1. I haven’t posted anything in more than a month
2. Last Franz Ferdinand sucks (and this one is great)
3. I’m back in Paris and I miss all the good things of New York
4. I want to teach you a word

New York is a place where many bands start. Rock, electro, jazz, hip-hop musicians, here’s your home. Every great band has to be here at least once. And there were some legen… wait for it… dary concerts in the city.

Pink Floyd – The Great Gig In The Sky (1973):

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So far, I have seen The Kooks in Central Park, Bloc Party at Roseland Ballroom, The Bloody Beetroots and M83 at the Webster Hall (the place for electro/rock sound), Death Cab For Cutie at the wonderful Radio City Music Hall. Everything was awesome! I missed Justice and SebastiAn as it was sold out before I knew it. Tickets were sold over $100 each on black market.

I also had the chance to see Emilie Simon premiering new material from her upcoming album. I am raring to listen to it!

Anyway, there are shows every night on the island and you will find anything you want. That is why New York night life rules.

Bloc Party – This Modern Love (2005) [Live @ Roseland Ballroom, NYC, 2008]:

About a month ago I went on the bank of the Hudson river. Along the river, there are pedestrian roads and cycle lanes with lawn and it is really nice to have a walk. The sun was shining and was really hot, the kind of summer day I miss today when it is either raining or freezing. On the other side of the river, you can see Hoboken, a neighborhood I have not seen yet but will probably.

Small – Sunshine Lover (2008):

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Here is a panorama I made using Hugin along with its plugins Enblend and Enfuse. These are free software that should work on most platforms. The stitching algorithm is quite automatic and easy to use as long as you take pictures with 25% overlap between shots. I used 8 for this landscape.

Panorama of the Hudson river

The game happened in the old Yankee Stadium — a new one is being built just nearby — and teams were New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays. We were told that a baseball game is about three hours so we just came to see the last innings. First, we had trouble getting to the stadium since the subway lines do not work the same on week-ends. Then, we did not know that we could not bring any bag inside the stadium, probably for another stupid security reason, so we dropped our bags in the next bowling for five bucks. Damn, what a business! I also tried a icky hot dog. We finally entered the stadium for the last 30 minutes.

Simian Mobile Disco – Hotdog (2007):

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I did not know anything about the rules so Pauline tried to explain me, but I think I still do not get everything about baseball. Apparently, Yankees had not even scored yet. Behind ourselves were a complete team of Rays supporters. Completely drunk but fun, they were yelling every time something happened. Hopefully for us, baseball is a very long game, and you wait a lot to see something happening. They never hit the ball. We actually had the chance to see a home run by the Yankees! I must tell that this is absolutely awesome, and I totally loved when the whole stadium stood up and shouted out.

Make some noise!

Here is someone famous. Maybe from TV, I guess. He walked up in the stands looking for supporters to interview.

Finally, Yankees lost and I still prefer basketball, but this was a pretty nice American-style afternoon. Next time, we will see if we can have some NBA or NHL tickets. See you!

Death Cab For Cutie – Marching Bands Of Manhattan (2005):

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The apartment is about 80m²-large, with 3 bedrooms – one with 2 beds. Pauline and Antoine have got their own room, and I am sharing the last one with Gaël. We will switch once in a month so that everyone can have its own room. It was really dirty when we took the apartment. The previous guys seemed not to have cleaned anything. There were hair in the bathtub and old food dying in the fridge, the dishwasher smelled really bad… At least, we are in NYC.

We took off at 10:20AM in Charles-de-Gaulle, a bit late, and we landed in J.F.K. at 12:00AM (local time), a bit earlier than expected. I don’t know how that is possible; I suspect some kind of time travel. I slept a lot in the plane and I watched two movies: Kung Fu Panda (lame) and School Of Rock (quite fun, but already seen). After showing our ID papers something like five times, we jumped in a taxi cab that was waiting for us, driven by a guy that was not even speaking English. First impression: damn, everything is so big! The four of us sat in the back of the cab. Cars, highways, blocs, escalators. Everything is seriously 1.5 times bigger. The cab took us to the apartment, on the forth floor of a small building in the West of Central Park, Uptown.

This is not the apartment. It is the building that is just accross the street and it looks like a castle.

