An overdue entry

I should start this entry by apologizing for the enormous amount of time which has passed since the previous report: sorry. The past two months have been busy beyond any previous experience of mine, in a positive way, and that is why I have not been writing for the blog, even though I should have. Let this be my Thanksgiving resolution: to keep these pages more alive.

Yes, today is Thanksgiving, and I am so lucky as to have the week off from school. Most people have left New Haven to visit their families and have dinner together. I myself am staying in town and will eat the traditional stuffed turkey in a couple of hours with friends from school that stayed as well. Apart from the turkey, I don't really know what Thanksgiving is all about (I suppose to thank the universe for the good things it gave us) but it's a great excuse to have a quality dinner and some drinks with friends in these cold days.

Also, it's great as an excuse for a holiday. The School has the week off and I used it to take some days off from coursework and just relax and enjoy. With Selin I went to New York for a day or two and escaping New Haven even for such a short while was exhilarating. (A short update on my situation: Selin is a Turkish girl in the second year of the same program I am in and we have been happily together since the end of September.) New York was as it always is: BIG and alive. Odly, traffic is something I really miss here in New Haven, and there's plenty of it in New York. Also, New Haven sleeps from 1am to 7am even if I don't want to - New york never does.
Below are some pictures from our NY excursion: we saw our friend Dania off at Penn Station, strolled around Manhattan, had some lunch and a beer in Madison Square Park beside the Flatiron Building, took in a sunset over New Jersey on the west side, and then went to have delicious pizza (the best I had since Turin in Februari!) in the West Village. The dessert was... GROM! Finally I made it there, and tasting my beloved ice cream after so much time was definitely worth the many dollars it cost. By the way, it is me in the pictures - yes, I am growing a moustache. November is Movember, and I'm part of a team of moustached men that raise money for prostate cancer research. Though I haven't collected a single cent yet, I like the justified experiment with my facial hair. Nobody (including me) thinks it's pretty in any way, but I certainly find it interesting.








We took the free Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty the second day.


Selin loves food, and so do I, and she has been 'slowing down' my food. After I first got here, I found everything very expensive, so I chose food as cheap as possible, with as many bang (in calories) as my buck could buy. It took some time to realize that all that food I bought was pretty much crap: fat, artificial, overly processed, and awfully bland and tasteless. Maybe it was Carlo Petrini's talk here at Yale (the president of the Slow Food movement) in October that subconsciously changed my views. But it's been mainly discovering alternatives to the crap at Selin's place and finding that good food is not that much more expensive. But still, it is, and it takes more effort since you need to process it yourself. Also, there are so many occasions where you can stuff yourself for free and simultaneously win time and money, but often times it's pizza or chips and a human being should not live on that. Food is one of the reasons why I'm looking forward to coming back to Belgium for Christmas, with maybe a short trip South to Spain or Italy. I was exalted when I opened the package my family had sent me, with dark chocolate and hazelnuts, white chocolate, real cuberdons, and marsipan! Oh, the things I'll eat!

As far as School is concerned, I mentioned that I have been very busy. Instead of giving the entire account of everything that happened in the blog void between entries, at the likely risk of boring my readers, I will sum up the highlights.

My classes have been going well - the homework is very time-consuming but has not been overly difficult and the two midterm exams I had went well. Apart from the four classes I talked about in the previous blog entry, I took an extra one-credit class about conflict resolution and negotiations which was interesting but held at the inhuman time of 6 to 8:30pm Monday evening when the stomach is empty, sugar level low, and attention somewhere else.

I am very glad to have been admitted into the Forestry Club - kind of the praesidium of our School's students - thereby becoming part of a group of wonderful students that organize a ton of events for the students and faculty and make sure that the informal atmosphere is kept alive. I have been assigned the task of snackretary and am thus responsible for providing food.

Progress is being made on the cookstove project I am working on - an affordable design for developing countries - but it is rather slow and I will have to put in more time before going back to my home turf.

As I speak, water is boiling for the Brussels sprouts I am taking to the Thanksgiving potluck (as well as a rather disappointing chocolate mousse which is overly sweet because I had to make do with Hershey's chocolate) and I have to devote my attention to them, so I will end this entry, and try to write more soon. Happy Thanksgiving, dear reading audience!

The busy beginning

Hello reading audience! It's been way too long since you heard anything from me. The reason is that I've been really busy over the past couple of weeks. It has been a lot of fun though. But just really busy, leaving little time to report about it.

Now is a good time to write an overdue blog entry. I just came home from a one-credit class where I had some wine so I'm not really feeling like doing schoolwork. The class is one devised by a student of my school and is titled "French Environmental Conversation". The idea is to talk in French about environmental issues and in doing so improving vocabulary in the environmental field. I don't think I am going to take it though, because time has become a very scarce good and here in New Haven there's only 7 days in a week and only 24 hours in a day. And an hour only lasts 60 minutes. And the minutes on this side of the Atlantic Ocean aren't any longer than those in Belgium. Unfortunately.

Let me talk about the first weeks of class, and for now put the tales from the Yale-Myers Forest and Great Mountain Forest off until later. I'll talk about it somewhere in the future, and add some pictures, because the last two weeks of MODs were great fun and should not go unmentioned in this account of this new stage in my life.

As for all the little kids in Belgium, school officially started on the first of September. In between MODs and then, we had some more information sessions about Yale, the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and the programs at our school (all the requirements which, as I have understood, can all be bent). We even had a course expo with all the professors to have an idea of what's on offer in 2010-2011. All of this was accompanied by plenty of free food and drinks - much appreciated by all of the graduate students, happy to get some material value for their enormous tuition fees.

The first two weeks (ending in a couple of hours) are 'shopping period' at Yale. This means that you can sit in on any class and try it out. This is great because there are so many interesting courses and some of them can in this way be eliminated without a troubled conscience by seeing for yourself that the teaching method or the professor are not exactly your cup of tea.

By now, I finally know for sure what my semester will look like, coursewise. One course is Landscape Ecology. It's not in line with anything I did before coming here, but it is one of the 'Foundation' courses for my degree and is thus 'required' (brackets indicate the flexibility at the school). The professor teaches well and he got me into the course at his introduction for it: he said that it would 'enhance my understanding of the world'. As I am well aware that I do not understand the world and realize it every day, I just had to take this course. No doubt about it. I cannot yet say that I feel smarter and more all-knowing, but so far the classes have been interesting. So no regrets.

