Here’s about 200 or so photos to go with the recent writings about New York City. It’s by far the most photos I took in the entire trip, and while I’m not quite sure why it’s actually not that surprising considering everything NYC has to offer. From stickers to skyscrapers, soul food to bike trails, subway windows to skylines, enjoy. Next up words and photos about being back in Europe and my current, though temporary residency in Italy. Oh and more on food and biking around the world too.

New York Flickr set

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written by Laurent \\ tags: America, Brooklyn, buildings, Manhattan, New York, people, photos, pictures, stickers, streets, summer, travelling

It’s been nearly 2 months since I finished travelling, so it’s about time that I got round to finish writing about it. So much for my thinking I’d be writing on the road. Well I did, but then life got in the way like it has a bad habit of doing.

New York City was the last stop on my journey before returning to Europe and hitting the grim reality of London town. In a way New York was the perfect continuation to the fun, excitement and surprises I had in Montreal. And alongside the Canadian city, New York was also the one place in North America that really grabbed me as a city, visually and culturally - though as opposed to Montreal I was expecting that before getting there and it delivered on many levels above and beyond my expectations. This is all hardly surprising though, considering it’s New York and well, it’s New York. A city that still held incredible appeal even though I already ‘knew’ it from watching countless movies and TV series and listening to an unhealthy (if there is such a thing) amount of music.

At the same time, as much as I was looking forward to New York and I enjoyed it, I have to admit Montreal still remains as the highlight of the North American leg of my trip. I loved New York, and would go back in a heartbeat but for entirely different reasons, and I don’t think I could live there whereas Montreal is definitely a much more appealing city all things considered and one I could see myself move to for an undefined period of time.

Anyways, I left Montreal for New York with Lewis and Ben way too early on a Saturday morning in August - especially considering Lewis and I had basically had no sleep and we were just about to embark on an 11h train journey (cheap travel for the win baby). The train journey proved a bit of a challenge, not so much for the lack of sleep than for the insane bullshit at the border crossing, where we were delayed by a good few hours while border control played a game of catch the potential terrorist or whatever the hell it was. Lewis got ‘interviewed’ because his British passport stated he was born in Dublin, which made me laugh quite a lot considering my Italian passport states I am born in France but I guess those countries don’t quite register on the radar of ‘dangerous’ for U.S. border control. Must be the whole freedom hating thing. It’s got to be said that border control was by far the worse, with overly serious officers looking for any excuse to break balls and delay things. All was pretty soon forgotten with copious amounts of alcohol (mainly for Lewis as Ben was dozed up on sleeping pills and I was just lacking sleep) and a game of ‘pass the controller to fly the portable helicopter inside a carriage train.’

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written by Laurent \\ tags: America, architecture, art, Brooklyn, culture, food, gentrification, hip hop, Manhattan, neighbourhoods, New York, summer, travelling, writing

Words aren’t everything, so as usual there’s a bunch of pictures to accompany the recent thoughts on SF and Seattle. There should have been more, especially food related shots, but I have a bad habit of losing my camera when out, so I ended up leaving it in when it would have provided some of the better shots. Ah well.

For now enjoy the scenic shots and snaps of American life. Up next is Canada and then mighty New York.

San Francisco Flickr Set

Seattle Flickr Set

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written by Laurent \\ tags: America, buildings, California, food, people, pictures, San Francisco, scenic, Seattle, streets, travelling, Washington State

I left the cold of summer in San Francisco for Seattle, further up the coast and my last stop in the U.S before heading into Canada and crossing the continent. I was only stopping in town for a couple of days, but regardless I was looking forward to some relaxing and taking in the sights and sounds of the city.

Seattle is a strange one. I know that I’ve wanted to visit for a long time, but when I try and think of why I always end up feeling a little unsure. Fact is the most likely reason is probably T.V and movies, which is hardly surprising considering the realisation I came to shortly after arriving in America about how conditioned my image of the country and expectations were.

I was also a massive Seattle Supersonics fan growing up, back when I still enjoyed playing sports and before I discovered smoking! Between that and an infatuation with certain movies and T.V series, I realised when I planned this trip that I really wanted to visit Seattle, even if I couldn’t quite put my finger exactly on why. Tipping me over, I knew someone here who offered to put me up and show me around, which is always a bonus. Massive shout out to Alex for the hospitality and all round generosity, Seattle would just not have been the same without you bro!

There was one thing I noticed as soon as I landed in America and which I forgot to mention in my last post about San Fran: Spanish. Shortly after landing in San Fran I started hearing people speaking Spanish, and taking the BART into town I saw that all the signs were written in English and Spanish. I know Spanish is the second language in America, and that the Hispanic population the biggest, and I guess in a way most important, ‘minority’ but I didn’t realise to what extent this went until I got there.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: America, big, cycling, green, nature, Seattle, travelling, Washington State, writing

I left Hong Kong for San Francisco on the 16th of July, exactly a month after leaving Japan and marking my return to the ‘West’ 19 months after I departed England. I was apprehensive about spending time in the US for a few reasons: I’d been away for quite a while and in that time I’d got used to the Japanese, and Asian, way of doing things, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the US for most of my adult life, and deep down I just wasn’t quite sure what to expect. On the other hand I was also overly excited: I’d always dreamt of visiting San Francisco, I was also going to visit Seattle, New York and Canada and I was looking forward to having a month taking it easy in North America, giving me time to get used to western life again rather than jumping back into it straight after having left Japan.

With all this mind, and more than enough apprehension about having to deal with US custom officials, I spent 17 hours in planes and airports without being able to sleep, crossed the international date line forward, lost 12h in the process, passed the customs with little hassle and landed in San Francisco feeling like I’d done a very nasty combination of drugs. Seriously, screw drugs. All you need is to cross the international date line with no sleep: et voila, instant feeling mashed-up situation.

I somehow managed to make it to my hostel in downtown San Francisco. My body was 17 hours ahead of the clock on the wall, so I decided to fight off the jetlag by abusing the free coffee and chain smoking. And that’s when it all went a little weird. I was standing outside the hostel, smoking a cig, when I noticed a man on the corner of the street a few meters away looking a little agitated. Then out of nowhere, three people rushed him against a wall, pulling out their badges in the process. They then handcuffed him, searched him (yeilding what looked like a bag of non-descript drugs) and hauled him into an unmarked car before driving off. By the time my mangled brain had put two and two together they were gone and I was left wondering where the hell I’d booked myself into.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: America, California, contrast, cycling, Fisherman's Wharf, Haight, Marin County, media, Mission, Richmond, rough, San Francisco, Sausalito, summer, travelling, windy