After meeting with Dennis, the 24/7 Real Media Human Resource guy, we headed to the office. There are lots of subway lines in NYC, we are on the B and C. They look crappier than in France but, once again, bigger. We got out at the cross between Broadway and the Sixth, in Midtown. Then we were in. New York City with its huge skyscrapers, its shops and its ads. And its yellow taxi cabs everywhere! Dennis showed us the way to the company, located on the 9^th and 12^th floor of a building on the 132^th. Well, nothing to say about it, it looks very American. After a quick tour, we went out to visit the town. We walked a bit to see Madison Square Garden and Time Square. Amazing! Awesome! Impressive! I know you have probably heard about these famous places but seeing it by yourself is another thing.

We went back to the apartment to rest. Just before, we bought enough to live in a shop on the 110^th. The 110^th is the end of Central Park, just after you will find Harlem. Antoine and I went out to take a look at Central Park. Actually, a part of it. What we have found is a peaceful place in the city that never sleeps. Nothing unexpected, except squirrels.

We played soccer with local guys. Some others were playing frisbee. Girls were doing aerobics. I even found a guy learning the waveboard, a weird kind of skateboard with only two wheels that I have already seen during my trip to Belle-Île.

Once everything was cleaned (the apartment and ourselves), it was time to eat. Because we did not want to walk a lot, we have tried Broadway’s McDonald’s. Checked. Well, believe it or not, but French McDonald’s are not junk food compared to that. It is absolutely uneatable. Drinks are unlimited but they are sickly. However, burgers are not as over sized as I was said. Okay, I will try again in another restaurant some other day, because that sounds like bad luck.

The next day, we woke up to get to 24/7 Real Media early to fill out paperwork. Not really interesting but necessary. We learned that we need to have a social security number to open a bank account, but not only. Nevermind. We took the subway to find a place to eat. Something I forgot to mention is that half of the advertising in New York is about TV shows.

We ended up in a Korean restaurant. Spiced but sweet. It was cheaper than expected: 12$ and I could not finish my fried shrimps. However, you have to give a tip which is 15-20% of the amount. Later we went shopping. I personally did not find anything great, but we only did 3 or 4 clothing stores. Also, we needed phones. I chose a T-Mobile “pay by the day” solution. 1$ each day you use your phone and then low communication prices. Nights are free between any T-Mobile client. Nevertheless, in the US, the meaning of « you use » is a bit different from ours. You pay incoming calls and received texts! So, if I have not used my phone for the day and someone sends me a text message, it will cost me 1.05$. Argh!

Thursday was quite similar. We first went to the office to complete some papers then we were free to go. We were told that the Village was the place to be and to live so we wanted to know how it looks like before spending our nights there. We walked down to the East Village where we found a bar, Phebe’s to try some beers. The waitress was nice enough to disregard my age (I am still 20 at the moment). A nice place actually! Crossing Madison Square Park, we saw Roger Federer winning a game.

Live from the US Open in Madison Square Park

Then, we headed towards Chinatown. Chinatown is a town inside the city. It looks and sounds different than New York. We searched for a good restaurant there. Any idea? Comment!

Finally, we walked up New York through Broadway, again. I bought a pair of jeans (around 40$ for a Levi’s, two or three times cheaper than in France) on the way home. We did a few uninteresting but useful things later today, such as doing the shopping since eating every day in New York is a bit expensive. Another tiring day all in all, time to sleep!

I was proposed a very attractive internship, both technically and financially. The company is called 24/7 Real Media and does digital marketing. It is located in the middle of Manhattan and lends us an apartment near Central Park. I mean us because I am leaving with three other students I will introduce another day. I will take off on September 2 and come back on January 31. Until now, I had to prepare everything to go to Uncle Sam’s. And they are cautious. Well, I got everything right on time.

A problematical task is money management. Most banks do not want to open an account in the USA for less than a year. Obviously, I could say that I stay longer, but I would pay fees for the rest of the year. And if I use my current credit card over there, I would be charged enough to feed a dinosaur (a big one).

I was told to look at HSBC because they provide easy and cheap international money transfers, and a long interview with a banker confirmed it. I chose to open an account in Paris, so that I could use my credit card in any HSBC cash machine, even in New York, without any tax (6 times a month). The banker told me they could open an account there later if I wanted/needed without charging me. Maybe. At least for a beginning, the best is to bring cash, and since $ < €, to change the money in France.

About phone, let’s stay I will use emails. Neither SFR nor Orange had something interesting for international calls. They both have their passport option, but that just lowers a bit communication bills. I have seen that AT&T, the US communication leader, provides something called GoPhone, it may be a solution for local and international calls. The solution looks just like phone cards. I will take a closer look at it.

LCD Soundsystem — New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down (2007):

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I think I am quite ready, with 22.999 kg of luggage…