Weekend in the NYC

It's been three days already that I didn't post anything on my blog. In that time I was very busy working for the office and visiting New York City. Today, sunday, I can finally relax from a very hardworking but exciting week.

Thursday, March 8th

Last thursday was a very hectic day as one of the servers hosting almost all the websites from clients, was spoofed (hacked). We tracked the IP addresses down all the way back to the Netherlands. In order for us to solve this problem we needed to back up all the files containing the websites. Therefore I had to go and buy a 2TB hard drive in the famous Walmart stores. As this was about 15miles away from the office, I had my first driving experience in the USA with the car depicted here below. The rest of the day consisted of backing up all those files, which took a long time. 

Audi A6 with the personalized number plate!

Friday, March 9th

Friday morning consisted of learning how to use hubspot as explained in my blog earlier. I gave Marshall more insights on the do's and don't of web management by experimenting with the program. 

In the afternoon we had two meetings on the agenda with a guy who owns the exclusive patent to sell eucalyptus based cleaning products in the United States. It wasn't really a meeting, but more a conference call with two other company interested working together with that guy. The second meeting was with an investor who was interested in starting up a business with that guy. In order for them to do that, we met with that guy and gave him advise on a go-to marketing strategy. 

In the evening I attended an art opening in the Beacon, a city 10miles northbound of Cold Spring, during which I met the host of the opening and an female opera singer and some other very interesting people. Afterwards we went to have dinner in a Japanese restaurant in Beacon, which was very nice of course. Luckily we were back pretty early, because the next day I wanted to be fresh and lively to visit NYC. 

Saturday, March 10th

The day started off just perfect with a beautiful sun shiny day and a beautiful city to visit that day. Even though I'm about 100km away from the city, it only takes one hour by train to get there. I got my train 09.05 and it took me a little more than an hour to arrive in Grand Central Station NYC. Below you can see some pictures of the beautiful scenery through which the train was driving as well as some pictures from Cold Spring in the early morning.

           

I arrived in the city around 10.15 and the moment I first walked into the main terminal I was overwhelmed  a feeling I can't even describe. I mean what a beautiful and amazing station that was, the station of Antwerp is nothing compared to that. The whole station consisted of many small shops, restaurants, gift shops and a number a Starbucks cafés. But to me, la crème de la crème was of course the recently opened Apple store integrated in the main terminal, the biggest one I have ever seen so far. As usual the shop was crowded by people exploring the iPhone, iPad, MacBook... It was, as Steve Jobs expressed in his last words: "oh wow, oh wow, oh wow". Of course I couldn't spent my entire day in an Apple store, so there I went exploring one of the most exciting cities in the world.

5th Avenue

As I haven't eating anything that day, my first stop was a Starbucks to get some OJ and a chocolate donut.  After having consumed my breakfast I headed for fifth corner of fifth ave and 49th street: Rock Plaza in front of the 70 stories heigh Rockefeller Center with it's amazing view of the city on 'Top of the Rock'. After taking some pictures of the Rock Plaza and it's famous Ice Skating Rink, I went all the way up and took some amazing pictures of Central Park and beyond as well as from the Empire State and the skyline of Manhattan. As you can see on the picture, it was indeed a beautiful sun shiny day, but that doesn't really mean the temperature was that good. It was about 6-10°Celsius in the city. Luckily it became a bit warmer as the day advanced. As you can also see on the pictures, I visited NY by myself. So not many pictures were shot with me on it. For some pictures I just used the front camera on my iPhone to do that. Also a quick note, the lens of my camera was full of scratches so most of the pictures are blurry and overexposed.

  

Le me with central park

So here we have some magnificent picture of NYC. For people visiting the big apple anytime soon I can definitely recommend to do this. Tickets are a bit pricy 25$ but the experience you'll have once you're up there is definitely its money worth.

