over to Isa’s flat. Isa was The Other Star Wars Fan in High School and now studies psychology in Toronto, and as she’s not using her flat at the moment (because she’s back in Germany until July), we could stay there. Us and Violet, a distant friend of Isa’s. She was nice, so that was no problem. Isa’s flat is on Wellesley Street. Now the street signs in Toronto are often colour-coded, so you know which part of the city you’re in (it’s pretty large, as I said), maybe the historical village or the business village or whatever. In the Wellesley/Church Village, the colour chosen is a rainbow…
But the churches in Toronto observe Pride Week, too, so that’s all very Canadian.
There was a dentist’s practice with a huuuuuge smile (and nothing else) on the practice sign, which made us sing the Dentist Song from Little Shop of Horrors whenever we passed.
After New York, Toronto seemed clean, relaxed and clearly arranged, although it is a pretty big sprawl of a city. Although we walked around a lot (expecially to the Eaton Centre), Pino also had rented a car, which was useful because the championships took place in Mississauga, half an hour’s drive from downtown Toronto via the Gardiner Expressway on a good day. Alas, the championships. Rather badly organized, considering they were the fucking Judo World Masters. The program got changed a lot, they cancelled both the seminar meant to inform the participants about the bases of valuation and the seminar meant to cure mistakes in the kata. So no-one knew what the referees were actually looking for (judging by the competition, they were looking for loud kiai, show-offy attitude and profound lack of knowledge about what the techniques are actually for. I mean, I’m not the bestest judge of kata, but even I know that a disarming technique that involves grabbing the BLADE of a knife is a rather stupid thing to do. Another valuable lesson: It doesn’t matter if you lose your weapon in the middle of the kata as long as you’re American). Combined with the cramping resulting from Pino’s ambition (“We just go there and do our thing. Doesn’t matter what place we make.” Yeah right.), the kata Pino and Jörg showed got them tenth place. Which sounds good, considering these were the World Masters, but if you SAW the other pairs (and only two of them were actually equal to, or possibly better than, Pino and Jörg), it’s extremely frustrating. Pino, in spite of telling everybody how much he didn’t care, was VERY vexed [and is now refusing to go to the Hessian Championships on Saturday. Childish and unwise, but apparently he cannot be convinced.]
We managed to relax on the lake a bit. We managed to see the Niagara Falls close-up, though not for long. Jörg managed to talk me into wanting a red dress. I managed to buy some books, though not nearly as many as I would have liked. We managed to watch Batman Begins again. And then it was already time to return home.
Toronto International is a lot more professional than La Guardia. Not much more efficient, but more professional about it.
Also, it’s SO satisfying to see all the idiots who think they have to line up for boarding so they get into the plane fast fast fast sent back to their seats, and the airport workers having people with children board first, then the very last rows, then the next ones, etc. Because I hate people who sit in the front rows and run into the plane first and then block the gangways because they have to stow away their carry-on luggage. Eru damn them all. Anyway, this time they had to wait until the end, which makes my inner kinslayer smile.Especially as I was in row 36, i.e. in the back, i.e. among the first to check in.
The flight was extremely annoying because it took off an hour late (because six persons had gone missing, or were there but not officially boarded, or whatever), because one idiot smoked on the toilets (we were lucky the pilot didn’t initiate an emergency landing; smoke on the toilet means fire on the plane, after all), and because another idiot got totally drunk and swayed along the gangways because he didn’t find his way back to his seat. And the stewardesses didn’t do much to help.
Not the best way to celebrate my 50th flight. (Well, it might also have been the 49th or the 51st, but I like to think it was #50.)
Ah, well. I’m back, still alive, tired, scared of returning to university, unmotivated and did I mention tired?
Also, OMG I have a Zen! It’s excellent. Love it. I shall call it R2. Or Heian, which was the name of my character’s R2 unit in my very first RPG. But probably just R2.
(Incidentally, on the first day in New York, I was given a Zen Micro t-shirt. They wanted to talk me into buying a Zen Micro, and I said I already had the 20 GB one, so they gave me a “large t-shirt for the large Zen”. Muahahah.)
One day, I shall find out why I always have to leave Canada before Canada Day.
A more coherent post with photos might or might not follow.
- - -
*No offense meant to Air Togo. I’m sure they try.
= = =
Keine Übersetzung, bin zu faul jetzt.
