Entries Tagged 'Travel' ↓

In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.

Original Date: 15 November 2006

Hey all,

Contrary to what the NY weather people said, today has been an amazing day. Clear blue skies, slight breeze, and about 20 degrees C.
Perfect!

So perfect, I decided to hire a bike and go for a ride around San Francisco. I rode from Fisherman’s Wharf, around and across the Golden Gate bridge, then all the way back again. The Golden Gate is really, really, impressive. Pictures really don’t do it justice, as half the impact comes from it’s setting (rocky coastline) and the way you gradually see more and more of it as you approach, but trust me when I say the exertion of riding was worth it.

As for the rest of San Francisco, it’s actually has more hills than I expected - and I expected lots of hills. Some of the hills are so steep the footpath is a flight of stairs! I rode the cable cars down to the “main” area, and had a look around, but I was a little tired after my biking adventures so I didn’t stay for long.

The homeless people here are a little overwhelming, especially in the downtown areas. Think at least one per street corner, and another
in-between corners, all with their cups out asking for money. Then there’s the others that just shuffle around looking all homeless-like. I keep feeling like I should be all sympathetic and helpful, but I just found myself annoyed instead.

Anyway, I’m off to relax for a while and let my poor legs recover a little.

Take care,
Craig

For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!

In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.

Original Date: 15 November 2006

Hey all,

Turns out I forgot to mention a couple of NY things in my message last night. I was super-duper tired, so it’s to be expected. I also got
to check out the Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka “The Met”) and the Guggenheim. I actually got into The Met for free, thanks to IBM’s
corporate membership, and it was amazing. My favourite part was an exhibition called “From Cezanne to Picasso“, and consisted of a bunch of works that passed through the hands of an art dealer called Vollard over the years. This guy was super influential, often breaking these artists to the world, and the art on display was simply fantastic.

Unfortunately, half of the Guggenheim was closed due to them setting up for an exhibition. The closed half also included the world-famous
spiral ramp, which was a real shame. It also had some good art, but the main drawcard for me was the architecture of the building itself. Still, we got in half-price and it was totally worth it.

Our final port of call before a mad subway hopping dash to Grand Central was Strawberry Fields, the part of Central Park dedicated to
John Lennon. It was smaller than I expected, just a circular area just near the edge of the park with the famous “Imagine” tiles in the
ground. Still pretty nice though.

Stay tuned for the follow-up email with today’s activities!

For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!

In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.

Original Date: 11 November 2006

Hey all,

I just arrived in San Francisco, and wouldn’t you know it - it’s raining, and it’s forecast rain for the next few days. Oh, and I also got in at around midnight, again. Found the hostel fine, although the guy driving the shuttle bus wasn’t exactly enjoying himself!

But back to New York… Kaneen and I had an awesome time, doing a bit more “touristy” stuff this time around. We went to Times Square, took the free Staten Island Ferry to get a view of the Statue of Liberty, and checked out the view of Manhattan from the top of the Rockefeller Center. We also caught an “off-broadway” show (which is apparently cooler), which was “Evil Dead: The Musical“. I know some of you B-movie fans back home will be jealous

The highlight was probably having drinks at “The View”, the revolving restaurant on top of the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square. Expensive (US$10 chardonnay / US$10 gin & tonic), but totally worth it. Fantastic view and a great time all round.

The flight to SF was looooong, about 6.5 hours, and it doesn’t help that I think I’m still on New York time - so midnight here is 3 am in NY. So very tired, but I think I might go and say Hi to some random people in the “ballroom”, which is what they call the common area here at the Green Tortoise.

Here’s hoping for clear skies over the next few days!

Take care,
Craig

For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!

In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.

Original Date: 11 November 2006

Sorry, little Road Trip reference there.

