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High Line (Or: Overlooking New York City)

Marco and I went to the High Line yesterday in New York City (which currently runs from 30th street to Gansevoort street on the west side. Yes, Gansevoort. Dutch influence everywhere!)

I am pleased to say that it was a lot of fun and better than we expected. It wasn’t that crowded, although it kind of was at times. But most places weren’t too bad. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is visiting New York City, especially during the warmer period. I am not sure how good it looks during the winter, as so much of it is plant based.

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NYC (Or: The High Line)

On today’s agenda Marco and I have the High Line. It’s this mythical area of New York City where we have never been, despite Roger, Marco and I attempting to go in April. For whatever reason we never made it there.

The High Line is an old elevated railroad track that has since been converted into park space, bringing a new perspective to New York City. Currently it is about 1 mile long, although there are plans to extend it further in the next few years. In fact, they broke ground on Thursday for the final section, which is slated to open in 2014 at the cost of $90 million.

image from Wikipedia

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Heineken (Or: New York City advertisements)

While Marco and I were in New York City we came across this advertisement for Heineken and the US Open.

“Once again, the Dutch is the favorite at the US Open.”

Grammatical issues aside, I hope they are talking about being the favorite beer, and not the favorite team!

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Fun (Or: Palisades Center, New York)

Today Marco and I went back to the Palisades Center, a four story mall in West Nyack, complete with an ice skating rink, movie theater, IMAX theater, bowling alley, and more.

We decided to get a later start in the day, taking the 1:34 bus. (Poor Roger usually has to deal with me wanting to take the 11:34 bus. Sorry Roger!) We went to a lot of places, including the candy store. Alas, they do not sell the icee spray candy anymore. We also went to the jewelry store to pick up my engagement ring, which had a minor repair done to it. Thankfully it was ready – last week it wasn’t.

Other stores we went to included Hot Topic, Yellow Rat Bastard (a ‘trendy’ clothing store mostly), and Dick Sporting Goods (a new branch just opened in the mall). For lunch we went to TGIFridays, where I had the California Club. Yum!

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Changes (Or: Seeing your job on employment sites)

When I went into work today, the library director offhandedly mentioned that he saw an advertisement for my job posted on chronicle.com, posted by our Human Resources department. It’s sort of a strange feeling, though it went past “this is really it” stage when Marco and I submitted the application to the Dutch Immigration Services at the beginning of this month.

I can only hope the person they get is even better than I was. The biggest things are working with the students and having familiarity with technology and being willing to learn what technology they do not know already. There were some things that I did not do well at. For example, I taught many one-shot sessions regarding how to use library resources. But you can’t really call that official information literacy since I did not have a dedicated plan for it but rather made it up on the fly sometimes.

As my time draws to a close at this position, I have tried to leave more detailed notes for the classes that I do teach, rather than just using the shorthand that I would normally use when I thought I would be the only person viewing the document.

It’s going to be an interesting last 10 weeks or so. But now I must depart, as dinner is ready! Marco promised to cook and he just put steak sandwiches and mashed potatoes down in front of me. What a nice surprise.

Tot ziens!

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Chessboards (Or: New York Ren Faire 2012)

Two weekends ago a friend (Amy) and I went to the New York Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo, NY.

First up, we have the “Cast in Bronze” show, with the bells which were made in Asten (in the Netherlands).

The message I wrote on the large chalkboard near the entrance.

Then we came across a booth selling dolls and assorted accessories.

A random group of performers in the street.

One new thing we did this year was catch a “chess” match. This one was the Sheriff’s chess match, and included characters from Norse and Greek mythology, I believe. While it started like a typical chess match (you can see the white squares and green grass squares where they could stand), it quickly dissolved into duels. The gentleman above represented Hercules.

Finally, near the end we had The Dead Bob show. More funny than I expected it to be, and full of adult jokes. I would recommend it if you get the chance to go see it.

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Colors (Or: Blue and green)

Since we’ll be visiting the city today, I decided to look through my random New York photos and see if anything jumped out at me. These two photos were taken back to back in October 2008 – one in New York City at night and one in New Brunswick, New Jersey – back when I was going to Rutgers for my Masters.

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Weekend plans (Or: Time with Marco)

Here are Marco and I’s plans for this weekend. Nothing too major.

Today – Visit the Palisades Center, a four floor mall. I need to pick up my engagement ring (it needed a minor repair), and I might also possibly get my hair cut. Then at some point I need to treat Marco to an Icee. They are frozen slushy drinks that are typically sold at movie theaters.

There, now that I have Marco’s attention…

Saturday – We’re going to have lunch at Bailey’s Smokehouse (a barbecue joint). I’ve been there once with a friend and wanted to show it off to Marco as well. After that, we are going to head over to my workplace. I want to show him the remodeled Learning Commons, which he has never seen – pre-flood or post-flood. They are also going to have a community festival, so we’re looking forward to the promised fireworks.

Sunday – Off to New York City. The only thing we have planned is visiting Forbidden Planet, a comic book store which moved to a bigger and better place (or at least we heard it’s supposed to be bigger).

Two random places we want to visit for food: Steak’n’Shake and Five Guys Burgers and Fries. The former is totally due to nostalgia – I grew up with Steak’n’Shake as it’s a Midwest restaurant and I am sorely hoping it will remind me of the good old days. The latter we have never been too. All I know about Five Guys is they give you a ton of fries, so order less than you think you need.

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Cuteness (Or: Furry visitors peeking back)

My mother sent me a photo of three of the newest visitors to grace my parents’ backyard.

The kittens have since moved on, probably to the protected wildgrass behind my parents’ house.

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Chicago (Or: Water tower place)

Continuing the December theme of my last post, one of the places that Roger, Marco and I visited this previous December was Water Tower Place in Chicago. It is an upscale shopping area with eight floors (although each floor is pretty small).

We fell in love with the entrance to the mall:

The three “glass” objects you see on each level are actually formed by cascading water. You can see the pool of water above each of the levels.

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