By the time I was back on ground level, it was around 11.00am and I continued my journey as I walked uptown-bound on fifth avenue where all the big brands have their shop: Abercrombie & Fitch, Apple, Nike, Louis Vitton, Chanel, Rolex...



But besides passing by all the outlet stores, I also stopped by St. Patricks Cathedral right across the Rockefeller Center to say hallo to God and light a candle for all the people I love. As I walked further down with avenue I also stopped by the A&F store where I was almost became deaf due to the extremely loud music they were playing there. My last stop on fifth avenue was the big glass cube in which the logo was displayed of one of my favorite brands: the famous Apple store. I didn't spent that much time there as some of you might have expected, I was only there for 15minutes. As I had a wireless connection and Skype installed on my iPhone, I decided to Skype my family and make them a bit jealous. I even got a hold on my grandparents to Skype them.

 

After visiting all those cool places, I decided to have something to eat. A restaurant characterized by the golden Arches: McDonalds. Not just any place in the city, but on Times Square. As the place was crowded with tourists and locals and I couldn't find a place to eat, I consumed my meal on the red stairs in the middle of time square. I have visited Times Square two times now and it is still a place that keeps amazing me. At that time of the day I already took so many pictures, that my phone battery was almost dead. So I decided to save my battery for the afternoon and charge him somewhere in an Apple store in order to take some pictures on Times Square at night, which is way more amazing as during the day. 

In the afternoon I took the subway to the 9/11 Memorial, all the way downtown Manhattan. The place is still one big construction site as they are working on a new World Trade Center. However the place where the two towers stood before 9/11 is now a big memorial site with two big memorial pools representing the towers. Surrounding those memorial pools are names of the nearly 3.000 casualties of 9/11 and 26/02/1993 inscribed in bronze on parapets. On the memorial site they are also working on a big museum on the horrific happenings that took place that specific day. After spending some time at the memorial site, I also visited a temporary visitor center where all the names are displayed and where people narrated their testimonies of that day. Also a five-minute long movie was shown on how the WTC was before the attacks, how happy people were working there. Anyhow this visit made me stand still on the happenings of that day. You have all presumably seen the footage on TV that day and you all felt an immense feeling of grief and compassion. But the moment you enter the site where it all happened and read and hear the testimonies of people, it really has an impact on you. No words can actually describe how I felt after this visit. To have an impression of the site I took some pictures, which I depicted here below. 

                   
After having spent quite some time at the memorial I had some difficulties orienting myself, as downtown Manhattan has a whole different organization of streets: no grid plan with streets and avenues rather different street with different names; no logic at all. Anyhow, I walked around in the neighborhood, visited Wall street, saw trinity church (famous from the 'National Treasure' movie). But as my phone battery was dead I sadly couldn't take any pictures here. But as I'm only one hour away from the city, many more pictures will follow.

Afterwards I went to the Apple store on Grand Central to charge my phone as well as to do something about the scratches on my camera lens. For only 20$ they have changed my back cover, so I was good to go and I could take great pictures again, from which the results will be shown today further in this blog.

When walking from Grand Central Station to Times Square I passed the public library, one of the biggest library in the world. I just got in before closing time and took some some cool pictures of way better quality as the ones earlier that day.

    

Afterwards I ate some dinner at BXL Café, a Belgian restaurant on a 2 minute walk from Times Square. I drank a good Stella Artois and had some typical Belgian food, Duuhh: I ate some 'stoofvlees met frietjes' or as the menu says: Sirloin Tips Stewed in Brown ale served with fries'. Anyhow it was delicious.

Before heading back to Cold Spring by train, I took another walk on Times Square but this time by night which was way more amazing as by day. I took the train back around 8pm and I was in Cold Spring by 9u05pm. So an amazing day has come to an end. I'll definitely return and see what other things the city has to offer me besides the places crowded with tourist. 

I'll end my blog with showing you some pictures of Times Square as well as some pictures of Grand Central. 

Thank you for reading my blog and I hope to welcome you next time with new and fun stories of my life here in Cold Spring!