Then there's Economics of the Environment. I already knew something about this subject as I had attended some classes at the University of Antwerp last year, but now I'm really into it, homework and all. The first classes were quite simple, explaining about supply and demand, but now it's getting more applied. The best thing is that the school hired a professor that is an extremely gifted teacher and I sincerely enjoy paying attention. The American system is quite different from the Belgium one, and this becomes very clear in Economics of the Environment. There is much more interaction between the professor and the students and this emphasizes that it's his job to make the students understand the subject to the fullest. He will explain the same thing over and over again if he thinks it was not clear to the class.
It will take me some time to get used to this, as during my studies in Ghent I do not remember having spoken up even once in class - whenever I lost track, which was not rare, I just shut up and would take a look at the subject at home to try to understand. Here in the US that's not how it's done, since the students get graded for their participation in class. This, however, leads to situations in which students will say anything just to make themselves heard. I think I'll stick to shutting up instead, until I have an intelligent remark to make.

A third class I was going to take was an introductory course about policy of the environment. At first it seemed very interesting, also because the professor has quite a unique way of teaching. His class is full of anecdotes and funny remarks, and he spent almost half of the first lecture talking about the fact that he is Canadian and how wonderful his country is (I believed him). The problem is that I couldn't find the connection between the anecdotes, and I wasn't the only one. I felt dumber with every lecture, often thinking to myself "What is this guy talking about?" Apparently, he told us, he deliberately wanted to confuse us and get us completely disoriented, and then spend the rest of the semester trying to undo the chaos. I have (wisely, I think) decided to put off this social science course until next year, when maybe my brain, still geared to engineering, will be flexible enough...

Finally, there are my personal core courses, one about energy systems analysis, the other a seminar about technology and society. The Austrian professor is a little bit eccentric. On the one hand, I like it, but on the other hand he also scares me somewhat. I hope that as I get to know him better, the latter feeling will dissolve and the former will prevail.
One of the unique things about him is that he is (quoting him) the faculty member who spends most of his faculty budget on booze and food. This will be consumed during various 'social events' in the fall semester, most of them after lectures by invited speakers, to stimulate informal discussions about the topic of energy in all of its aspects. His other course, the seminar, is a bit more exclusive, in the sense that more people wanted to take the class than he could fit around a table. I'm happy to say that I got in, so I'll be enjoying even more social events (some of which will even be held at his home with distinguished guests of his) for that course. I expect to report further on our relationship with the professor as it evolves...

I noticed that this entry is getting quite long again - I will try to keep messages more limited in length in the future and publish them more frequently. Let me just quickly write down what else my present life is all about.
Apart from my coursework, I'll be doing some research of about 10h per week at the School of Engineering among Italians. The project is about the development of a cook stove that is cheap and clean and efficient and will hopefully be deployed in selected third world countries to improve the lives of many people. This project will allow me to do something that is actually useful with my engineering background, and I am quite excited about it.
I'm also helping out a fellow student from the UK with building a windmill. He has been doing it for 6 months in Africa and the idea is to teach people how to make windmills out of locally available materials, so that they can charge their cell phones. A very nice project which has been received with a lot of enthousiasm by all the faculty that we talked to, and the supervisor of the workshop we are using is completely on our side and wants to learn how to build one of his own. He's getting us every we need and it's just wonderful! I'm glad I got involved in this.
Another thing that will keep me busy this weekend is the Yale/UNITAR Conference. It's the second edition of the event hosted at Yale by the University and the UN Institute for Training and Research, and it's about environmental governance and democracy. This year the focus is on climate change. If you want to learn more, take a look here. I will be working as a volunteer and this gives me access to the entire conference (and all of its facilities, including delicious food and tasty cocktails in an amazing setting). A lot of interesting people (Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC) will be there and I look forward to meeting them. I can't wait to get into my suit and work with the crew - I absolutely love feeling important!
Finally, there's CouchSurfing! I have had six guests in total since I arrived in New Haven and another guest is coming tomorrow. Unfortunately, I've had to deny some requests because they would have inconvenienced the household too much, but generally we're quite hospitable. I am becoming very proud of my profile which contains praising references by friends and guests, and I have even been vouched for yesterday! This is a big thing in couchsurfing and means that an important member in the community thinks that I'm a good person and couchsurfer and will put his reputation on the line for me...

Enough for now. Much more will happen in my life and I will do my best to keep up with the reports. I hope you enjoy reading them...

I'm lovin' it

This phrase, coined by the fastfood chain that need not be named, describes my present state of mind very well. Only two weeks ago, I wouldn't have expected to feel like I do. But I am very happy about everything that is going on. I'm lovin' it!

I have so much to tell and I am sure that I will have so much more to tell in the coming weeks and months. But ironically, things are getting so busy that it will get more difficult to tell it all. I'll try to pick out the best and most interesting parts.

Let's start where the previous entry ended. The final weekend of July, we saw the last of the Music on the Green concerts. This time, Los Lobos were performing. Don't feel bad if the name doesn't ring a bell - I had to look them up myself. But I'm sure you know their most famous hit - "La Bamba". With some friends and some beers added to the concert, it was a good evening.

Afterwards, I went to Helen Hadley Hall, one of the graduate dormitories, where I met Soojin, a Korean girl who was an incoming FES (School of Forestry and Environmental Studies) student like me. A lot of people were moving out of the dormitory and had to clear their rooms. They had accumulated more stuff than they had come with and had to leave a lot behind, so the corridors were like free yard sales. The scavenger in me could not go home with empty hands, and I took a very colourful lamp, some rope - which I still have not found any use for but you never know - and a couple of cups. My living was slowly filling up with free stuff - I had already received a free couch from someone, and had found a very nice fauteuil on the street the night before.

On Sunday, Soojin and I went shopping to Walmart for MOD stuff. MODs are technical skills modules which we would be taking in the coming weeks, and which also serve as a means of getting to know the fellow students. Some of the essentials we had to buy were insect repellent, a headlight and hiking boots - it will be a close encounter with Nature...

The next days were spent on getting more free furniture and more importantly, finding the third housemate. Sarah, a girl from Washington DC, was the second, and we both preferred the third to be an FES student. I had posted an ad for our place, with both of our profiles, on the School’s website, but of the 3-4 people that responded and were really interested, only one decided that he wanted to join us. His name is Jonathan. However, he had to make sure that he could sublet his other place, otherwise he would have ended up with paying for two rooms. So Sarah and I decided to offer the advertisement to a larger public, placing it on Craigslist, the free ad-website which everyone in the US uses and where I myself had found my place. In less than one day we had 15 responses, and about 7 people came over to see our apartment and were all quite excited about it. Sarah and I wanted to get the quest over with, so we gave Jonathan until Wednesday 1pm to make up his mind, otherwise we would take someone from the craigslist candidates. Fortunately, Jon called in at 1pm on Wednesday, saying that he was coming to live with us.

