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...