Life of Pi, part 2

Actually I wanted to post something like "Home sweet home" or some other kind of retrospective about our holidays at least ten times, but finally never got round to it... so now, here it is in short form - our stay in America was just great, we enjoyed it until the very last minute... and I can't believe it's already been one week since we came home! Not to mention all the things that have already happened... :)

But right now, I only want to post an extract from the same book I've already quoted a few weeks ago ("Life of Pi"). Asked about the story of his life, the boy gets involved in a discussion with some officers who don't believe what he tells them and demand that he should stop inventing things and stick to the facts - this is what he then teaches them and what really made me think:

"Isn't telling about something already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention? [...] The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn't that make life a story?"

NYC - day 3: ... dinner, Times Square, overnight stay and a whole lot of fun!

Having experienced the difficulties of driving a car in NYC on our way out of SoHo (Wuulfie twice almost hit someone who was walking across the street without paying attention to traffic...), we arrived at the appartment of Liz' parents, where we could stay overnight. We agreed that a shower or at least a drink was necessary before going out for dinner - and there was also the difficult choice to make where to go for dinner. We ploughed through several NY guidebooks, trying to find a place that would suit us all which turned out to be rather tough... The guys proposed seafood or a lot of meat whereas "Fiona" and I would have loved vegetarian or Asian food - Wuulfie ruled out the option of Asian food as "one has to drink beer or Soda there, nothing else is good with that food - but I want wine, once I have the chance to drink! :)"... After all, we found a nice little French Bistro called "Cosette" not too far from the appartment, where we had a delicious dinner. When it came to paying the bill, Crispus wanted to pay by credit card but the waiter came back regretfully to tell him that the card was not accepted - it turned out that "Crrrap - Crrrispus has a crrack in his crrredit carrrd"!...
As the two of us girls had fallen in love with the atmosphere of Times Square by night the evening before, we persuaded Wuulfie and Crispus to go there. We needed a cab and Wuulfie proved the theory that it takes a woman to make a taxi stop: he put Fiona into the lights of the cars and the first passing cab stopped! amazing... :) Arrived on Times Square, we were once again impressed by the size and number of advertisements, posters and neon lights that surrounded us, making us feel infinitesimal. We did not really have a plan for what to do but we soon came across something: As we were walking along the sidewalk, a guy stopped us and asked us if we fancied a ride on a "partybike" - crazy as we were, we decided to go for it: that's how we ended up racing once around Times Square on a "freaking six-seated rickshaw" (quote Wuulfie), I'll have to post a picture of it, it's too hard to describe what this vehicle looks like! Anyway, although we had to fear for our lives and this was definitely the craziest thing we've ever done, we had a blast and Wuulfie almost changed his opinion about bikes and similar objects in traffic (from hating them to thinking they can be fun...). Even after the ride, we could not stop laughing and I guess it is not bad that I can't post videos - they'd have to be X-rated...! :) Wuulfies conclusion of the evening was "you're all nuts...!" and there's not much more to say about it!
As already mentioned, we could stay in the appartment over night, which was great - it is situated quite centrally and was the perfect place to recharge our batteries before leaving again the next morning (after a rather short night...). Already before 8 o'clock, we were back in the car, got a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee and drove over the Brooklyn Bridge to take a last look at the city from this side. Having taken a lot of pictures of the Big Apple and all the bridged, we were on our way home...

After these three days in New York, all I can say is that I am fascinated by this city, its variety, its contrasts, its museums and shops, its buildings and streets, the pulse of live that I feel whenever I'm there - and that this is definitely not the last time I've been there!

NYC - day 3: Statue of Liberty, Financial District, SoHo...

Still tired from the night before, we left quite early on Friday morning. This time, our New York guides were Urs and "Crispus". For the first time, we had the chance to enjoy Urs' unique and life-threatening style of driving a car which at the same time turned out to be a crash course of English swear words... :) - unfortunately we can't post the video we shot with Urs yelling: "Film those morons in front of us and me when I hit them!" and then Crispus: "The morons, the morons, they are everywhere!"...
After a short stop because of Crispus' urgent need of toothpaste and a bathroom, we arrived safely near the Battery Park where we took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. It was another warm and sunny day and to make sure we'd survive the ferry ride, we bought two bottles of water. Already during the security check (worse than at the airport...), Urs started complaining about the special bottle tops (as they say designed by the government...). Instead of making drinking easier, we discovered that they can easily be used as "water pistols" to sprinkle each other with small amounts of water. This discovery led to the fact that we were all more or less soaked before we even reached the Statue (Urs looked at "Jessica" and asked "Fiona" : "Your friend is a mess - what did you do to her?!?!?!", referring to her wet shirt...). Ever since 9/11, visitors are not allowed inside the Statue anymore, so we decided to stay on the ferry and go on to Ellis Island. Out of the blue, Urs (now called "Wuuulfie"<>
Our way then led us into the Financial District: We walked down Wall Street before we found a nice Pub to have lunch. It's extremely impressive and at the same time somewhat intimidating to be surrounded by skyscrapers. Allegedly, in some of the streets the sun does not "rise" before 10 o'clock in the morning, leaving the streets in night-like darkness! What struck us as weird was that, at night, you can see lights in windows that are as far up as normally only stars or airplanes...
After lunch, we got back to the car and drove to the South Street Seaport. We walked over the pier and through the little shopping mall next to it, just to get an impression. Time was running out so we had to continue our way towards SoHo. This time, we spent quite a while strolling along the streets, looking into little shops, breathing in the atmosphere with all the street vendors (selling everything from TV series scripts to earrings...) - before we had to rush back to the parking lot! Out of the car windows, we saw the Federal and State Courts (beautiful old buildings!), some other interesting buildings and also several departments of the NYU - the more I think about it, the more tempting it seems to spend one semester studying here... :)

