Tales of The Big Apple 1

A book wanted to be read, so I never got to write anything about New York on the bus to Providence. Now it's time - big time...

New York isn't explainable. It's a thousand cities in one and it's all the stories that everybody has heard many times before or experienced themselves on their visits.

It's the worlds greatest shopping city, art city, walking city, clubbing city, eating city, musical city, tourist city and immigration city... It's all that and it goes on and on and on.

I was very lucky to be able to stay at my friend Sejal's place. I was supposed to stay for a week, but as I already after 2 days started to get minor panic attacks by thinking of how I would be able to do all the absolutely most important things, and as another friend very kindly offered me to stay at his place, I ended up staying for almost 2 weeks.

It's impossible to describe it all, so I've made a selection of experiences and posts below.

Location:W 24th St,New York,USA

Dumbo - Tales of The Big Apple 2

Spending a full sunny day in Dumbo (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass) with your camera is absolutely wonderful. The empty factories, old buildings and street art are very photogenic. And when you then add, great exhibitions, the best ice cream and a magic sunset - then Im as happy as I get.

Even if I had to wait in line for half an hour. I've learned that in New York it's cool to wait for food - if only it's highly recommended. I must admit, I refused to wait 2 hours for the apparently best pizza.

Here are some of the best captures.











And the sunset - what a sunset...

Location:W 24th St,New York,USA

Walking and cycling - Tales of the Big Apple 3

I walked and cycled most of New York (I could borrow a bike from Sejal). The weather was amazing most of the days - with sun and clear blue sky. Only exception was my 20 minutes at Liberty Island that got me completely soaked.

When walking NYC, you'll easily cover 20 km in a day. I love walking all the way down a street or an avenue. Often, they're many kms long, which means that in one street you'll pass through boheme-rich West Village, fluorscent Times Square, boardwalk-café Upper West Side and infamous Harlem. Or in another street in the Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, where everybody's dressed as in the 1850'ies, middle class white Clinton; african-american Fort Greene and the expat neighborhood Brooklyn Heights with 40 floors sky skrabers.

Another fascinating thing about New York is that you can walk in to one of the expensive galleries on West Broadway (street) in Soho (neighborhood) see a beautiful painting - obviously original - thinking the artist is just a bit too inspired by Chagall, take an extra look at the signature and realising it's not inspiration as the artist actually is Chagall. Or in another gallery see a Damien Hirst painting with a price tag showing155,000 USD.

Location:W 24th St,New York,USA

The rich and famous - tales of The Big Apple 4

On my first night in New York, Sejal took me to an Italian bar and restaurant close to Times Square and the Broadway theatres. I found it very suitable that mr. Big from Sex And The City also attended the bar and bid me welcome.

Location:W 24th St,New York,USA

A very important, early death - tales of The Big Apple 5

My great grand mother was born in Brooklyn.

Her parents were Danish emmigrants, who had married when arriving in New York in 1881. She had three older siblings: Holger, Edward and Lily, and the family tried as so many others to pursue wealth with changing luck.

When my great grandmother was 5 years old, her mother, Amalie, died - only 47 years old. As my great great grandfather, Julius, couldn't provide for all four kids, he decided to send the two youngest back to Denmark. Therefore, my great grandmother - 5 years old - had to say goodbye to her father and two older brothers in New York and cross the Atlantic to Copenhagen. The sisters ended in two separate parts of the family and they never saw their father or brothers again.

Hadn't my great great grandmother died too young, my great grandmother wouldn't have been sent to Denmark, and I wouldn't have been. Our stories are all full of coincidences, but I've always thought this was particular cruel, though still fascinating.

When I got to New York, I realised Im the first of Elizabeth's (my great grandmother) descendants to return to the city. That had a larger effect on me than expected. Therefore, I spent some days finding out, where they'd lived, married and are now burried. I managed to find the church in which my great great grandparents were married.

It wasn't a church anymore, but here's a picture anyways.



And the surroundings.


If anybody's curious, my mother has tried to find descendants of Holger and Edward and whether we have relatives in the US. Unfortunately it's a dead end, so it seems I don't have a rich uncle in America (even if that would have been wonderful).

Location:W 24th St,New York,USA

Impressions from New York

I've spent the past 12 days in New York; infact, Im still here. One week simply wasn't enough. It has been completely amazing and overwhelming, so I haven't had time to write posts for the blog. Hopefully I'll get time for that tomorrow in the bus to Providence where I'll be visiting Marie. Until then, here's some of my impressions from the city that (absolutely!!!) never sleeps.