You know what? I lied. What I actually did was run off on a totally crazy journey that took me first to New York and then to Toronto. At least, it was more enjoyable than either the strike or the classes
New York is big, loud, hot and impressive. We spent the first two and a half days of our trip with Jörg's cousin Kurt and Kurt's boyfriend Richard. They have a flat on 44th street close to Times Square. Didn't get any of the touristy things done, not even Miss Liberty because of Jörg's pocket-knife, which is a long story. [You have to buy your tickets in Castle Clinton, which has nothing to do with the guy who did not have a sexual relationship with this woman, and there are huge signs warning you not to take weapons, large bags or the like. Jörg, conscientious guy that he is, asked one of the officers what to do about the pocket knife he always wears on his belt. The answer: “Sir, that’s no problem. You stand in line, you buy your ticket, you go through there into the white tent, and the officer there will tell you what to do.” So we stood in line and bought our tickets for the ferry to Liberty Island and queued up before the white tent, where Jörg asked another officer. “Sir, that’s no problem. You go through there into the white tent, and the officer there will tell you what to do.” So we walked in and towards the safety check, and Jörg told “the officer there” about the pocket knife. “THAT’S A WEAPON, SIR! EITHER YOU LEAVE IT HERE AND WON’T EVER SEE IT AGAIN, OR YOU LEAVE THIS PLACE AT ONCE!”
Seeing as the knife was worth around $80, we decided to give Miss Liberty a miss. At least we got a refund for the tickets.]
Instead, we walked around more or less aimlessly for two days. We saw Ground Zero, which, no offense meant, looks a lot like that excavation pit in Cologne where they're planning to build the new Anthropology museum, except for the part where you know what happened here that didn't happen at the Heumarkt. The site isn't overly impressive, at any rate. What is impressive is the timeline they put up above it; talk about goosebumps. We saw the UN building but didn’t go inside for lack of time.
We ate Chinese food and Mexican food and watched Batman Begins. 'tis a good movie, it really is. And that from someone who never liked Batman much.
On Sunday, we flew to Toronto. I have been flying a lot in my rather short life so far, but this was the first flight that really, really scared me. You know, when you think about the USA and Flying, you immediately think of all sorts of safety measures and safety madness. But that’s all a lot of noise and little substance. [When we entered the country, they took fingerprints and a photo, for Eru's sake. [Is it bad that my first thought was, "Ah well, never mind, Lee can hack and erase that?" Yes, it is. I should explain at this point that Lee is
elfy's character in the RPG we're currently at. Lee’s an excellent hacker, someone you need in your team if you’re trying to steal nanotechnological sea-horses from the Vatican in the year 2165. Trust me on that.] But when you leave? APPARENTLY THEY ONLY BEGAN SCANNING PEOPLE'S LUGGAGE FOUR YEARS AGO! When you check in, they put that sticker on your luggage, THEN someone drags it through half the airport to some makeshift safety area with an X-ray machine, where they put ALL THE LUGGAGE from ALL THE COUNTERS in the WHOLE COMPARTMENT on ONE HEAP, x-ray the bags, put it on ANOTHER HEAP, re-sort the luggage according to flights and THEN drag it to the respective airplanes. That's safety measures for you. You just have to seriously hope that the airport workers are all trustworthy and don’t stuff anything that shouldn’t be there into your bags in the process. Seriously, WTF? That aside, arrivals and departures are handled on the same level, so people having just arrived run around among the people waiting to take off. The fun thing is that no one checks who is who once you have passed the passengers-only line, which means you could take anything from anyone arriving or switch tickets or do whatever you feel like BECAUSE NO ONE EVER CHECKS YOUR ID AGAIN.
The plane was last decade’s standard and they didn’t even close the cabin door, so you could look at the lights and levers in the cockpit from the very last row. *facepalm* The entire thing was so incredibly unprofessional that I wouldn’t have been surprised to find it if I had flown Air Togo* or somesuch, but not, I repeat, NOT for American Airlines.
At least the flight was very short. You gain height until you can see the Niagara Falls, then you drop until you have reached Toronto. It takes an hour if your plane has taken off too late and the pilot is trying to make up for it.]
