Soon to fly across the country

The last days were quite similar - I had quite a bit of work to do at the university. I have taken some pictures of the campus and other places, but since I had to replace the hard drive in my laptop it took me quite a while to set things up. Unfortunately I still haven't figured out how I had set up this neat FTP via Bluetooth thingy (that damn OBEX isn't there anymore!)

Apart from that I am looking for accommodation. The lease on the current palce ends on September the 11th (doomsday). However, the sooner I move out of here the better. The commute is a pain in the neck and, well, I don't speak Spanish which makes a lot of things more difficult.

Finding a place in Hoboken isn't easy. I've had a look at several options. They are all expensive, but I try to keep it under USD 1,000/month and furnished. So far I've seen:
- a place which was relatively far away and had no windows. A place
- a place with a window, but a wall right behind it. The window was only in one room because the flat was in a basement. Low ceilings too.
- a place where you have to get through somebody's room or somebody has to get through your room to reach theirs. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad if the person who showed the place wasn't a Tool Tribute band singer (www.toolfist.com) and looked like "please, don't hurt me, sir" with all the tattoos and stuff. Most enquiries however go unanswered which sucks.

In other news, at the university I met a guy who was just moving out of here and invited me to his goodbye party. I decided to go even though it was in Union City or Jersey City Heights, I don't really know. When you enter it it says "Welcome to (whatever) city. Proud of our diversity". Well, too bad they don't mention crime rates, but that place sure didn't look safe. I just borrowed a bike (which was at that time already sold) to get home. I promised to return it the day after.

The party consisted mostly of internationals: Germans, Indians, Pakistanis, Czech, Ukrainian and others. It felt a bit like Erasmus but if you take the rich kids only. In general it was good but the A/C did not have enough throughput to cool down all the binge going on inside.

They day after I had to return the bike. It required me to ride down Bergenline Avenue for several kilometers during rush hours. That was fun! The cars mostly stand in teh traffic or on red lights. But not me! I was just overtaking them from left and right and then left again, getting inbetween them as they stood. One thing I still don't understand is that there are so many intersections with "STOP" written on the road coming from every direction. Seems that the one who comes last should yield. Not sure though.

Well, time to go to sleep. Tomorrow a ride to Port Authority Bus Terminal on Manhattan, then CoachUSA to Newark Intl Airport, then a flight to San Francisco, a BART ride to Powell Street and getting to the hotel. Big surprise: according to the weather forecast for San Francisco the day's high during my stay there will be 15 degrees centigrade! I expected enormous heat, so this Danish summer pleased me a lot (the no-rain version) becasue I am planning to do some sightseeing apart from the conference.

Song for today? "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair!"

written by  lagrange on August 4, 2009 from West New York, United States
from the travel blog: Artur's Blog
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