On Wednesday evening I went to the train station to pick up my very first official couch surfing guest, Markus from Heidelberg. He needed a place to stay while he would be looking for an apartment himself, as he would be at Yale for 11 months, doing research in psychology, more specifically in the field of the formation of small children. After installing him in the apartment, we went to Rachel’s. She had made an excellent lime cake and we had some, with ice cream, in her sauna-like living-room, while talking about Rocky Balboa, Yale’s naked parties (civilized cocktail parties but without garments), and the Harvard-Yale rivalry. Markus (and I) had learned a lot about the University we were going to attend…

The next day, Thursday the 5th of August, the Forestry School program finally took off, starting with two days of orientation exclusively for the international students. It was wonderful! The first day was a mix of eating (breakfast and lunch were provided), getting to know the other students, and a very impressive introduction to Yale, the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and the amazing array of services offered to us. For every possible problem we might have, there were people to help us, and this was emphasized several times. At the end of the day, I felt incredibly proud and happy to have landed at Yale. They were going to take care of us, that was sure.

When all the talks were over and we were excused, I had the impression that everybody would just go home. This was not right, I felt, this was totally wrong. I had met this group of very cool and interesting and beautiful people from all over the world, and I really wanted to get to know them better. So I did something I would normally never have done. I got up from my seat, asked if I could make an announcement, and told everybody that on Thursday nights GPSCY (Graduate and Professional Students Center at Yale, “Gipsy”) had free beer until 10pm and that we should all go there.

Taking the initiative to get up and talk to 45 more or less strangers with very high profiles took some courage, but I’m happy I did. Some complimented me for it, saying that they were waiting for someone to organize something, others asked me for detailed directions and exchanged phone numbers.

We had a great time at the bar. Although we had to pay 4 dollars to get in, we made sure we more than compensated for it with free beers. There were about 15 to 20 people from the program, and we talked and drank and all got to like each other. I had brought Markus, my couchsurfer, and he was having a good time too, becoming as much part of the group as the people in the program.

On Friday we had more getting-to-know-each-other games, more introductions that made us feel even more important and even better taken care of (and that somehow made the tuition seem less expensive because it showed that you do get value for your money), and more eating (breakfast, lunch, plus ice cream in the afternoon). Again, I was afraid of the group falling apart for the weekend, so I took the lead and invited everybody to my place at 8pm for drinks, saying that afterwards we might go to GPSCY again for the karaoke night.

We never got to GPSCY, but had a great party at my place. The couches were still out on the porch and it was an ideal setting for some drink and some talk. As a lot of the people that showed up had Latino blood running through their veins, the party slowly expanded to my carpeted living room and by 11pm it had turned into a dance floor, mainly for salsa but also for very expressive and experimental dances led by Markus – involving throwing a bag of chips around and walking like an Egyptian. He had already become our adopted Forestry friend (or honorary Forestry student) and would attend each of our events during the next days, even after moving into his own apartment and ceasing to become my couchsurfer.

Sarah, my housemate, had arrived on Friday evening with a carload of stuff. On Saturday we went shopping together for some stuff for the house and for groceries, and in the afternoon she took Markus, Soojin, Naazia (a wonderful Canadian girl with Pakistani roots) and me to the beach, where we hung out some hours and some of us swum in the very small area in which we were allowed to do so. Hungry from the sea breeze, we went to try the allegedly best pizza in New Haven, the one from “Peppe’s” – we ordered to take away because there was a queue of an hour outside, waiting to be seated. Without meaning to be pretentious in any way, the only thing I could say about the pizza was that the clams had sand in them (a property apparently appreciated by Americans because it means that they are fresh), that they were huge, and that they tasted okay – apart from the sand. Maybe the only Italians that emigrated to the US were those that didn’t know how to make a pizza…
The plan for the evening was to meet up at my place, have some beers, and then go downtown to a sheesha bar (or hooka or waterpipe bar). By now, I had become the “party-hub” as someone had termed me – no-one in Belgium would ever have thought this, including me. I considered this a very nice compliment. As the sheesha bar had neither beer nor airconditioning, we hit an Irish pub and then went to a dance bar. Just as we got on the stage, the lights went on and everyone was kindly kicked out. The time was 1:50am – absolutely awful. In this respect, Connecticut really disappointed me, together with the entire ‘party gang’. We talked for a bit to a hysterical girl from California and then walked into the night and home.

A tight group of international students had formed by now (including Markus), emphasized by a facebook group exclusively for us. But on Sunday, the Others were joining us. All of the students, both ‘domestic’ and international, gathered under the big oak tree at Marsh Hall (one of the oldest buildings of the School of Forestry) to be welcomed by the dean and to get an introduction to the coming three weeks of MODs. It took less than two hours and nobody hung around for very long, so in the evening we had a barbeque at Juan’s place (Mexican student) with only little US contamination (benign though).

Last Monday MODs started, and the whole group (of 150-ish students) was divided over three modules. Some went to the Yale-Myers Forest, others to the Great Mountain Forest, and I was in the group that stayed in New Haven for the urban module. It was probably the most ‘boring’ module, but I still enjoyed it very much and it was interesting. The first day was spent on identifying plants in the morning and on learning about ubran watershed and sewage systems in the afternoon. We went home with an assignment – everybody had to draw a card with a plant name written on it, and would have to prepare a 2-minute presentation about it, as original as possible. Some danced, some did a game, some made a song, some made pancakes (for the sugar maple) and some recited a poem. I did the latter. As I put quite some effort into it, I want to put it here in my blog. My plant was the hay-scented fern, and I chose to create an acrostic poem for it (the first letters of each bar form the name of the plant). It goes like this:

High in the air you need not look for me

As it is close to the ground that I want to be

You will probably find me among many a kin and friend

Somewhere in between Arkansas and Newfoundland

Cows might mistake me for their staple because, well,

Even though I don’t look like it, we share the same smell

Not everybody likes me that much, however

Trees in particular, because it can take almost forever

Eras and eras, for them to grow beneath my shroud

Dear sunlight is for me and all below is left without.

Foresters regard me as invasive, which is such a harsh way to say

Even for acid deposition they would make me pay!

Real gardeners, they at least see my beauty and grace

Now, you should be able to put a name to my face!

In the evening we got delicious freshly-made pizza at the Yale sustainable farm. I had a new couchsurfer and had taken her to the dinner. She was a Chinese semi-professional chess player who had started studying in the US and was touring Connecticut in August to play chess tournaments. That day when I had picked her up, she told me she had just won the first prize at one of the tournaments! It was a very interesting girl which unfortunately I did not get to know as well as I would have liked to because I was out of the house for most of the rest of the week.