Financial District viewed from Brooklyn Heights


Keep left right eat shit - sign poetry


Tennis art at Williamsburg Bridge


The Street TV at High Line, a renovated train high line, which now can be walked by tourists and others.


They might be ugly, but they sure are nice to have...


Graduation at Columbia University


Wall Street


Sun set view from Empire State Building

Location:W 24th St,New York,USA

Free museums and americana

The seasons are changing. It was getting winter in the Southern hemisphere, and since winter and me are doing best in small doses or in suitable distance, it was time to move further north. This brought me to the US where I landed 2. May. I spent the first week in Washington visiting my American girlfriend Genta and her husband Chris. Genta has been living outside of the US the past 15 years, so it was quite unusual to see her in her home country.

You can spend a lifetime in Washington, but as I only had a week, I had to focus!
Genta and Chris lives in a satellite town to DC, McLean that is characterized by very large houses and lots of forests and greenery. Genta provided me with a ticket to the metro and directions for getting to The Mall, which runs between the Lincoln Monument and Capitol Hill and where all those monuments and places, you've seen from Washington on film and TV (except The Watergate Building) is situated. Everything is bigger than expected and it takes approximately 100 years to walk from one end to the other, so it's easy to understand why the easy accessible public shared bikes are very popular. The only place that doesn't seem larger is The White House. It actually seems smaller than expected.


Vietnam Memorial

At The Mall are most of the Smithsonian Museums also situated. For those who didn't already know (like me a couple of months ago), The Smithsonians is a gigantic research and museum foundation, which among other things run 19 museums, most of them situated in DC and all with free admission. My first thought was: free admission = boring museums. Boy, where I wrong. I spent so much time at museums during my week in DC. And Im far from finished.

I've visited the Museum of Natural History with dinosaur skeletons, gems in all shapes and sizes, stuffed animals and nature photographs.



It was, by the way, in the evolution section at this museum at a booth, where a researcher explained the differences in the steps of human evolution that a group of creationist teenagers asked him some very critical questions about the validity of evolution as a theory. I was at the same time shocked and fascinated while listening. Luckily, the researcher was used to handle and argument that sort of rubbish, but it's hard to imagine that such pure stupidity is actually walking this earth. In a weird funny way, it's sort of the best argument so far against 'survival of the fittest'...

There where lots of other museums. The museum of American History with the Star Spangled Banner, the history of slavery described through Jefferson's case, the American presidents - and their wives and an exhibition about innovation. Hirshhon is the museum for modern art with Hopper and Rodin as my highlights.

The Air and Space Museum has the Wright brothers' first airplane, Lindbergh's Spirit of Saint Louis, Apollo 11's landing shuttle etc.



And finally The Museum of American Indians, where my brain finally overloaded because of the enormous amounts of information. I still managed to learn the it was the Spaniards who reintroduced the horse to America. I must also mention the museum building itself. It is some of the most amazing architecture, I've seen for a long time! I can highly recommend visiting museums in Washington.

I did get to do other things than seeing museums. In the weekend, Genta and I went to a baseball game: Philadelphia Phillies against Washington Nationals (of course we cheered for the Nationals). Genta thought I should experience som of the real Americana. I totally agreed. It was extremely fascinating. All of it. The game itself, though the first four innings where rather boring because none of the teams managed to do a run. But then Washington had four home runs and suddenly I found myself standing and cheering loudly. The chilidogs with chili con carne, cheese fries and beer. All of it made it a perfect afternoon.


Only slightly frightened by the huge chili dog.


We had perfect seats very close to the field.

Sunday morning, before the traffic began, Genta took me on a bike tour in Washington, so I could see that DC is much more than monuments and the Smithsonian. Even if the picture shows me on the way to Capitol.



And then - New York...

Location:Wrightson Dr, McLean, USA

Last writings from Chile

I spent quite some time in Santiago while in Chile. When I stayed at Helene and Alex, who lives in the middle of a wonderful nowhere close to some mountains in the Maipo Valley 50 km south of Santiago, I went with them to Santiago in the mornings, so they could go working and I could go exploring...



Santiago is essential when trying to understand Chile. Just the fact that more than a third of the country's population is living in the city makes it important, but also the history and political influence is crucial. Santiago isn't easy to get in to as Paris or Barcelona. It doesn't have lots of obvious sites or characteristics, so you start out walking a lot without seeing much. After a couple of days of walking around, the city starts opening and then it kept showing new aspects.