I’m just finishing up here in Boston, and about to head back to New York. I really wish I had more time here, Boston is a really nice place. It has a completely different feel to the other places I’ve been to, but it’s hard to explain. It sorta feels like a city where people live and work, rather than come to visit. It put me in a really good mood walking around yesterday…

Walking seems to be the done thing in Boston, they even have signs up saying it’s America’s most “walkable” city. I think that’s because they don’t have that many subway stations around! Each town calls their subway different things - NY calls it the “subway”, DC calls it the “Metro”, and Boston calls it the “T”. What stations Boston has are kinda cool though, they have these weird automated gate things that do a little bow for you when you stick your card in the slot. Quite cute

There’s so much history in this town, which is not unexpected seeing as it was one of the first places settled by the pilgrims. I had clam chowder in a building that is 250 years old, and has been serving customers as a restaurant for 180. We also walked through the district called “North End“, and it’s just full of old houses where relatively famous people (in terms of the Revolution) lived.

Ajay and I also met up with a friend of his that now studies at MIT. He showed us around campus a little, it’s really quite an amazing place. The computer science work is done in a brand new building that cost $40 million dollars, and was designed by the US’s most famous architect… I don’t think this building has a right angle in the whole place! Even the main lecture hall has the walls slightly off-centre, so that when you stand there you start to think the floor is actually tilted (rather than the walls) and you start getting a little light-headed. Very strange.

(Update: I worked out that this building is called the Stata Center, and was designed by Frank Gehry)

He told us a lot about MIT culture and the workload that is expected. This guy was top of his class at University of Sydney, averaging something like 98% - but at MIT he’s averaging in the 70% range. Just crazy. It’s also very competitive, but they seem to have a “can do” culture - if you can think of it, you can do it. The funny thing is, most of the time people actually do it!

I have to run, got a train to catch back to NY. As always, hope all is well and life’s treating you all well. Just over a week to go now!!

For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!

In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.

Original Date: 9 November 2006

Hi all,

Well, I’m now in Boston. Although once again, I’ve gotten in late at night so I haven’t had a chance to see anything yet. I gotta stop doing that…

The rest of my time in DC was pretty amazing. It really is a picturesque city, I’ve got a couple of images that stick in my mind… the first is walking along the Reflection Pool and visualising the Vietnam and Civil Rights protests that happened there, then standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial and realising that I’m walking and standing in places that stood witness to some of the greatest events in the world’s history.

The second is walking around The Mall, which is the big grassy area that most of the monuments and Smithsonian institutions are built around - bordered on one end by the Capitol Building, and the other by the Lincoln Memorial. It’s just before sunset, and all the buildings are starting to be lit in orange. I’m walking between two long rows of trees, and a gentle breeze is sending clusters of orange leaves swirling down and onto the path in front of and all around me. Simply stunning.

I also took the time to check out some of the museum’s and art galleries. I enjoyed the National Art Gallery the most, it had a lot of reneissance and dutch (ie Rembrant) work, as well as an exhibit by a New York school of photographers from when photography was a new medium. I have photos of a couple of really great paintings, ones that I want to remember later.

Oh, I also saw the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution - the actual documents, preserved and displayed. I didn’t realise that the phrase “John Hancock” meaning signature comes from his signature on the Declaration of Independence - his was the first and largest signature, seeing as he had a rather large part in the American Revolution. There you go, Craig’s history / trivia fact for the day.

Overall impression of DC, then, is that it’s a really nice place to sight see. I didn’t get a chance to check out the more exciting side of it, so I can’t really comment on the night life. I would definitely go back there again, given the chance.

For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!

In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.

Original Date: 7 November 2006

Hello again,

Got some time to kill while I let my camera battery charge, so here’s an update on the last few days.

For those of you who know what I was up to for work, it went really well. I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would’ve (should’ve?) been, and the presentation was really good. We had a few small issues with our demo though, but nothing major, and not enough to spoil the three days. I also ended up with a bunch of IBM merch! I like freebies

After upstate NY, I decided to continue with the countryside theme and head up to Niagara Falls. I think this is the most expensive waterfall in the world, for me anyway. I think just getting there and back cost me over US$300! The worst part is you have to fly into Buffalo, and the shuttle bus to the falls, one-way is US$60… a random local I met on the plane saved me the money to get to Niagara though, so thank you Carol, wherever you are.