On Tuesday we went around some blocks inserting tree diameters into a central GPS system (quite high-tech) and in the afternoon we had a GIS (Geographical Information Systems) class, taught by a tattoo-covered guy who represented the entire Yale GIS-department. He was pretty cool, and we all enjoyed listening to him in the AC atmosphere of a library basement. In the evening I hosted another party at my house (I wanted to keep up my reputation) but unfortunately the rain kept some people from coming.

On Wednesday we did some tests on water samples taken from a stream in the morning. In the afternoon we were driven to Beaver Ponds park where we helped analyze the plant population and its distribution by carefully mapping the plants in a transect and identifying them. In the evening the TA’s (teaching assistants – students who help to organize the MODs) had organized a barbeque and after I went to two house parties at other students’ places – the entire group was bonding, fantastic!

Thursday was no doubt the most fun day of the urban MOD. First of all, the weather was very tolerable, less sunny and less humid, and second, we were out all day. In the morning we planted trees in Beaver Ponds park – we felt some inches closer to Nature when ours was up and firmly rooted – and in the afternoon we did the opposite – pulling out invasive species and plainly chopping entire Norway maples. Thursday evening was once again devoted to GPSCY – free beer until 10pm – and we were finally able to become members. $15 gives you free entrance for an entire year and I’m sure we’ll break even within the next three weeks. I met some new FESers and found out that somehow I had earned myself the name “party-Simon”. This made me very happy because it means that people like to come party at my place and feel welcome – what more could someone desire?

Friday was a lazy day. It started by me waking up early and going to Kroon Hall to check my e-mails because the people in my house before me had almost simultaneously cancelled gas, electricity, and Internet. The first two were easily taken care of, but Internet would take longer and it had died the day before.

The entire class of 2012 was gathered in an auditorium and we got talks on New Haven, safety, the program, as well as health insurance and IT. I skipped the latter two because we had already had the presentations at the orientation for international students. Instead I went home to prepare for a weekend in New York City, once again.

I left for New York with Sarah two days ago. Sarah is a lovely fellow student (though she’s into the real thing, forestry, whereas I’m into environmental management) and I could stay with her friends in Brooklyn together with her. We had a very tasty burger and went to see an art exhibition at the coffeeshop where her friend works – an intensely New York experience, I felt. We ended the night at an open-air bar – Sarah, two of her friends, and I – where all of a sudden a rather drunk man came to the table, kindly asking one of the girls for a cigarette. He flooded them with low-level compliments (“You’re hot!”) and we will always remember his reaction to being turned down: “Later, you’ll be old and bitter, and I will have a house on the hill like Beyoncé” We agreed that he had thought about this beforehand, and on the way home we had immense fun trying to complete his rap song for him.

On Saturday we strolled around Brooklyn, caught up on some rest in Prospect Park observing squirrels after an enormous breakfast at Tom’s Diner – apparently the best breakfast place in New York according to some renowned newspapers. We then went back to Sarah’s friends’ apartment to try their home-made fruit-infused alcohols. They had created two nice combinations – one was rum with raspberry and currents, the other bourbon with cherry and cinnamon – hats off!

The weekend was the start of a week of all sorts of activities organized by the New York City Couchsurfing group – the event was named NY CouchCrash – and Sarah and I went to a BYOD (Bring Your Own Drink ) rooftop party near Central Park where we met a lot of interesting people: a German who was on a 6-year sailing trip and had just come transatlantic, a Spanish aunt and nephew from La Rioja, two boys from Dijon one of which was going to look for a skiing job in British Columbia… There were also familiar faces from New Haven – Couchsurfing is a beautiful concept and has an amazing network.

We had also briefly met Naazia who was in New York to see family, and she insisted on taking us to thé Canadian place in New York – Tim Horton’s, a Dunkin’ Donuts-like store. We had eaten our sandwiches in the outside air by Broadway.

On Sunday we had some errands to run. After a nice brunch - I had huevos rancheros and they were yummy – we traveled to Grand Central, with stops in between to buy pins for Sarah, hiking pants for me, and we indulged in some edible delights. I, initially reluctantly, spent almost 3 dollars on a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery, but it was worth it! The best cupcake I ever had, of that I’m sure. I had also wanted to go to Grom by the way, the Turin ice cream chain which has the best ice cream I ever had in my life, but we didn’t make it there so it’ll have to wait for the next time. Maybe for the best, because I had already spent enough for the weekend – high time to go back to New Haven!

Huevos rancheros

I am listening to the traffic jam information of 7am in Belgium, and realize that it’s time to finish this entry because I still have to pack my luggage to go camping for four days in Great Mountain Forest. Those who went last week said it was extremely fun, so I’m really looking forward to it. I just hope that I won’t run into any poison ivy…

Concrete jungle where dreams are made, oh

New York is a city where anything can happen. Anything can happen anywhere, of course, it's all statistics, but in New York it's definitely more likely. Believe me.

The Adirondack train from Montréal to New York city halted in Grand Central at the foreseen time of arrival, half past eight in the evening. I said goodbye to Claudia, a charming Mexican girl from the Yucatan peninsula which had been sitting next to me. We had talked about Mexicans in Mexico and in the US and she had complimented me on my Spanish - I hope I will be able to keep warding off a gringo accent contaminating it... I should have asked for some contact information, but as always I only realized when she had left in an unknown direction.

The last contact I had had with the people whom I was going to stay with - I had stayed with them in April and they are friends of a girl I randomly met in March 2009 on a bus from Brussels to Turin who was going to Milan but whom I was able to convince to see Turin instead - had been Sunday evening, in Montréal. I couldn't reach Megan (that's the name of one of them) by phone because I can only call or text certain people with my Belgian cell phone and I didn't have my American number yet. So I just went to her place in Astoria hoping that her plans hadn't changed and that she would be there. After 20 minutes of subway and a 15-minute walk, I got to the place and found a note on the front door. It said "We're in the city - call me". I tried a payphone but it didn't work and I lost a quarter. So I picked out a friendly-looking passer-by and asked to use his phone. No problem. Megan was with two Australian guests of her at a free festival in Central Park and she said I should come join them. So I did. Over an hour later - I had taken the wrong metro line and had to walk 14 blocks back at some point - I arrived at the location where the festival had been held. Some people were still hanging around, but Megan and the two aussies were nowhere to be found. So I looked for another kind person with an iPhone and an unlimited-talk-plan and phoned Megan. "Come to the Apple store". This time I urged them to stay where they are and I started walking to the big glass cube at the Southeast corner of Central Park. When I finally got there, Megan was waiting for me - thank God - and she insisted on hugging the sweaty mess I had become having carried my backpack all the way in the warm New York night. She was with a friend of hers and the two boys from Down Under. We made our way to the subway station and hopped on a train back to Astoria.

