Just thought I'd write a quick update. I have a feeling it won't be so short and quick though.
Got back from a ten day road trip yesterday. I'm no longer living in East Harlem, I'm staying at an apartment in West Village for ten nights. Yeah, the same apartment I mentioned in my last post. It worked out after all.
The road trip was fun, we flew down to Miami and drove back. We stayed two nights at a hostel in South Beach two blocks from the beach. I'm not too fond of beach life so I took the bus and Metro to Miami Museum of Science the second day. The museum was not at all what I expected, but it was fun. And it was cool to see the little part of downtown Miami that I got to see. They have a Macy's there, whodda known.
The third day, the 14th, some of the others went to go pick up the rental car, but the rental business had of course screwed up our reservation and yada yada and we had to wait for five hours and tried to find another way to get to our next destination and there was none but we finally managed to rent a car. So we drove to Melbourne, which is also on the east coast of Florida, just a bit further north than Miami.
We stayed there for two nights too, at a Radisson Hotel because our fantastic driver, who deserves all the praise she can get, works at the Radisson Hotel in her hometown in Norway so she gets great discounts. We lived right on the beach, and there was an outside pool and yummy breakfast and huge-ass suites. We went to the bar next to the hotel one night, that was kinda weird. A lot of grown-ups being drunk and dancing under a lamp where 134245253 bras was hanging. It was classic rock night the night we were there and they had a live band. They played Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and other cool stuff. The lead guitar player and singer was an 18 year old boy, he was amazing. When he sang Whole Lotta Love, it was like Led Zeppelin was there, playing it themselves.
We went to Jacksonville, Florida after that. Stayed there for two nights. I pretty much stayed at the hotel, except on May 17 which is Norway's national holiday. Some of the others went to walk in a jungle or forest or whatever, the rest of us went to pick them up and we stopped at an Asian restaurant on our way back to the hotel. The chef cooked our meals on the table we sat at, it was entertaining and cool. And silly, and embarrassing, haha.
On our way to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, we drove through Savannah, Georgia and ate lunch there. It was a small, but really pretty town. A lot of nice houses and cute parks.
In Myrtle Beach we stayed with some Norwegian pilot students. Our driver knew one of them from way back. I wanted to go to the Hard Rock amusement park, but we heard it sucked and it was expensive so I didn't go. Instead I did a lot of nothing, and I played Rock Band on XBox a bit. It was friggin' awesome and I want it so badly. Oh man.
We were supposed to stay there for two nights, but the day we were leaving a tornado came. Lightning and heavy rain. So we stayed another night. We left not really knowing where we were gonna sleep next. We were going towards Washington DC, but the drive was loooong so we slept at a Comfort Inn in Waldorf, Maryland. That was our last night of the roadtrip. From there we drove straight to New York, some of us wanted to go through Washington DC, but the traffic through there was too heavy so we dropped it.
So yeah, this was a really shallow description. I had a lot of fun, the people I went with are awesome and funny and adorable. We have a lot of great quotes and jokes from this trip, all of which we have written down in our Driving Book. It's like a bible.
So, yeah, this is my second night in my new, very temporary room. The first night with more stuff than sheets and a t-shirt. I didn't have time to get my stuff yesterday 'cause I had plans with a friend from school who's been in New York while we were gone. I have a lot of stuff here now, and a lot of stuff at a storage room uptown. All of today has been used on packing and helping Solveig (our driver) pack. It was stressful, but we made it. A million trillion thanks to Martha, it would've been impossible without her. Crap.
I live in a light green room now. I share a bathroom, livingroom and kitchen with two other people. I've only met one of them, but he seems really great, so I'm sure this'll be fine for this short period.
I hung out at Solveig's place all day, and Martha eventually came, and Mari and Kristoffer came later to eat dinner with us. These are just some random quotes or happenings I want to remember:
Solveig and Gisken walks back from picking up our laundry, talking about dogs in New York.
Gisken: I think New York is a bad city for dogs. I want to have a dog in Berlin.
Solveig (thinking this is a weird thing to say): (jokingly) I want to have a cat in Tromsø.
Gisken: Me too. But not long enough for the cat to live there its entire life.
After dinner things were really stressful, Solveig had to pick up her bus ticket in 40 minutes and still wasn't finished packing, and then leaving on the bus shortly after that so I had to take her stuff and my stuff to a storage room on the other side of Manhattan (across, not downtown). Solveig didn't have time to go with me, so Martha came with me. I tried hailing cabs, but none drove by. Finally one stopped, but we had a lot of stuff to bring with us so we needed two. I told the cab driver to just go around the corner to a girl standing on the sidewalk with a lottttt of luggage, he said sure and was ready to go around the corner when he picked up another person instead. Fucker. I managed to hail a big taxi though, so one was enough.
We finally made it to the storage place. The cab driver let us off at the corner outside and we had no idea where the entrance was. Three New Yorkers on bikes told us it was at the other end of this block and the cab driver could've let us off just outside the entrance. We laughed at our suckiness and sighed because we had a huge-ass amount of luggage to carry with us. The three guys offered to help, I'm still absolutely amazed by some New Yorkers generosity and niceness. It's overwhelming and I don't know how I'll be able to leave. Anyway, they helped and I owe them forever but I will never see them again. We carried all the stuff to the entrance, when the cab driver suddenly appeared again. We had managed to take his backpack too, with all of our crap. All six of us laughed and enjoyed the moment. It was funny. We're so stupid, hahah.
I had to fill out a million forms at the front desk before I could put all the luggage in a storage space. But we finally did it. Martha and I took a cab downtown and had a really nice talk while driving to her subway stop.
It's been a couple of really nice and tiresome weeks, and it's weird how everything is coming to an end. I don't know when I'll see some of these people again. I've uploaded some pictures from the road trip on flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/rompetaske/
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