Niagara Falls is located right on the border between the US and Canada. The Canadian side is much, much nicer so that’s where I stayed for the night. They even welcomed me to the Falls with a fireworks show as I was walking over the Rainbow Bridge, which combined with the Falls themselves being lit up made for quite a spectacular view. The Falls themselves are amazing, but the town is really, really touristy - hence “Mini-vegas”. They have so much gimmicky crap there - for example, they have at least three different Wax Museums within two blocks of each other, a Ripley’s Believe It or Not, random haunted houses, and mountains of other sh*t designed to extract dollars from the tourists.

Canada itself, well the bit I saw anyway, was really nice. The people really do say “Eh?” and all the cliched accents are all true. I had a few beers with locals while I watched the NBA on TV (hell yeah).

However, silly me asked for a schooner at the bar, without realising that a Canadian schooner was about the size of a jug! Don’t ask how big their jugs are…

I only stayed there for a night and a day, then flew to Washington DC. Just getting back across the border into the US for the flight took an hour… the Canadian entry is free flowing though. The flight to DC was a killer, especially the two hour stopover (inc. a one hour delay) in Philadelphia when the Philadelphia to Baltimore leg was about 20 minutes airtime!

DC is really, really nice. Polar opposite to NY, though. NY is like the brains of the US - lots of different parts, each doing their own thing, but all vital to the whole of the city (and country). DC is the penis of the US - it’s where all the decisions actually get made. They even have a massive phallus - the Washington Monument!

Seriously though, DC is super clean and super organised. The subway stations are modern and really cool, the streets are clean, everything is signed and easy to get around, and the lawns are well manicured. Massive security presence, as expected, but it hasn’t felt overbearing like I thought it would. What’s overbearing is the patriotism though, there are American flags everwhere - you could never forget where you are…

I really haven’t seen too much of the city yet, but I did manage to see the White House (what little you can actually see), the Washington Monument (massive), the WW2 memorial (moving), and the reflection lake
and Lincoln Memorial (absolutely breathtaking).

I’ll be here until the 8th, then I’m off to Boston with a work friend to see MIT (he’s got friends up there), then back to NY with Kaneen. I’ll send updates when I can, and maybe photos!!

For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!

In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.

Original Date: 2nd November 2006

Hey all,

Last installment I was sitting in an internet cafe in East Village, his time I’m in a slightly more upmarket place - the Holiday Inn in Mt Kisko, NY. Mt Kisko is up-state New York, about an hour from New York City. I’m up here for work for three days… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

So after waking up exhausted (again), with aching feet and a f**ked knee, I decided I’d do some more wandering around Manhattan. This time it was with a bit of a limp, but I wasn’t going to not go shopping! I couldn’t have picked two more contrasting places though - the Lower East Side and SoHo. The Lower East Side is, well, not quite a slum but not far from it. Everything is filthy and run-down, homeless people lying in parks, and a really dirty industrial feel to the whole place. It does have some cool shops though, which is the whole reason I went there. After finding a unique little gift, and eating pizza from a place that Paulie from The Soprano’s grew up near I headed over to SoHo.

SoHo, for those who don’t know, is the shopping district of Manhattan. SoHo isn’t an acronym either, it’s a shortening of “South of Houston St”. New York loves these shortenings, for example “Tribeca” is short for “Triangle below Canal St”. Anyway, if you’re thinking Fifth Avenue style shiny buildings and people wearing Prada you’d be wrong. It’s actually, again, kinda shitty like the other parts - except this time there’s people _everywhere_, flagship stores and a really cool vibe. They call it the “cast iron district”, and for a reason - I found a building that was made entirely out of riveted steel with windows. No effort put in to hide anything either, just steel and glass.