NYC - day 2: Empire State Building, Times Square & CHICAGO

Thursday, second day in Manhattan: After a little delay (due to Crispus.. ;)), we arrived in the middle of the city in mid-afternoon. We were lucky to find a parking lot not too far from Times Square and decided to walk to the Empire State Building. The queue was not as long as expected and therefore we soon entered the elevator that was to take us up to floor Nr. 86 - what a weird feeling!!!
The weather was just perfect, the view from up there is breathtaking anyway and thanks to Maya and Fenton's explanations, we got an overview over the entire seemingly neverending city. We'll post pictures as soon as we get home!
Having wasted too much time in the gift shop (pictures follow!), we had to rush back towards Broadway if we wanted to have something to eat before the show started. We ended up in a Japanese place right opposite the theatre in which we were about to see "Chicago". As if this prospect were not already great enough, a friend of Fenton's works there as a light technician and had offered to take us backstage before the show!!!
So here it was, one of the big highlights of our holidays: a Broadway show!!! :) It was highly interesting to see behind the curtains of such a professional production and to talk to someone who is actively involved in creating what, for the audience, is a mere dreamworld. Especially cool about the performance we saw was that the famous singer Usher starred in one of the main roles (for those who know the story, he plays the lawyer Billy Flynn). Too bad we missed him backstage (girls, imagine we'd have seen him getting dressed... ;))! The show itself was overwhelming, great music, amazing dance performances, charismatic actors, strong voices, a lot of irony and a good sense of humour - all in all, an experience we would not want to have missed!

NYC - day 1: Met, 5th Avenue, SoHo & Chinatown

Hey again!

After three amazing days in New York, we're finally back here in our quiet, cosy "home".
Here is what we did on Wednesday, day 1 of our mission "discover NYC": Liz picked us up around 10 o'clock and took us directly to the famous Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. After spending several hours walking through this impressive collection of art, Liz dropped us off at the corner of Central Park.
From there on, we decided to explore the city on our own, strolling down 5th Avenue. This is easily the longest row of unaffordably expensive shops and boutiques we've ever seen. Starting with Tiffany's (where the famous movie with Audrey Hepburn was filmed), we walked past Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hugo Boss, but also H&M and GAP.
Luckily for our purses, we met Michelle already one hour later and, together with her, we drove into SoHo. This area used to be a centre for artists and still has a unique atmosphere with its many little stores, coffee shops and nice restaurants. Of course we had to get a taste of SoHo and therefore, we went for a little walk before having dinner in a panasian restaurant called "Rice". Boring as we are, we went for the Thai curry once again. It was delicious!
Next and final stop of this great day was Grand Central Station where Michelle dropped us off. Taking the train instead of having somebody drive us meant a combination of necessity and pleasure - otherwise we probably wouldn't have seen this beautiful building.
Back at home, we went straight to bed in order to recharge our batteries before hitting the road to the city again the next morning...

