Saturday, October 20, 2012

New York, I kinda like You

Back in November 2010, I went to LA and did a side seeing of all the places known from movie and TV. Last September, I went to New York and Washington DC to continue my side seeing. New York is of course known from the movie "Sleepless in Seattle". I was not traveling alone. My brother came, too. Two brothers on the road of course known from the movie "Rain Man".  It was his first visits to the US and so I had to introduce him to the American cousin. And for that there is plenty of opportunities in NYC - there are about one million hot dogs stands, so there are one million hot dog sells men and women in New York. One million sells personnel to feed the 2 million police officers.
That's the closest I got

We saw the statue of liberty (known from the movie "Ghostbusters 2"), we went to the central park (known as the "romantic road" in the movie "Die Hard with a Vengeance"), time square (known from the movie "Vanilla Sky"), and over the Brooklyn Bridge (known from an insurance commercial - also known from an insurance commercial: Mount Rushmore). We went to museums and didn't paid the recommended price (known from the TV show "The Simpsons").
Brooklyn Bridge
We went on a day trip to Washington DC, because it was close by. It's funny, when you visit a city as a tourist everything is close by but as a local it's not. For local people most sides are too far away to go to. And sides that aren't far away, are not going to vanish. So why go and see them now? That's why I haven't seen one side in Hamburg/Germany.
In DC, we saw the white house, the capitol, and the Lincoln memorial with the reflecting pool. The Lincoln memorial and the reflecting pool of course known from the movie "Forrest Gump".
The reflection of the Washington memorial is pointing where Forrest and Jenny hugged
But it was not all nice and beautiful in New York. We had also rough moments. For example, when we end up in Harlem and the Bronx. It was tough man.  Sad thing about what I just said is a lot of young folks don't get the reference thanks to Giuliani's politics of "New York needs to become a secure, boring place". Thank you, Giuliani. The even sadder thing is I went to Harlem and Bronx to tell people how rough it was. 

Monday, October 15, 2012

O Brother, Where Art Thou From?

This post proves my blog is still alive. It is also a proof of my existential dilemma. When people ask me where I am from, I do not know what to answer. Am I an Arab, German or Iranian? I do not know and I have the hardest time to give a brief answer. One thing is clear: I once wrote "we Americans" and the general response was: "You are not American". The funny thing is, other people don't have such a hard time to classify what I am: Indian. German people think I am Indian, Iranian people think I am Indian and today one Indian guy in the grocery store thought I am Indian.
If I was an Indian my name would be for sure Suresh like Dr. Suresh from the TV show "Heroes". I will surrender to the majority verdict and give from now on the short answer: I am from India. All I need now is an Indian accent.