New York, New York...

November 19, 2008

I'm spending such a nice week in the big Apple attending the SEA Annual Meeting these days. I got to New York after a few days withh my buddies road-tripping around California and Vegas and it was such a nice time as well. On saturday, I landed in Newwark after not very much of sleep and headed to my hostel up in Harlem, stopping by first at a very nice afro-american restaurant fo dinner (or lunch, actually, even thoug it was 9pm). At the hostel, I got to know a bunch of people who was going out so I overcome my tiredness and headed downtonw for a beer, it was funny. On saturday, I went to a very nice tiny and pretty cafe right by Columbia University to have a proper NY cheesecake and to try to work a little bit; after that, I walked around Central Park, which was displaying such nice fall colours, and made it to 5th. avenue. I took there the bus and headed to Tribecca where I was supposed to meet my "new friends" from the hostel for dinner. We had a funny dinner down in China Town and finished off the night on a Jazz club right at Duke Ellington St. It couldn't have been better: being on a jazz club, listening to live music, right in the middel of New York was such a remarkable experience for a guy like me who's getting closer to be in love with The bohemian music style...

On monday, I left the 10-people-and-narrow-bed hostel where I was staying and switched gears to the high-stand hotel down in Brooklyn where the conference is taking place. It was really nice to meet some people from the time I spent in Rome, catch up and make new contacts. Today I presented my paper and it actually felt pretty good. Of course there were things to improve, but my overall feeling was quite happy, just hope the rest in the room though the same :-)

I'll stay here till saturday, then I'll back to Phoenix for a couple of weeks to slow-down and catch up with my daily work. It'll presumably also be my last time at my current house in Tempe, since I'll be moving to a closer to the university location in January. It was a pretty hard decission since my time with my housemate has been such a great one and he's treated me really well; on the other hand, I think the new place will bring a different and new experience, and I tend to think that's always enriching. And after that... back home, sweet home for Christmas!