Remember I said that anything can happen in New York. Well, then something did happen. Megan took a seat, and next to her sat Paola. I called her name, she looked at me, her mouth fell open, and she said "Non ci posso credere" ("I can't believe it"). I had met Paola in the summer of 2005 on Bark Europa during the Tall Ships' Races. She's an Italian actress and lives in Rome. In the past 4 years we had heard from each other two or three times. And now our paths crossed again, in a very unlikely location and a very unlikely moment. Same day, same hour, same continent, same city, same train, same car, same door. What are the odds! Megan and the others were flabbergasted when I started talking in Italian with what had seemed a complete stranger.
I decided to have a picture taken of Paola and me before the mirage dissolved. But after she was still there. We agreed to have breakfast on me the next day, because she was too tired to come with Megan, the aussies and me for beers at a pleasant Astorian beer garden I had been to in April.

On Tuesday I had a genuine American brunch with Paola and her host Christina - I had waffles, wrongly termed Belgian. Paola was in New York for just one night because she had to move on to Canada for a theatre performance. We talked about her career which had evolved in a very positive manner, about Christina's job as a voice-over artist (like an actor, but only for sound), and about my life and my studies. Paola didn't have a lot of time because she had to get ready to leave for Canada, and we decided to meet up at Penn station a couple of hours later.


I really needed to check my e-mail so I went into the city and to the coolest free internet café in the world - the Apple Store at Central Park. I first used a Macbook and then switched to an iPad. It looks really neat but is very clumsy to write e-mails with and it blocks quite easily (and I don't know how to restart - ctrl-alt-del doesn't work because it has a touch screen, and probably also because it's a Mac).


Then I wandered through the city, had some fastfood, visited toy stores to feel like a little boy again, visited phone stores to call Megan to see what she was up to, and took the quintessantial New York picture of myself on Times Square. In between I had seen Paola for 10 minutes at Penn Station because she had to hurry to catch her train and her flight, but we promised to try and see each other again when she's coming back to New York.



In the evening I took Paola's host to Vincent's place near Grand Central to have a drink, and then the three of us went to West Village where we met with Alberto, a Roman friend from Rome whom I had met on the same voyage as Paola. Our meeting was less coincidental however, as I knew that he was studying in New York and we had communicated during the year. He didn't know Paola was in town and so was very surprised as well when I told him that I had seen her on the subway. It was great to talk with Alberto again. We rekindled memories of our sailing trip and talked about American academic life, and we seemed to perfectly understand each other. I'm happy I know him. Both Paola and he are friends that I am able not to have any contact with for months or years and still connect to instantly when we do meet again.

On Wednesday I went back to New Haven, and two presents had arrived by mail. One was a first payment of living expenses by the foundation that gives me my fellowship. The other was my $10 cell phone. I eagerly opened the box and started checking out what had to be done to use it. After some trouble for which I had to call customer support - it also took ages to talk to a human being since most of these customer care lines are virtually completely automated - I could use it. In my opinion, I got very good value for my money: for $25 a month I can text as much as I want, talk for 300 minutes, and use mobile web as much as I want. The latter is the coolest. Apart from Facebook, I can use my gmail e-mail, check out news sites, look up locations on Google maps, and see where the Yale shuttles are in real-time. I was as happy as a boy with a new toy. Literally.

The evening was quiet - I don't even remember what I did. Thursday was devoted to laundry, looking for academic advisors, strolling around town in futile search of someone who was moving out of New Haven and was giving away stuff for free. In the evening, I went to have dinner at an Indian restaurant with Rachel and her friends, and then I took a free salsa initiation class at a Japanese restaurant (weird, huh). I didn't like it that much but decided to sit it through. Afterwards, I danced with a Lesbian girl that spoke French, and met up with a friend of Rachel's. We had a drink and then went to join Rachel and her gang. I'm lucky to have found her.

Today I washed the dishes - mine and those left by someone else in the sink that began to stink and had a swarm of flies over them - and went to my favourite supermarket - PriceRite. This time I had to take the bus though. It's amazing how filled with black people the buses are! And if the passengers are not black, they're hispanic. And if they're white, they're really weird. Remarkable, and not to my liking. Not because I have a problem with being on a bus with black people, but because it means that the white people take the car instead. And that's sad.
At noon I had eaten the leftovers from the Indian restaurant which I had taken home in a doggy bag - very common here - but I realized I shouldn't have when suddenly my guts pushed the alarm button. Fortunately, the shop had a restroom.
I returned with twelve rolls of toilet paper in my hands that wouldn't fit in my backpack that weighed over 30kg, probably 35. I had bought a huge watermelon, a gallon of milk, peanut butter, 3kg of corn meal to make my own tortillas, instant pancake mix, and much more stuff, and I felt first hand that that adds up to quite some weight. But I got home okay.

Plans for the weekend: maybe go out soon, look at a bike tomorrow, perhaps go to the beach, have dinner with an incoming student of my school who will be couchsurfing with a friend, possibly go to New York City on Saturday evening, show the apartment to a potential third housemate, ... And do some exercise in between, because I checked out the 9-floor, 3-swimming pool gym today and it's a nice and fun place. And free! Who knows, maybe I'll become governor of California one day...

Tales of a Northern trip

Monday July 26 - I am now on the train from Montréal (indeed correctly pronounced "mon - french 'r' - éal") to New York, writing this the old-fashioned hand-writing way, later to be digitalized for your reading pleasure. I would have wanted to see so much more of Québec and Canada, but for several reasons I decided to come back to the States today. Those include finding a third housemate, furbishing the house, and financial conservation. Canada is expensive, perhaps even more than the United States.

I will return one day though, when overall conditions are more favourable, because I found Montréal to be an amazing city. And I really mean amazing - I have not yet taken to overawesoming everything as Americans are sometimes inclined to do. Montréal has a charming architecture, a lot of green, a lot going on, and a wonderful atmosphere created by its friendly and remarkably beautiful people of all cultures. I also had the impression that people were more real than in the US. Real, and also less fat. And beautiful - did I already mention that?


