Spending my day off with my girlfriend

You're right about food here. I'm no health nut but as you noticed it is very easy to buy big and eat bad. I've been to Italy once over fifteen years ago and the one thing I remember was that for the most part everything was fresh (fruit, vegetables, bread!). Smaller portions and healthier food. We could learn a thing or two from the Europeans... just don't tell anyone I said that ;-)

I am sitting in an Internet Cafe on Times Square right now. Today I took a day off work since my girlfriend will leave New York on Sunday evening and I wanted to spend some time with her. We had a very nice and relaxing day. Getting up late, enjoying an american style breakfast and walking around the city.
We went to one of those huge 24h supermarkets before having breakfast to get some eggs, sausages and salad. It's a real experience to go into such a supermarket... They do not sell three or four different kinds of ricec risps but fifteen. You can't only choose out of let's say six different sorts of toilet paper but you can choose out of twelf different sorts... No matter what you want to buy, everything is so much bigger than in Europe. I mean I am a big guy myself but no wonder that there are a lot more people living unhealthy in the US than in Europe looking at the sizes of all articles and how much sugar they added. Food is very expensive in general, but if you'd like to get some healthy food, some quality food it's even more expensive. It's hard to afford that. Well this might also just be a lame excuse for being undisciplined...

However, after having breakfast (we even tried ready made scrambled eggsd out of a bottle...), we took the Manhatten Express bus to 23rd Street, got into the 6 train to Bowling Green changed to the 4 train which took us to Brough Hall-Court Street. We didn't know anything about this area. We just wanted to have a little walk in Brooklyn, seeing the Manhatten skyline from the water promenade and walking back over Brooklyn bridge.
Brooklyn Heights, the part we have been wandering around is such a nice place! It's kind of another world, everythings seems to be so much more relaxed and a lot quiter than in Manhatten. There are lot's of nice small houses, lot's of trees and small streets which are not too crowded. Coming to the river blew us off imideatly. The houses there with those small gardens and balconies offer a great view onto the famous skyline of Manhatten. Would be interesting to know if people living there still enjoy this view. I am sure this is a rather expensive area to live in. But it seems to be sooo nice...

After walking back to Manhatten we took the train to Times Square and visited Madame Tussauds which was good fun. Don't know what we are going to do after I finished my post. Karin is in a CD shop right now were I'll pick her up now. Expect photos from today to be posted later.

Posted by Martin Fuchs on May 20, 2005 11:25 PM