I had my longest day, I did sleep a little may be 2 hours, then I had my flight for New York at 8 A.M the flight was 8 hours long, I arrived there it was about 11 A.M local hour and I stayed awake until may be …. I decided to stay awake so I avoid sleeping in the afternoon to wake up at night.

While extremely agonizing the trip in the airplane was interesting my seat was near a large group of somalian refugees sponsored by an U.S NGO or ONG , the closest of them was a young boy I had the window seat and he kept coming near me to see, when we arrived in United States of America I could see his fascination in his eyes I could perfectly understand that this country will become his country. When America decides to adopt it does at least it feel like it.

When I walked in the streets of Manhattan I could sense that energy of opportunity and integration, we don’t have such things in Western Europe, no matter what country you go. France, Spain, The Netherlands etc … most Western European countries have no clue how to integrate people from other cultures and continents and everyone know that there is far less opportunity in Europe than in America, I remember that when I was teenager one of my teacher encouraged me to seek a future in USA rather than in Belgium, it says a lot, I was in France 2 years ago while France is a beautiful country it is not a country of integration or even opportunity, the foreigners, immigrants or expat’s who made it in France had already a comfortable income when they came to France. It is not a country where you can start from scratch nor Spain my favorite western European country.

I have a lot to think about this American Dream thing, here in Manhattan it does feel real when you hear about it in Europe it does feel like garbage. I thought Barcelona, London, Paris were rich cities they certainly are but Manhattan is far more.

I turned 31 and I have been living in Belgium for most of my life so I’m the perfect belgian citizen even if my Flamish sucks.
There is a post on the Expatica forum called ‘You know you’ve been in Belgium too long when…..
It list 27 reasons to know when someone from another country stayed too long here in Belgium. I think it is very accurate even for the belgians citizen except #27 as we renew our paper every 5 years not every year as the expat have to do.
I hope to move in Spain later this year, may be, after many years in Spain I will be able to write such a piece.

1) You always stop your car for traffic from even the tiniest little road from the right.

2) You consider breaking the speed limit normal, and honk and flash at people who don’t.

3) If you have had less than 10 beers, you drive your car home, but you still don’t indicate when turning or respect the speed limit.

4) If you have a car, you consider any other means of transportation as slightly suspicious. (more…)

Today, I installed the program Ulead VideoStudio 10 and I tried to make a slide show, I always wanted to learn to use video editing software, this is my first attempt. I put the pictures of my trip in Valencia with my young loud-constant talking cousins.
Some were taken in Elche and Alicante.

Technorati Tags:
valencia summer spain espana alicante playa beach plage espagne

I asked a few people from New York to help me to find my way to the place I will stay in New York. I land in Newark airport NJ (EWR) next Tuesday morning , Newark is 26 Km away from Manhattan , I m supposed to take a NJ Transit train to New York Penn station , I will end up somewhere in Manhattan at 33rd street, my place is in Upper East Side Manhattan near Central Park around the 92nd street., I can take the subway line 6 to go there . If it is sunny day I will probably to do that distance by walking me I love to walk.

Sound like a very easy plan ?
Check out the Njtransit map http://www.njtransit.com/images/railmap06.jpg
And check out the subway map http://subway.umka.org/maps/new-york.gif

They are confusing at best. Nevermind, I have been lost already in so many places

new york newark airport transit

I’m planning my trip to New York, I went to that site, where they home some webcams on Times Square, this is interesting.
I bought a tourist guide today I don’t like the big tourist guide with a lot of pages, I like the pocket model one with a good map in it and succinct descriptions, I have no need for more.

I checked the hotel I will be so far it doesn’t sound like an interesting one, it is a place to sleep, the hotel is poorly rated on the visitor reviews site TripAdvisor, I will tell you more when I will be there. It will not be a long trip I don’t do long trip, I don’t like them.
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