Just like last year, I celebrated 4th of July watching Macy’s fireworks from the West Side banks. Quite a good tradition to celebrate 4th of July in NY, hope these will be the first of many!
Americans are the best when it comes to decorations and themes. I did my best to live up to and wore a scarf in my hair with the colors of the American flag.
We’re feeling even more at home than expected here in our new neighborhood in Brooklyn…
Swedish espresso bar on 5th Avenue
Another creative spelling of my name. Quite impressive actually!
I know, I am totally behind on blogging. Unfortunately, wordpress was not accessible in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and even thought I’ve been back in the U.S. for little over two weeks, I haven’t found the time to write about my trip. I will try to better!
After my trip to Central Asia, I went up to Boston for a few days to visit Elisa and J. Lovely stay as always, more pictures to come!
Finally a New Yorker! Well, at least for a month. Therese and I decided a while back that if we can’t live here permanently, we can at least pretend to do so for the summer. I came up Thursday afternoon to attend a conference on Global Obesity yesterday, and am since just enjoying the atmosphere. I have no real plans for the next weeks except to work on my M.Sc. dissertation, write on my book, and try to acquire some of the New York attitude (though add a nice touch to it). However, after only two days here, I have already managed to tick off quite a few of the NY experience musts:
• Asian manicure at 9 pm – CHECK!
• Conference at the now infamous Sofitel Hotel – CHECK!
• Getting lost in the subway, adding 30 min to the trip – CHECK!
• Keys to a brownstone apartment in brooklyn – CHECK!
• Party at roof terrace in East Village – CHECK!
• Seeing a humongous rat in the subway – CHECK!
• Having lox bagel and coffee breakfast in Central Park – CHECK!
Therese will be here on Monday – can’t wait to see her!
Happy Easter everyone! After over two weeks in Skopje and three days in England, I am now at an airport in Germany, ready to board the flight back to DC. My head is filled with impressions and information that over the next weeks will be converted into papers and proposals for work and academia. I am a little tired, three weeks of travels and meetings draw quite a bit of energy, but I am also content and feel like these three weeks have resulted in major leaps forward. I look forward to putting it all down on paper and further researching a number of interesting topics that have come up during my trip. But first half an Easter Weekend in Washington, which I intend to celebrate in my own apartment with Easter chocolate from England. Home sweet home!
Easter spirit with colored eggs in one of the lounges at the Munich airport!
I just played a computer game that a friend of mine up in New York just programmed and sent to me. Isn’t that cool?? When I was a kid, we read this story about a little boy (Emil) who carved figures out of wood. He was in fact really good at it and it was an important part of the story. While kids are still kids, and Emil’s worries, life insights, and efforts to be a good person towards others apply also today, my friend just sent me a computer game that he programmed just like that! (And no, he is not a programmer.) Really cool – amazing in fact – when you think about it! And this technology is not only here but everywhere. It is even changing my field of work: Text message and other mobile phone services have turned out to be a great mean for small farmers low in low-income countries to learn about better market opportunities and to offer just-in-time fresh supply to supermarkets and traders. Less cool is that my friend now went out for a drink in NY while it is time for me to go to sleep in Washington DC. Yes, I know, I do have to be a little more positive towards my own city. I will try to write something nice about DC tomorrow!
Nite!
Fresh produce stand in Skopje, F.Y.R. Macedonia: there is a lot of logistic involved in getting the veggies from the farm to the market, but technology makes it a lot easier.
I am just home after ballet class and trying to organize some last things before this day is over. This week has passed too quickly – I can’t believe it is already Thursday tomorrow! I am in a hectic period right now in terms of work, but I am doing interesting things, so I really enjoy it. (One of the report that I have been working on now for a while will be published shortly, and hopefully it might get some attention in the medial so that I can show a little of what I am doing here.) In the meantime, you might find it interesting to learn a little more about Chisinau, my hometown for two years (see my blog archive from 2007 and 2008). A Moldovan friend of mine had posted this video on Facebook. It is produced by the Moldovan NGO IDIS “Viitorul” and gives a somewhat more positive picture of Chisinau than is normally presented in Western media. Chisinau is still small in terms of size and economy, but it is a very pleasant city and Moldovans are really great! So I recommend anyone to visit and if I was an entrepreneur, I would definitely look there for opportunities. So enjoy the video – it made me really nostalgic!
Sunday afternoon at the Mall. No, not the mall as in a gigantic building filled with stores but the National Mall in the middle of Washington DC. This weekend has been beautiful here: clear an sunny, with almost spring-like temperatures, so today, Monika and I took Benji and went for a two hour walk around the White House and the western part of the Mall. I think it was Wallpaper that somewhere called Washington DC as Hollywood of ugly people, referring to all the unglamorous famous people that are here. And it is true that I quite often see top politicians, political advisors, etc, in the street or in restaurants around the city. And so also today. On our way down to the Mall, we passed by Cafe du Parc to pick up a coffee, and afterwards, Monika told me that one of the men that were having coffee at the bar was the President’s tailor, George de Paris. And not just President Obama’s, but dating back to LBJ! (Very well dressed by the way, also on a Sunday!) Here is his own story.
Sorry about the blog break, things have been quite intense lately. Not sure what happened to this fall but it certainly went too fast. Especially December, and everything that I thought I would do before the end of the year came to nothing. Anyway, I did a lot of fun things too, and both my sister Jessica and my old friend Dan came to visit, so it was a good month. I also sang in almost ten Saint Lucia processions at different Swedish events around Washington DC, from the annual Swedish Christmas bazaar at the House of Sweden to IKEA. Here is one of them from the Swedish Military’s Christmas dinner at the House of Sweden and also my YouTube debut.