As lakes and woods and prairies and faraway mountains flash by, I myself will flash back into my trip to the North, which started on Thursday evening. In New Haven I started my night of bustrips and it was devoid of any sleep because of the extreme discomfort of Greyhound transports - if only they would use the buses I took in Mexico...
I arrived at the bus terminal of Montréal at 5:20am, as scheduled, and realized that I had not prepared very well - I knew the address of my couchsurfing hosts, but had never bothered to look up where it was actually located or how to get there. Luckily an Asian guy on a street corner knew where the road was, hesitatingly he pointed in a direction and I started walking.
After 45 minutes I was getting close and I decided to go get some breakfast for the 6-person apartment. I also sent a message to ask if I could already arrive (at half past six in the morning).
Reply: "Ouait - comme je t'ai dit on dort mais fais comme chez toi". So I thought that Vincent, the tenant I had been in touch with, would get up to show me in and would then go back to bed.
When I found the place, I knocked on the door. No reaction. I felt the door and it was open, so I thought "this must be the right place". I went in, up some stairs, into a living room, took off my shoes, plugged in my cell phone charger, looked around ab it, and got ready to nap on the couch, when suddenly a door opened and a semi sleep drunk girl came into the living room. I introduced myself: "Salut, je suis Simon, le nouveau couchsurfer" - "Moi je suis Pascaline, enchantée" - "Vincent t'as dit que je venais, non" - "Vincent? Vincent, c'est qui? Christophe, tu veux dire?". My jaws dropped as I realized that I wasn't supposed to be there. "Je crois que je me suis trompé d'appartement," I said with an embarassed smile on my face.
It turned out that, fortunately, Pascaline knew Vincent. His apartment was just below hers. So I went out through the front door and into the other apartment, the door to which was unlocked as well.
As I discovered, it is not uncommon to leave your front door open in Montréal, and this is not because of a collective forgetfulness or negligence. Montréal is a very safe city, where girls can walk the streets on their own in the middle of the night with headphones on without having to worry. But this level of safety implies some measures: no alcohol can be sold in corner shops or night shops after 11pm (these shops are officially called "dépanneurs" which they should also be called in Ghent) and it is illegal to be in a public park after midnight. But I think it's mainly the laid-back nature of people that guarantees the security.

In the living room I made myself at home again and one by one I met each of the six persons living there as they got up and came out of their rooms.
First was Joël, a straightforward and friendly gay who had some hots for me. After kindly making clear that I'm straight, I still enjoyed the priviliged treatment of being served many a glass of Southern Comfort on the rocks.
Second to get up was Véronique, a nice and smart girl with whom I would later that day go to get Poutine, the local fastfood. It's fries with gravy and rubbery cheese bits - good, but Belgian fries with stoofvleessaus and mayonaise are still unbeaten.


Third came Antoine from Liège, who was on a working holiday program in Canada. He works for festivals and is a very nice guy. He let me use his bike all weekend long which made for an excellent way of transport.
Then I met Vincent, a kind and relaxed person with a high teddy-bear factor.
Last were David and Laura. He is Belgian too, had studied in Liège and was also on a working holiday. She is 18 which makes her the youngest housemate in the apartment, and she studies at the only school of Showbusiness in the world, situated in Montréal. She's really friendly but I had a lot of problems understanding her québecois (they wouldn't like me saying that she speaks French with a strong accent). The poor girl always had to repeat three or four times what she wanted to tell me.
Québecois is French, but pronounced in a totally different way. When Laura wants me to stop doing the dishes, she yells "Arrayte!" instead of "Arrête!". "Tu veux une bière?" sounds like "Tu voux une biayre?", "Ca va?" as "Ca veut?" and "je viens" is abbreviated to "je vi-". But I like it.

After chilling for a while at the apartment, I took the bike and went to Vieux Montréal and le vieux port over the special bicycle lane network throughout the city. Vieux Montréal is a very nice area with small streets and old stone buildings. It contrasts sharply against the background of skyscrapers and the new harbour. A funny performance of an Australian juggling with machetes and axes earned him my last US dollars.


On Friday there was a big birthday party for Vincent and Antoine - barbeque, beer and music. I had some sleep to catch up so I didn't hold out very long, but when I woke up at ten Saturday morning, I met Vincent who proudly told me "nous sommes encore quatre, les survivants" as he took another beer.

On Saturday I took the bike again and went to see the Olympic Park built for the 1976 Olympic Games. The stadium is quite impressive to say the least.


Then I biked down to the islands Île Sainte-Hélène and Île Notre-Dame. Here, the World Exposition of 1967 had taken place. There's also a big fairground called La Ronde. Noteworthy are the Biosphere which now houses a museum, and a 24/7 casino in the former pavilion of Québec and France. On Île Notre-Dame there's the Gilles Villeneuve racing circuit where every year in June the Canadian Grand Prix du F1 is held, and I did part of it on the bicycle.


After that I went to the city centre where there was a comedy festival going on. Instead of watching, I descended into the so-called Underground City, a huge subterranean maze of corridors connecting multi-floor shopping malls, apartment and office buildings, metro station,s cinemas, etc. This comes in pretty handy when outside temperatures fall several tens of degrees below freezing in winter and you don't really want to go outside.

I had the impression that there was always something to do in Montréal. In the evening, I rolled down the Mont-Royal plateau where I was staying, to the bank of the Saint-Lawrence river and to the big bridge over it, which had been shut to traffic and served as a tribune for l'International des Feux, a big fireworks festival where each week a different country shows off with the most beautiful explosives. Canada was up and they clearly did not want to lose the home game. I beheld the biggest, loudest and most overwhelming fireworks show of my life! This video clip shows the beginning of the finale - magnificent! Of course, my memory stick was filled to the brim just before the end - that's how these things go. At least with me.

Sunday was rather quiet - I still had the plan to go to Québec-ville but it turned out to be very expensive, as I found neither rideshares nor couchsurfers who could take me.
After noon I walked up la Montagne, Mont-Royal, took in the view and had my picture taken as a genuine tourist should. I then strolled to the Oratoire Saint-Joseph where pilgrims climb the stairs on their knees in search of something. Pain, by the looks of it.


Back in the apartment I relaxed with the homies and we watched a movie after which I went to the closing night of les Nuits d'Afrique, a free festival in the centre with African performers. I loved it. The music of Oliver Mtukudzi from Zimbabwe was so happy and rithmic and enchanting that everybody was moving to it, regardless of race, age, gender or weight. He was able to make us feel what he had said at the beginning of his show: "where we come from... music is like food".

I passed a lovely weekend in a fantastic city which I will definitely return to one day for its atmosphere and its beautiful people, the latter becoming more and more obvious as the train approaches New York and more and more Americans are getting on...

