Friday, March 26th, 1999
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February 23rd, yours truly took a plane to Milan, with a continuation flight to New York.
This has ended about a month stay (we could call in vacation) in Rosh Pinna. Let’s
continue with a first person writing style, okay?
I bought the ticket to New York in the traveling agency in Rosh Pinna, which must be the only place in the world where you could find the following clocks arrangement. Oh, you don’t see anything special here? Click on the image to enlarge it. I can assure you, this is a genuine picture. Like all other pictures in this page, it was taken with my one-time pink Barbie camera (not shown in this article).
And one last story from Rosh Pinna. When I went to the ATM machine to get some money, I saw a negative number in my account balance. Since I didn't think it should be like that, I went into the bank to get a list of the last transactions I've made. While in the bank I saw that I'm alone. No one but me inside. As it turns out, this was at around 3PM, and the bank was closed at 1PM. It would open again at 4PM so why locking it for such a short period?
Landing at Milan, I put my 55 Kilograms luggage in the airport for safekeeping and went by train to Parma, best known as the place where they grow violin and stage builders. Maya and Tal tried to make me feel as Italian as possible, so they’ve arranged for a 50CC scooter that would be my transportation solution. This deal did not include a helmet, of course. Most of the time, I preferred using Tal’s bicycles, since it's a bit more acceptable to go the wrong way on a one way street with bicycles.
What can I tell you, when you're riding on the bicycles in the old parts of Parma you really feel like you're in a Roberto Benigni film. But you must have the bicycles. The above picture was taken in one of the plazzas in Parma. I stopped there for about an hour to read a book. My Barbie camera makes it hard to spot, but if you look at the main entrance to the building, you'll see some pixels that are actually the bicycles.
In Addition to riding the bicycles, I got to see Tal's school and meet his Maestro. In this picture he examines Tal's new violin (He was shouting for 5 minutes). In the back you can see the violins that didn't behave good at class, so they were forced to hang there with their faces to the corner.
We also had the privilage of sitting in a coffee shop drinking Italian coffee and talking like we're used to - in Hebrew. Then Maya said the people in the next table are arguing among themselves - which language are we talking. We talked a bit more until Maya said there's a verdict. We're speaking Arabic.
On the 25th, I took a train back to Milan. In Malpensa airport I exchanged all the Italian money I had (4,700 liretas) for a pack of Macaroni. I took the 2PM flight to New-York.
Now here's a little quiz for all of you to do. Don't cheat. Do it by yourself, and scroll down to see the results. Below are two pictures of cars. One was taken in Milan, and one was taken in New York. Can you tell which was taken where?
In these images I tried to capture the difference between the countries. I hope I did well. BTW, if the second car looks like it's been squeezed horizontally that's only because it probably was. Once again, there are no "camera tricks" in this distinguish publication.
Eran Amitai (my friend/contact in NY) has made arrangements for me to stay in the YMCA hotel. I came to the hotel and went to my room. It was a nice room. I went straight to sleep, not realizing I didn't close the door properly (Or I think so, at least). Someone came inside and took everything, except for some clothes, and my Barbie Camera. Now you know why wearing old (or is it ugly?) clothes is a good thing. I didn't have any money, I didn't have a credit card, I didn't have my passport and worst of all, Eran was on a weekend trip, so I didn't have anyone to call (well, I didn't have quarters either).
I did have the keys to the room. I went down to the hotel's front desk and told them the whole story. They were not impressed. They said the room was prepaid only for the first night, and if I don't have the money I'd have to leave until noon. I didn't have the money. I left at 11:30AM. What would you do in a situation like that? I figured I'll manage to survive 2 days, and then Eran will be back.
I spend the rest of that day (Friday) looking for the company I was supposed to work in. I know the boss there would recognize me and help me somehow. I remembered it was on the 22nd street, but that was all I had. So I walked along that street trying to find some clue. The picture was actually taken quite close to the YMCA, which is on 47th street, between 2nd and 3rd avenues. After about 4 hours a policeman stopped me and asked me what I'm doing (I was knocking on doors and buzzing buzzers for the last few hours!). I explained everything to him, so he wanted to see an ID... At the end I managed to convince him to let me go, but I promissed to stop knocking on doors. It was getting late so I went to Central Park...
Okay. Where did I loose you? How much did you believe? Let's get back to the YMCA. The Hotel was nice. I stayed there for 12 days (until I moved to my new appartment) and nothing spectacular happened, except for the Gravitron2000: An instrument I always wanted to invent. It let's you do pushups, but you select which percent of your body you want to lift. Excellent. The YMCA is known to have a very good fitness center, that's open to whoever stays there.
There were problems. The toughest thing was getting a social secturity number. Here no one will talk to you if you don't have one, and I admit I had a lot of trouble getting mine. But I plan to dedicate the next issue for that subject. I can only tell you that when you don't have a perfect accent, and you approach beurocrats (people at the Social Security Agencey, Immigration, the Bank, and more) they will definately:
- Think you're mentally retarded, and will talk to you as if you never attended kindergarden.
- Will never let you finish a sentence. They already know what you need to do, don't waste their time.
- Will never be nicer than a well trained robot. Polite, but nothing that requires personalization. You are always like everyone else. There are no exceptions.
On my fifth day here, I got sick. My tonsils started to grow in an accelerated rate. I wasn't able to sleep! This has deprived me of the most joyful thing I've been doing in New York - seeing Eran's kids. Of course, there's the problem of being with Eran, but it's a very positive experience when all things are counted. For a good reason, Dalit wouldn't let me see them while I'm sick.
Well, If you want an appartment you need a lot of money, and a social security number. Using this number the landlord can check if you have a good credit history, which means you were never late on your payments. You don't have a SSN? Okay, find someone that has, and earns a lot of money and he must be your guarantor. Remember how in Israel we were told that our salary is a secret. Well, do you want an appartment? You'll have to bring a signed letter from work saying exactly how much you earn. It should be a lot if you want to live in Manhattan.
Let's skip the boring search. I've found an appartment. You have all the details below. It's a small studio appartment. 330 square feet. 330 sounds a lot, but it's in feet, which means it's 30 square meters. I will do my best to fill the appartment with many unneeded things. You know I always do.
If you come to visit, take a picture of how it looked when I came in. I hope you'll see the difference.
Home Address: 255W 14th street, Apt. 4D, New York NY, 10011* Home Phone: (212)414-8492 Work Phone: (212)675-2500 x.221 e-mail: barako@wsg.com or undisclosed
* Notice the binary zip code I managed to select for myself
