www.fabians.ch Blog

It was a really lovely day. This morning I've read about snowfall back home in Switzerland. However it was really sunny here and I think thermometers almost reached the 20° C – resp. the 70° F – in New York.

I started the day at the entrance to Central Park at Columbus Circle and spent abour two hours in front of and in the park before I walked over to Fifth Avenue. I went down the packed avenue where a coupla people were dressed up fancy for Easter (was that it, the Easter Parade?) to Grand Central Terminal and on to the Chrysler Building. I finally took some pictures again which I will upload as soon as I get around to it (still gotta put the St. Paddy's Day photos up).

I enjoyed the last rays of the sun with a coffee in Bryant Park, went home to the great neighborhood of the Washington Heights and finished the day in the local Coogan's sports bar with some friends.

I got up pretty early on Monday morning and took the train down to Spring Street. After walking through SoHo for a bit I reached my first of that day's goals, the Fay Da Bakery in Chinatown where I had coffee and some pastry. The bakery is pretty small and apparently makes a lot of its money with deliveries.

Anyway I walked on and paid the Eastern States Buddhist Temple a short visit. I dared to be treated with a Chinese back rub which was pretty, in retrospect, not the best choice. Wasn't totally worth the 20 bucks. Doesn't matter, one more thing checked off the to do list. Also I bought Chinese green tea, so another one, check.

I walked on eastwards to the Bowery and then up north where I passed the first ever 7 Eleven I've seen in New York so far. I had some coffee at Think Coffee and walked some more, visited Other Music record store and walked past Washington Square Park to Christopher Street subway station where I took the 1 train back up.

It was another day of discovering another few places in New York. More soon…

Everyone has been speaking of it for days now and yesterday, finally, it was St. Patrick's Day. After seeing it in movies and hearing a lot about it I was getting quite excited to see how it really looks and feels like.

The parade was supposed to start around 11am somewhere near 44^th Street on 5^th Avenue and going on until around 5pm. I went to Fifth Avenue at noon and got some first impressions of the parade. It was loads of uniformed men walking up one of the most expensive streets in the world. Then there was music, Irish music, lots of bagpipes. Also, many many Irish, American and other flags and banners were carried up Fifth Ave. I watched for a while and took some pictures. Later in the afternoon it got pretty crowded so that one could hardly pass 5^th Ave without waiting for half an hour.

All the Irish pubs were packed and people were getting drunk more and more, drinking their beer or vodka or whatever out of McDonald's cups because of the law that prohibits drinking alcohol on the streets.

A bunch of Americans telling you how Irish they are was how a Scottish guy described to me what he expected of St. Patrick's Day in New York.

Some pictures are gonna be up on photo.fabians.ch in a couple of days or weeks.

I have been pretty busy in the last few weeks. I feel like I've been in New York for a coupla months instead of some weeks. I still love it here and I'm looking forward to the next few months.

I discovered the weekly left-oriented paper Village Voice which has some really interesting articles in it sometimes.

The first few days are past and I'm getting familiar with a lot of stuff. I discovered some nice cafés, shops and other places. Finally bought a US cell phone.

Went to the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art) today which was okay. I still prefer the MoMA though since they have more really modern design and photography stuff. Also went to the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in Chelsea. They had some pretty amazing pictures by Natalia Fabia exhibited there.

Next is Top of the Rock (Rockefeller Center observation deck).