This shopping adventure tired me out (f**king jet lag) so I went home and napped, just to get ready for the Village Halloween parade. NYC during Halloween is crazy, and there’s a reason some people call it “dress like a slut day” (edit: it’s actually Dress-Like-A-Whore Day in the article. My bad!)… except the girl that was dressed like Rainbow Brite thought I was some kind of freak for asking to get a photo. My intentions were completely noble, but oh well.

The interesting part of Halloween was participating in the parade itself. I got assigned a fake bat on a long stick of bamboo, with rope attached to it so you could make it flap. I had a blast, dancing down 6th Avenue with the other bats and having random “bat parties”, reaching the massive bat pole over the crowd and flapping it in front of kids on shoulders. The bad part was that I didn’t get to see much of the parade, including Gene Simmons on a KISS float at the head of it! I did get to check out the two KISS girls on the float though ;).

I rounded out the night walking around and drinking in the Meatpacking District with a work colleague. Again, the contrasts in NY amazed me. On one side of a cobbled street you have parked delivery trucks and industrial warehouses, and on the other side you have fancy nightclubs with long line ups and big bouncers holding clipboards. Great night out though, there was a lot of people about and lots of interesting sights (”dress like a slut day”, remember).

Today was far less eventful, as it was spent travelling upstate and meeting up with work folks. We did manage to get lost on the way and ended in a random town called Brewster which, as far as I can tell, consisted of a service station, and Honda dealership, and a massive rusted metal bridge over a valley.

I’ll close by describing the IBM site in Somers (that we finally found). Think massive buildings topped with black, glass pyramids on top of a hill with picturesque golden brown leaves and luscious green lawns. Not to mention security that required name and serial number before they’d let us get us close enough to even see the buildings. Very high tech.

The next few days will be fairly quiet from me… lots of work to do and executives to schmooze. Expect an update hopefully on the weekend, or soon after.

Hope all is well back home, and no celebrities have died like last time I was on holidays (RIP Steve Irwin).

For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!

In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.

Original Date: 31 October 2006

Hey all,

After about 25 hours travelling, including two sunsets and sunrises in one day, I’m finally in NYC. I even caught a train in from JFK, like a regular local would, except unlike a local I got off at the completely wrong stop and had to take the next “local” train in to Manhattan. It was an experience being the only white guy on the train through Brooklyn, but I did get a look at some pretty sweet bling on a few guys.

I spent the rest of the night (after finding the hotel) wandering around East Village. First impressions - this place is a shithole! Rubbish piled up everywhere, very dirty feeling. I realised the next day that Sunday must be rubbish day or something, cause it was all gone by the time I got up. I ended up drinking Tequila Sunrises in a dive bar with a cute bartender and Johnny Cash on the radio. Great way to end the day.

After waking up aching all over I heading downtown to check out the Financial District and the Brooklyn Bridge. I walked all the way from 17th St to the Bridge (look on a map, it’s a fair way) but it was totally worth it. I went past what was CBGB’s, through Chinatown, and the amazing buildings in Downtown slowly came into view. Seriously, these buildings are amazing - I’ve never seen anything like it. Grandiose archway entrances to Bridges and Gothic architecture everywhere (including a gold statue atop one building).

After walking halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge, and soaking up some amazing views, I wandered into the Financial District. The contrast between here, and about a dozen blocks north, is nothing short of amazing. Lush sandstone, and shiny glass buildings everywhere! This was when it clicked that I was really in the New York that you seen on television.

I also checked out the WTC memorial. There’s an eerie feeling in the air, although construction has started again so it didn’t have the impact I thought it would. I guess you have to be American.

After that I wandered around for a while, went shopping (cheap business shirts!) and then pretty much went back to hotel and had a couple hours snooze (walking is hard)… and here I am. I’ve written a bunch, so I’ll leave it here.

Until next time!

For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!