Off to the next destination.. the land of the steep hills and unpredictable fog. On my coast to coast journey, traversing through the wilds of American Airports, I found out how BAD American Airline Companies really are!!! I was checked in, 1st on the waitlist of this airline and suddenly...hello, 5 minutes to closing the gate, that I'd been bumped off.... so there went my bags, all the way to San Fransisco and there I was at JFK at 9:15 in the night with nowhere to go, cause going all the way back to Manhattan made no sense....it would have cost almost 1/2 of my ticket to SF to go and come back...and only 5 hours of actual rest time in a bed~~ so the miserly broke part of me said Heck...lets just crash on the seat!! Anyone ever spent 10 hrs at JFK? and been thro security check twice? I don't recommend it!! But I did become good pals with the cute security guard who kept insisting I take off my shoes... I kept insisting the smell would kill everyone!!In the end, we compromised, I sprayed my shoes with deo..and took the damn things off...and as I walked away..I got a phone number!! Oh by the way, if you do ever get stuck at JFK, the cafes and dunkin donuts and the like shut at 11pm and re-open at 3am. Don't ever expect to sleep, because they wet clean the carpets every night and the Hispanic men and women don't understand English, talk super loud and keep a fan blowing all night so the carpets dry in time for the first flight in the morning! In the winter, it can be a very annoying thing!
San Fransisco is one of my favorite cities in the world. Yes Fisherman's warf is commercial, but it does have a great view and its a lot of fun...not exactly what the artsy snobs would classify as beautiful - but hey, i like fun too!!


I love the hills (a cable car costs about $5 one way - i.e. about a 10 minute ride), I love the people, they all look like they're constantly having fun...working seriously but having fun and I love the views from every angle!! I'm completely in love with the city, but I know I will never live there! Nothing remotely connected with what I want to do in life! But what I think I love the most about San Fransisco is how you can actually watch the Fog roll in over the hills...suddenly sunny and suddenly icy cold...the city is unpredictable...and that's what I think I see....just a bit of myself in a city!

Ohhh the next destination was DC...It's a beautiful city, very much what you'd expect of the capital of the US. I unfortunately never did get to see the dingy bits of DC that have become famous as the ghetto of America! Relatives and friends never really want to let you see the seamier side of life! But, that's digressing...
I love the roof of Union Station.. its one of the few artistically beautiful things in this Loud Loud country!

Walk around capitol Hill and you leave impressed with all the white! It's almost like DC is trying to white wash itself!! Colour me white and clean me of any sins I may or may not have committed... Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, Vietnam!

But it is a city of power, a city that can make a difference when it wants to! And sometimes, just sometimes it's not just rhetoric that emanates from this beautiful city.

Anyone visiting DC needs to go to the Mongolian barbecue!! Its absolutely smackalicious!!

I traversed through the wonders of the United States during the Christmas break! My first pit-stop was that epitome of all cosmopolitan metros - New York City!! It's absolutely breathtaking in the night when the neon lights of advertising hoardings and Christmas decorations overwhelm your eyes and you're absolutely blinded!! I guess becoming temporarily blind is somewhat of a blessing, so you don't have to feel crushed at the degradation and the run-down look the city bears! A let down for those like me, who imagined New York to be above it all! Whether in Manhattan or Queens... or Brooklyn, the story was the same - A city bursting at it's seams crying out for attention!! And for all those first timers - I wandered into Times Square by mistake - Don't, for the love of God repeat my mistake!! It was probably the worst experience of my life!

It's been a long time since I wrote and felt like I was communicating with the world! But take a look at where I live and you'll wonder why I'm even awake in the middle of winter! Sometimes I think I should be a bear and hibernate through the winter! It's -9F i.e -20C for those not comfortable with the Farenheit - Centigrade relations!!! or Lack off! The pictures were taken on a day when it was actually possible to hold the camera and not get frostbite!! The roads are relatively clear and the snow doesn't look half bad! But this is truely God's forgotten city on a normal basis. Behind the pretty snow globe scenes is a city rotting at it's core. Students getting raped on the 3 block walk home, mugged for carrying $5, men knocking on your door asking for money to get thugs off the streets before they become 15 years old and out of the control of the mentoring program! Where is this world coming to? Slap bang in the middle of one of the United States most famous citizenship schools, the 2nd ranked architechture school and a top 5 journalism school is a ghetto forgotten by NY State politicians! Busy selling their Hancock International Airport, they ignore the men and women living surrounded by crime, murder, guns and drugs - just a 5 minute drive down the road! It's impossible to comprehend that education and guns live side by side in what would otherwise be a picture perfect postcard town! The heat's up to 68F, I'm tucked into my electric blanket - and I'm praying like many others, that I can leave this city as soon as possible! Pretty as it may be in the winter - this is a city whose soul is lost, and a lost soul rarely finds its way back home!