Jörg unfortunately stowed the camera away in the overhead department, so we could take no pictorial evidence of the sun setting over New York or of the Niagara Falls from very high above. *le sigh*
In Toronto, we met Pino and drove over to Isa’s flat. Isa was The Other Star Wars Fan in High School and now studies psychology in Toronto, and as she’s not using her flat at the moment (because she’s back in Germany until July), we could stay there. Us and Violet, a distant friend of Isa’s. She was nice, so that was no problem. Isa’s flat is on Wellesley Street. Now the street signs in Toronto are often colour-coded, so you know which part of the city you’re in (it’s pretty large, as I said), maybe the historical village or the business village or whatever. In the Wellesley/Church Village, the colour chosen is a rainbow…
But the churches in Toronto observe Pride Week, too, so that’s all very Canadian.
There was a dentist’s practice with a huuuuuge smile (and nothing else) on the practice sign, which made us sing the Dentist Song from Little Shop of Horrors whenever we passed.
After New York, Toronto seemed clean, relaxed and clearly arranged, although it is a pretty big sprawl of a city. Although we walked around a lot (expecially to the Eaton Centre), Pino also had rented a car, which was useful because the championships took place in Mississauga, half an hour’s drive from downtown Toronto via the Gardiner Expressway on a good day. Alas, the championships. Rather badly organized, considering they were the fucking Judo World Masters. The program got changed a lot, they cancelled both the seminar meant to inform the participants about the bases of valuation and the seminar meant to cure mistakes in the kata. So no-one knew what the referees were actually looking for (judging by the competition, they were looking for loud kiai, show-offy attitude and profound lack of knowledge about what the techniques are actually for. I mean, I’m not the bestest judge of kata, but even I know that a disarming technique that involves grabbing the BLADE of a knife is a rather stupid thing to do. Another valuable lesson: It doesn’t matter if you lose your weapon in the middle of the kata as long as you’re American). Combined with the cramping resulting from Pino’s ambition (“We just go there and do our thing. Doesn’t matter what place we make.” Yeah right.), the kata Pino and Jörg showed got them tenth place. Which sounds good, considering these were the World Masters, but if you SAW the other pairs (and only two of them were actually equal to, or possibly better than, Pino and Jörg), it’s extremely frustrating. Pino, in spite of telling everybody how much he didn’t care, was VERY vexed [and is now refusing to go to the Hessian Championships on Saturday. Childish and unwise, but apparently he cannot be convinced.]
We managed to relax on the lake a bit. We managed to see the Niagara Falls close-up, though not for long. Jörg managed to talk me into wanting a red dress. I managed to buy some books, though not nearly as many as I would have liked. We managed to watch Batman Begins again. And then it was already time to return home.
Toronto International is a lot more professional than La Guardia. Not much more efficient, but more professional about it.
Also, it’s SO satisfying to see all the idiots who think they have to line up for boarding so they get into the plane fast fast fast sent back to their seats, and the airport workers having people with children board first, then the very last rows, then the next ones, etc. Because I hate people who sit in the front rows and run into the plane first and then block the gangways because they have to stow away their carry-on luggage. Eru damn them all. Anyway, this time they had to wait until the end, which makes my inner kinslayer smile.
The flight was extremely annoying because it took off an hour late (because six persons had gone missing, or were there but not officially boarded, or whatever), because one idiot smoked on the toilets (we were lucky the pilot didn’t initiate an emergency landing; smoke on the toilet means fire on the plane, after all), and because another idiot got totally drunk and swayed along the gangways because he didn’t find his way back to his seat. And the stewardesses didn’t do much to help.
Not the best way to celebrate my 50th flight. (Well, it might also have been the 49th or the 51st, but I like to think it was #50.)
Ah, well. I’m back, still alive, tired, scared of returning to university, unmotivated and did I mention tired?
Also, OMG I have a Zen! It’s excellent. Love it. I shall call it R2. Or Heian, which was the name of my character’s R2 unit in my very first RPG. But probably just R2.
(Incidentally, on the first day in New York, I was given a Zen Micro t-shirt. They wanted to talk me into buying a Zen Micro, and I said I already had the 20 GB one, so they gave me a “large t-shirt for the large Zen”. Muahahah.)
One day, I shall find out why I always have to leave Canada before Canada Day.
A more coherent post with photos might or might not follow.
- - -
*No offense meant to Air Togo. I’m sure they try.
= = =
Keine Übersetzung, bin zu faul jetzt.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-06-25 07:33 am (UTC)