Boston

After two very busy days, we finally come round to updating this blog (before rushing off towards the next big highlight!)
On tuesday, Crispus Bullfinch (=Fenton, explanation later!) took us to Boston ("Baaasten"). We left early in the morning and got there shortly before lunchtime. We parked the car in the South Station without having a clue where we were - no maps, no guidebooks, no preparation! ;) Luckily enough, the first street we took led us into a major shopping area where we felt at home immediately. After a while we came across a bookstore, bought a map and learnt that we stood right opposite one of the sights that are part of the famous Freedom Trail. As we stood there with our map, apparently looking rather helpless, something happened that later on turned out to be typical for Boston: One of the passers-by asked if he could be of any help and explained which way to take in order to follow the Freedom Trail. It was not the first time we experienced this extraordinary friendliness that seems to be a characteristic of Bostoners - too bad we didn't always understand their advice as their accent is quite hard to understand... ;)
The Trail took us to the old State House, where we read about the tragic massacre of Boston. One of the people mentioned on the information board was a slave named Crispus. Serious as this topic was, we found this name hilarious and decided to call Fenton Crispus (either "Krispusss" or "Crissspass" or "Chrischpus"...), following our "tradition" of changing names!
Next stop on the Trail was Faneuil Hall, the famous market hall with its surrounding shops, restaurants and market stands. This is where we had lunch and enjoyed some extensive shopping! Shopposaurus, Part 2! ;)
Following the Trail, we reached little Italy where we spent some time before heading back towards Chinatown where we intended to have dinner. The way back took us across the entire city and we saw most of the major sights: Boston Common, Massachusetts State House, the famous graveyard with the tomb of Paul Revere - and at least 25 Dunkin' Donuts stores (similar to "Starbucks", but much better 'cause they have hazelnut flavoured coffee... mmhh, this is sooo good - "Fiona" is completely addicted). On one of the official buildings we read the name "Bullfinch" which was almost as funny as "Crispus", so we decided to make this Fentons family name... That's how easy Fenton Furrer got transformed into Crispus Bullfinch! ;)
After some more (successful!!) shopping, we found an excellent Thai restaurant where we had dinner - just delicious!!! :)

All in all, this was another great day and it was definitely worth the almost 6 hours in the car! Boston is an interesting and impressive city which is full of contrasts: on the one hand, there are a lot of modern skyscrapers, but on the other, there are rather poor areas with run-down buildings - in other words, you never know what to expect round the next corner...

You gotta be a kid again!

Hi there, it's Fiona and Jessica speaking (that's what the little boys keep calling us ever since they couldn't remember the name Corinna and therefore called her Fiona - and today Sabin got a new name, too...)

Today was such a fun day!!!
We spent the whole day in an amusement park (type Europapark, just smaller) called Playland, about half an hour from New York City, together with Trevor (who's now called Fred) and his two older boys Trevi and David (since this morning Dennis and Ryan).
The roller coaster you see on this picture was our first ride and it was so much fun - most of the rides are built from wood which makes it a rather special experience!
Together with the boys we went on a Ferris wheel to get an overview of the park which is situated right next to the sea - beautiful view from up there!!! Later on we split up and went on different rides, "Fred" and "Fiona" went on this crazy rollercoaster where you don't sit but lie on your stomach (sheer madness, if you ask me - "Jess"), the two of us girls went on the *Kettelikarussell*, to put it short, we all had a whale of a time! ;)

After returning from Playland, we had about 15 minutes to get changed and ready to go, as we were to have dinner at a Spanish restaurant not too far from where we live. After all they've done for us, we wanted to invite "Fred" and Maya (for whom we don't have a fake name yet - we're glad about any suggestions for nice women's names! :)) for dinner. This place is famous for its delicious Tapas and, as we know now, just as delicious Sangria! :) Yes, we DO know that we trespassed the law by drinking alcohol and little "Ryan" even reminded of this fact: After having been scolded by his dad for not behaving appropriately and therefore not getting any dessert, he looked up at "Jessica", saying: "No dessert for you, either - you're drinking way too much!!!" Needless to say that we all burst out laughing...

For tomorrow, another biiig highlight is planned - Fenton is taking us up to Boston!!!! We'll keep you all updated...
Hugs and Kisses
"Fiona" and "Jessica" :)

Dedicated to the ones we miss...

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the number of moments that take your breath away"

Shopposaurus Part 1 :)

Hey again!
This time, it's me and Corinna writing together... Today was a greeeeat day (by Corinna :)), we had our first Shopposaurus excursion to the mall with Liz. After a lazy morning at home (it was Trevi's first day at school, so the house was much quieter), Liz picked us up and we spent some hours browsing through all kinds of shops - quite successfully: We bought several CDs, clothes, jewellery, cards - it was so cool that we are planning to go back there tomorrow! ;)
Oh, you haven't even heard about our first evening here: Less than one hour after we arrived here with Fenton, everybody else was coming over as well: Urs and Liz with the boys, Michelle with her boyfriend and Fenton of course stayed for dinner, too. So right after our arrival we were literally in the middle of a madhouse (not negatively!!!) with everybody talking at the same time about at least ten different subjects and even in different languages - after our horrortrip, we were simply lost and couldn't follow the conversation... no wonder we went to bed before 9 pm! Up to now, our bodies still haven't properly adjusted to the time difference and the completely different lifestyle - it's almost 8pm now and we're both already yawning (no wonder, we woke up before 7am...)! :)

Any exciting news in Switzerland? Let us know, we check our e-mails regularly (thanks, Trev! :))...
That's it for today, talk to you soon!
Corinna & Sabin :)