Final anecdote: I got this close again to missing my train this morning, as I had no cash for the subway ticket and Murphy's Law struck when three machines refused each of my banking cards. And once again, I realized that we rely too much on technology and that robots are taking over the world...

Initial phase of americanization

I have found my shop, yabbadabbadoo! It's called PriceRite and is the American equivalent of my Lidl in Turin. Prices are remarkably low compared to supermarkets as Walmart. It's not that close (I'd say 6km), but it's definitely worth the distance! There's a beautiful bike trail that goes from behind my house to the shop, called the Farmington Canal Railroad trail - there used to be a railroad there, of which bits and pieces are still left along the bike lane... I might post some pictures in a later blog.

This week I took it rather easy, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't eventful. Let's start with Monday. On the CS (CouchSurfing website) I had looked for people in New Haven that had a "Coffee or drink" status. That means that they don't host but want to spend time with people and take them out. Rachel responded and I'm happy she did. She finished her undergraduate studies in history and is now working in a museum (for the summer). Her roots are in Ghana but you wouldn't say because her skin is paler than black. We went for a happy hour beer at Prime 16, the place I ate with Jonathan on my first NH evening. We talked about New Haven and the US and she gave me some very interesting and useful advice. It was a nice encounter, and when I went home I liked New Haven a bit better.

Tuesday was quiet. I found some cups, mugs and glasses on craigslist.org (free ad site) and went to get them - all for $10, a good deal in my opinion. Then I decided to suffer the heat (which was a bit less intense than in the weekend) and I went running up East Rock Park. Along the run, just when I was about to give up and go back, I asked someone for directions on how to get home and that's how I met Gwen, a Yale doctor in philosophy from Canada. Her research is about (at least, that's how she simplified it to profane me) why achievements make people feel good. We very aptly felt really good when we reached the top (I had changed my mind bout giving up), and going down talked about Priuses, values, and New Haven safety. Then we said goodbye. Another nice encounter, and again I liked New Haven a bit better.
In the evening I decided to hit the Yale graduate bar, GPSCY, popularly referred to as "Gipsy". The drinks are cheap and good and I'll definitely go there more often. I met Scott and we went to join some people at a table outside.
It was the most intellectual bar visit of my life. Everyone at some point talked about his research, and then came the discussions. Lawsuits were quoted ("Du-uh, Brown versus Board of Education, 1954"), the genetic evolution of the lungs of Himalayan monks was discussed, and there was an argument over whether one can define race or not (an electrical engineer said yes (obviously), a historian said no). Definitely not my regular night out. Not yet.

I spent the most of Wednesday looking for a phone (I had already spent quite a bit of Monday of that as well). It's so expensive here, and all the providers seem to want to screw the consumer in every possible way. I longed for Wind, the operator we all fell in love with in Italy, but it was nowhere to be found. In the end (dusk was falling) I chose Virgin Mobile, and ordered a phone over the Internet for $10. The plan will cost $25 a month but has unlimited text, mobile web, and 300 calling minutes, so it's reasonable. One thing that sucks here (pardon me the expression) is that receiving talks or text messages is not free, but count as if you would have called or texted...
At noon, I had had lunch with Gabriel, an FES (School of Forestry and Environmental Studies) PhD student that I had couchsurfed with back in April. He's an amazing guy, always laughing. And by that I mean always! I'm glad I know him. I had also taken chocolates from Belgium for his wife and him - you can't beat that as a gift!
In the evening, I went with Rachel and her friends to a shortfilm screening that friends of her had starred in, and afterwards we went for a drink. I had a lot of fun, but I'm slowly getting used to the high prices and that's not a very good evolution.

Today I slept in, paid my rent, and decided to go get Mexican food from the food carts two blocks away. They are quite cheap, about $5 for a meal, and the portions are copious, so I think I'll soon become a regular customer. Look at my delicious quesadillas de pollo con arroz y frijoles, con salsa verde - de-licious!
After lunch, I went shopping on Jonathan's bike. I took the Farmington Canal Railroad trail, and then I had to get off to go to Walmart to buy some kitchen stuff (because we still lacked the fundamental kitchen gear) and a pillow. Walmart is part of a big complex on a four-lane road (two in each direction). I feel like the king of the road on my bike - everyone lets me through, stops for me, stays behind without sounding a horn, ... This is because of the powerful surprise effect of a biker on the road - they're not used to that at all because everyone always takes their car, and you can also notice by the complete lack of bicycle parking outside shopping centers. It makes me feel a special person.

It's time to wrap up this blog post because I have to make my backpack. I'm taking the night Greyhound to Montreal which leaves in less than 3 hours, so there's a lot to do and I had better hurry up! There will be two transfers, one of 25 minutes, the other one 15 minutes, so I hope the buses will be on time. Otherwise I'll be stranded either in Springfield or Albany, or both.
One more thing: I don't know how to pronounce Montreal. Each time I tell someone here I'm going to "mon- french 'r' - éal", they ask where that is. "Oh, MANTREAWL!" they say. I'll find out in Canada - my couchsurfer hosts should know!

First NH weekend

The heat, o the damn heat! I can't stand it anymore! I want to walk around naked all day long, because anything I wear gets wet almost instantly. Seriously considering spending the day in a Walmart, where it's even possible to catch a cold...

The heat and its discomforts have been present throughout the weekend. The heat was there when I took the train to New York City on Friday evening. There was airconditioning, but the people in the cars compensated for that slightly too much. It was worse in New York City itself. Even though it was already 10pm, walking in Grand Central and on the streets felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket that you can't shed. I tried to hurry to Vincent's place, while keeping physical effort to a minimum to produce as little excess heat as possible. In his oasis of airconditioning I quickly changed into a warmer yet more elegant outfit, and off we went to Webster Hall, a music/night club in Lower Manhattan. Thanks to a friend/colleague of Vincent's we got in for free and even had open bar for a full hour. There was no time to be wasted: we queued at the bar in shifts and made sure we exploited the extraordinary situation to the fullest. The body gets used to a certain rate of intake of cool liquid rather quickly, so when the free drinks were finished, we craved for more and in the end we managed to give the club a break-even on us. It goes to show the house always wins.

After visiting another bar, where the waitress was kind enough to quench my thirst with some ice-cooled tapwater, and after some NY street food, we went home. I was dog-tired. I expected to be able to take the early train to New Haven, but that train turned out not to be so early... I also discovered at 4:30am that Grand Central only opens at 5:30am. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one stranded there, so I laid myself down beside the other ad-hoc hobos and woke up when Grand Central opened its doors. When I arrived in New Haven, I went straight to bed.
Only a few hours later, I had to wake up again, because someone came to see the apartment to maybe become a housemate of mine. She was from NYC and seemed rather paranoid. After explaining that I wanted to host couchsurfers, and after explaining what couchsurfing actually was, her first reaction was "But it could be a killer!". She didn't take "I might be a killer too!" as a joke. I don't think she'll be living here...