I was particularly moved by the symbols, squares, museums etc. related to the coup in 1973 and Pinochet's dictatorship following it - not least Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, where I spent more than 3 hours, even if everything was in Spanish. I only knew little about this period before arriving in Chile, but it definately still affects the country immensely.





As the last of my writings from Chile, I want to say a million thanks for housing, fantastic company and terrific recommendations to Helene, Alex and Dante - and of course Bonini!


So goodbye to Chile for now - I'll be back!

Location:Somewhere in the air between Chile and Panama

A really bad first impression and a very happy friendship emerging...

Well then!

Picture a white car driving through the desert. Or rather a car that used to be white but now is very dusty because of the sandstorm that also makes it impossible to see 50 feets ahead. The sand sticks particularly well to the car because of the snow- and hailstorm it just passed through. In the desert. Ok, on the edge of the desert a bit up the Andes. The car is supposed to have room for 10 passengers even though it's tight. So it has 10 passengers. The seat, which only supposedly can have a passenger, is occupied by a fairly pale, feverish woman - of course with swollen tonsils and lots of self pity. She stays there for most of the 8 hours the trip lasts, partly because they have to give up on seeing most of the sights due to the snow and sand. When getting back to the hostel, she heads straight to bed and sleeps for 17 hours only interrupted by a visit to the toilet at which her bladder is kind enough to let go before she reaches...

To put it mildly, it wasn't love at first sight, when I visited the Atacama Desert!

Even if it started just fine. 4 very quiet days, besides yet another pisco night out, in Pisco Elqui, had recharged me perfectly for a 1000 km bus ride further north.

I caught the bus in Pisco around 7 pm. As it didn't have La Serena as destination, the driver took it as his personal quest to reach my bus onward in Vicuña. Therefore, we drove down the valley at full speed, managing to let the violin class from Pisco off on the way. Full speed till we turned into the bus terminal in Vicuña, obviously at the exact right time to cut the way for the bus onward and for me to jump from one bus to another. Actually, I ended up not paying for the second ride, so still rather well spirited I entered my next bus - 12 hours over night to Antofagasta, the second largest city of Chile. I even bought a ticket for the upperclass Cama, which almost allows you to lie down on the journey. Besides a bit too much air condition and no dinner or breakfast, I reached Antofagasta just fine next morning. So far so good.

My next bus ride was in a cheaper class. I chose (or rather it was the next bus leaving) the Classico class for the 5 hours through Calama to San Pedro de Atacama, the indigenous desert village being the starting point for most tourists visit to the Atacama Desert. Perhaps I should have given it a thought that Classico is a faint try to hide the fact that it's the cheapest and worst busses. Which is why the bus stopped in the middle of the desert, right between Calama and San Pedro. Stopping in that way, where you're quietly admiring the beautiful surroundings, might even have taken your camera out to catch the moment.



Then suddenly the bus stops. And this is when you notice the heavy smoke from the engine. At the point when the driver throws a bucket of water at the engine (how the f... it appeared in the midst of the desert), you start considering that this bus probably wont continue for a while. And are absolutely right.

Fortunately, some of my co passengers were very entrepreneurial. They managed to stop an empty minibus (however it f...ing appeared) who were willing to take us the last bit. It had room for 12. We managed to get room for 25, who without any complaints - because who would want to get off - slowly continued to San Pedro. I reached approximately 24 hours after leaving Pisco, hungry and tired, but in fairly good mood.

The very relaxed and not particularly touristy atmosphere of Pisco stands in sharp contrast to San Pedro. The town itself is hardly visible for all the backpackers, hostels, restaurants, tour agents and souvenir shops. But then again, you cant expect to be by yourself in one of the most beautiful tourist attractions in the world. I was tired and hadn't booked a hostel in advance, so I chose the first the best hostel (more than twice as expensive and twice as bad as the one in Pisco).

Later on the hostel turned out to be the Chilean version of Fawlty Towers (or perhaps I'd just lost my sense of humor and patience - definitely a possibility) - no matter what, I really couldn't see the point in leaving my room door unlocked the next morning as they asked me to.

And then I went sightseeing as described. I must admit that the first hour of the trip actually had really nice weather, which made it possible to take some amazing pictures of the flamingos and the salt flat.







