moving piem

Juan, Claudia, and their daughter Elena

From downtown New York, I was kindly invited to jump into a huge car with Juan and Claudia, my friends from long time ago in London, their daughter Elena, and Juan's mother Carmen. We headed northwest of New York for about 5 hours to reach their beautiful house, next to a town called Delhi, not far from the Catskill Mountains. Carlis and Gerardo, two friends of Juan, also from Venezuela, joined us for the weekend.

We built a campfire, had brunch in the morning sun, and had an amazing barbecue. Carlis even showed me how to prepare the delicious arepas.

Coming straight out from Big Apple, the lush green, the silence, and the darkness of night around this beautiful house lost in the woods was an amazing and refreshing contrast with the busy city. From there, I thought I would be hitch-hiking West across upstate New-York, but that was before knowing that Carlis and Gerardo were coming.

Evening Sun in Coney Island

A lot has been happening last week in New York. Monday Michelle and I went to visit the Highline in West Village, an old metro line transformed in park, after spending some time in the art galleries of the meat packing district.

Tuesday, I skated across a few kilometres North across Central Park all the way up to Harlem. I was really moved to discover this neighbourhood. A lot of the music I listen to was made and performed right here. I went to pay a tribute to the famous Apollo Theater before heading to 'El Barrio', aka Spanish Harlem, looking for a few more records.

On Wednesday, I went with Michelle to Coney Island. It felt great to chill in the sun and have a swim in the warm Atlantic Ocean. Then we went across the cleanly vintage Luna Park and stopped at Nathan's to enjoy a hot-dog.

Thursday, I spent most of the day packing my records, my old laptop and my old sleeping bag, to send them to my brother in France. In the end, I sent about 75 LP records home. After two weeks on the Big Apple Planet, I was ready to take off to discover the rest of the country.

A big 'Thank You' to everyone here who hosted me, invited me for a brunch, spent the afternoon showing me the city, helped me tuning my longboard, or simply shared a smile.

Piles of LPs at Rainbow Music 2002 Ltd.

I spent most of the week in sunny Big Apple going around the city skating from one record shop to the other. The selection is quite different from what we can find in Europe, and often pretty cheap.

As I was visiting all these shops, I asked the owners if they wouldn't mind having their picture taken. Most of them were really happy with that.

Joel, from Brazil, grabbed his sunglasses and struck the pose. Corry, from NY, went to grab his leather Jacket. Bruno, from UK, kept working, carefully taking note of the records I just bought. Bill, from NYC, asked me if I was working for the New York Times.

While I was at it, I also took a picture of the outside and inside of the shop. Here is what it looks like. At the end of the week, I had bought about eighty records, weighing more than twenty kilos. A bit heavy for a backpacker... ... more

Blue sky at Dia:Beacon

Today with Geetika and Vasanthi, we went to Dia:Beacon. It's a one hour ride by train, North of New York. We rode from East Village to Central Station by bike and skate, and took the Metro-North train. The train follows a beautiful track along the Hudson river, before stopping next to the little town of Beacon. From there we cycled and skated down to the art Centre.

Dia:Beacon is located in a beautiful old factory, and has a lot of exhibitions going on. I especially liked the ones from John Chamberlain, Sol LeWitt, and Richard Serra. It was really hot today, and enjoying the heat and the silence in the park next to the center.

On the way back, we followed the Hudson river for a good ten kilometers, cycling and skating, all the way down to Cold Sring, before hopping into the train back to the city.

Sunny day in New York

After a good three months North of the 60º Parallel, I took one of these strange machines that we usually call planes. They make you travel so fast you tend to forget the distance covered. From Nuuk to Reykjavik, the flight lasted less than 4 hours. 4 hours to fly over the 10 days of sailing we just did.

A couple of hours more and I was queuing amongst US residents to board on another of these huge machines, about to take off to New York City. We flew once again above Greenland, and soon over Newfoundland. As we landed in Newark, I watched the sunset for the first time in almost 100 days in the Arctic.

In New York I have been incredibly lucky to be hosted by the amazing and wonderful Geetika, a friend of Maya who I had met at Maya and Cyril's wedding. She has a beautiful flat in East Village, a friendly neighborhood in downtown Manhattan. The next morning, I went for some specific shopping: I got myself a longboard. It was just amazing to be able to go around the city skating.

The first week-end was busy. Saturday morning, there was a longboard marathon hapening on Governor's Island, and in the afternoon, Geetika was performing with the amazing New York Kathak Ensemble at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. On Sunday, we decided to get out of the city for the day.