I spent the rest of the day resting and doing some practical stuff inside, to enjoy the slightly refreshing breeze blowing through my two-window bedroom. In the evening I made for the New Haven Green, where there was a free concert of Sister Sledge. It was a special sight, because almost everybody had brought chairs with them - the event wasn't aired on tv in their living room, so they just brought their living room to the event. Quite some people on the Green seemed mentally-handicapped, but when, at the end of the concert, they were invited on stage by Kathy Sledge, they demonstrated that they do know how to dance - very impressive!


Today I went running here for the first time. I checked out East Rock Park, and I will definitely go there more often, because it's very tranquil and green. However, the heat was killing me and I am embarassingly out of shape - will try to go back tomorrow morning, but earlier.

This afternoon I did some sightseeing. First, I took the Yale campus tour, and discovered some pretty sights and some interesting facts. For example, at the library there are 2 of all 8 copies of the Gutenberg bible. And did you know that the frisbee got its name at Yale!

Sterling Library

Old campus

Old campus

Old campus

When the tour was over I decided to enjoy a bit of seabreeze. So I took the bike to the shoreline and I'm happy I did - it was less hot and there was a very nice atmosphere. Whole families had towed their bbq behind their oversized SUV and they were having parties right next to the beach. I spent my last 2 cash dollars on a Reece's peanut butter cup icecream and enjoyed every bit of it, even though the inevitable happened and I spilt chocolate on my pants...


My plans for next week: get a US cell phone number, choose an academic advisor, assign the other two rooms in the house, and decide on what to do before school starts: go into Canada and discover Montréal, or spend some time in NYC...

And so it begins...

Hello world! This is the first message on my first blog ever - exciting! I hope that all you interested people will remain interested as you read about the things that keep me busy... Comments are welcome!

Let me start with a short introduction. The main reason for me writing this blog is to keep people up-to-date with my activities in the United States of America. Why am I in the USA? Because I wanted to study here. I have been admitted to Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and have won an amazing fellowship which supports me financially during my first year here. Why the School of Forestry? Because they have a Master's program in Environmental Management. Why environmental management? Because I am still sufficiently young and naïve to want to save the world.

The preparations for this personal project began about 10 months ago. Since then, I have been applying for a fellowship, looking up interesting and good programs, applying to those programs, getting admitted, choosing which university to go to, deciding that it would be Yale, taking care of all the administration to come to the States. In between I have been teaching math in middle school and I have also had my fair share of travel.

I left on Wednesday morning, July 14. Packing all my stuff had taken almost the entire Tuesday, and I would never have managed to get it all done without the help of my dear mother.
We arrived at the airport well in time and began my americanisation with a coffee at Starbucks. Then we proceeded to the gate where we said our tear-seasoned goodbyes. I went through the gate without looking back - a new chapter had begun.



The flight to Philadelphia was long and boring. We landed on time, but the weather was so bad (in American terms, not so much in Belgian ones) that we had to wait for an hour to get off the airplane. More delays followed: luggage claim, customs, luggage re-check-in, security, ... In the end I was an hour late for my connecting flight to Newark, but luckily that one was delayed by more than an hour too. That flight was the shortest one of my life - I think it took only about 40 minutes! Between landing in Newark and arriving in New York, there was still an hour and a half however. But in the end I got there...

Surfacing from Penn Station, I was again overwhelmed with awe by the city of cities - apart from the huge skypscrapers, I think this effect is due to the fact that walking in New York is like walking on a filmset. The people in the streets are star actors - you feel like you've seen them so many times in some movie. Truly amazing, this city! And the views at sunset are beautiful.





The Big Apple is big, and I realized that again when I arrived at Vincent's place, soaked in sweat with my 60kg+ luggage after dragging it along for 40 minutes. Still, the exercise was welcome after all the immobility on the airplanes. After taking a shower at his wonderfully located apartment, a few blocks from Grand Central, I felt reborn and we took a stroll on the streets. Not too long though, because I was in dire need of an early night.

I left for New Haven on the 15th in the morning. I went straight to Jonathan, the guy who was handing his room over to me, left my luggage with him and went to take care of some practical stuff while he was working: check-in at university, check out a local bar, short noodle lunch with Jonathan, say hi at my school, open bank account. Then we took my luggage to my new home, which I had only seen over Skype. There was an internal sigh of relief when we got there - it is a nice place, very reasonably priced, ridiculously close to my school, and my room was bigger than I had imagined (but I would still call it small).

Taking the room brought about a little more administrative hassle than when I moved into my place in Turin, when there hadn't even been a contract - I had met the landlord, discussed the price and the terms with him, and the thing was settled. Every month I gave him some cash, when and if he showed up at our door, and that was it - the feeling of mutual trust was our contract.
A whole different story in New Haven, though. I had to read 4 pages of terms and conditions, sign them, sign some other papers, write down all sorts of personal details, pay some cash in advance and receive a receipt for it, ... In the nation of silly lawsuits, that's how it's done.

Here is a picture of the green house, apparently constructed at the end of the 19th century. It has quite a spacious kitchen, a rather badly-kept backyard, a dining room and a living room with carpet (which I'm not fond of) and a clean bathroom. The other picture is my room with view of the backyard.
















I had dinner with Jonathan, which consisted of two happy hour beers and a burger each. I had the NY steakhouse burger - yummy! I realized that for both financial as well as sanitary reasons, I should take it easy on these things during my stay in the US...











Woke up early today (damn jetlag) and began my quest for a plug adapter, since my computer's battery had run out of energy and I desperately needed to power it. Since Jonathan very kindly lended me his bike, I decided to do the 6km to Walmart. One unnecessary km, it turned out, because they had nothing I wanted - not the plug adapter, no fresh food, only processed stuff - so I had to bike back to ShopRite, where I found the food but still no plug adapter. Finally I ended up at Radioshack where I found one for an outrageous $10. But the fact that I could power my computer was worth the odyssey. Robots are slowly taking over the world...

After a quiet afternoon, I am about to get ready to return to New York. Vincent invited me to go out and I have discovered way too little to do here in New Haven to say no to that. Coming back tomorrow morning though, to show the other rooms to students of my school interested in it. Looking forward to meeting (and selecting - the landlady gave me that power) my future housemates!