But that was it. Here is the prove of the snow - we couldn't drive any further. Fine with me, I was shakingly freezing.



What to do when having fever, feeling sorry for yourself and being caught in a sand- and snowstorm? I emailed Helene, bought a flight ticket to Santiago and continued sleeping.

And woke up to the sun and a San Pedro actually situated very picturesque, and even being a real town behind the masses of tourists. So I thought the town and the desert deserved a second chance and booked a sunset trip to the Valle de Luna, which turned out to be the exact right decision. It was an amazing trip. Lots of nice people and the desert showing it's most appealing sides.











Finally, the perfect peace and calm.



So now Im back in my state of zen. And I want to go back to Atacama!

Ps: Thanks to Eduardo for taking the great pictures of me in the desert.

Location:San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Doing something stupid and finding out it was a good thing...

Oops this one was written a week ago, but I forgot to post it...

My main principle while travelling is to follow other people's advice and recommendations. So far that has got me to the flat, the best steaks and a great night out in Buenos Aires. To all the best hostels and my hiking in Torres del Paine. To Valparaíso and pisco sour. To the emotionally strongest museum visit - in Santiago. And now to Pisco Elqui.

Several people had recommended Valle Elqui and at the hostel in cold and humid La Serena, Konstantin in the reception recommended a hostel in the village Pisco Elqui. He even called them to check for available rooms. I booked for 2 nights and went to the bus terminal to get tickets for Pisco Elqui and the Atacama desert.

I'd got a cold and was confused. Therefore, I managed to buy a ticket to Atacama on the 29. instead of the 22., which I realised a couple of hours later in the bus on my way to Pisco Elqui. Luckily. Because I wasn't far into the Elqui valley till I realised why it's so highly recommended. Here, you breathe slowly. It's beautiful and sunny. Covered with wine fields making the grapes for the local pisco production. And when a man gets on the bus carrying a horse saddle, you just know you're going in the right direction.

I got off when the driver yelled "Pisco Centro", which probably is necessary to yell if anybody is to notice. The centre contists of the church, the square in front of it and the pisco distillery. On the spot, I decided that I wouldn't catch the bus on the 22., which I didn't have a ticket for anyways.

My decision was supported when arriving at the hostel. Small cabins on terrasses surrounded by fruit trees with lemon, lime, avocado. Blooming lavender and rose bushes attracting lots of colibris, a pool with a view to the mountains. And not least a roof-top window in my cabin making me able to look at the stars in my bed. My cold was hastily disappearing.

At the penguin trip, I'd met a french-chilean couple living in Barcelona, who had just been working for a month in Copenhagen. They had also gone to Pisco Elqui - and as you might have guessed, Pisco isn't really a difficult city to run into each other in. It's actually more difficult to avoid. And as Lisa and Pancho are really nice, it seemed silly not to drink some pisco sour together. And some wine. And some amaretto. Finding out they had been in Copenhagen to make a show in my favourite theatre, and that I'd seen one of their previous shows there in 2009. Talking about Danish flea markets, restaurants in Barcelona, experiences and travelling that makes you happy. Agreeing that the world is really small. Exchanging email-id's, hugs and goodbyes and stumble back to your cabin having forgot everything about the cold.

Unfortunately, my cold hadn't forgotten me, so once in a while it needs some attention and care. It didn't prevent me from renting a mountain bike yesterday and drive almost 20 km further into the valley. Which basically meant up and that I was dragging the bike instead of driving it. Riding back was a lot faster. The drive was highly uneventful. The river floated by continuosly. I said hola to everybody I passed. Sometimes they said hola first. A group of men were harvesting grapes. All was good. Tomorrow I'll be cheating a bit. I've arranged with a tour agent to drive me and a mountainbike into another valley, so I only have to do the easy drive back...

Oh, and I've been glacing at stars. Chile is apparently one of the best places to study space. Lots of mountains with thinner atmosphere and less light polution, and only about 30 cloudy nights a year makes the place perfect. Hence, 30 % of all large telescopes are in Chile. And the day before yesterday, it was new moon and I visited an observatory. So now I've seen planets, other galaxies and constellations with and without stars. And through a telescope, I've seen Saturn (it has rings!) and Mars and stars that actually consists of 2, 25, 2000 and 10 million stars. I've learned how to use the Southern Cross to find South. And why it is much easier to find North with Polaris (the North Star).

Did I remember to tell Im doing just fine?

Location:Pisco Elqui, Equi Valley, Chile