dinsdag, oktober 31, 2006

New York

Well hi everybody, as promised here are some tales about New York. But I guess, the pictures also speak for themselves. By the way, if you click ON a picture, it gets bigger, maybe you´ll spot some interesting details. The rose you see at the left is at ground zero. Was very impressive actually. My thinking was Off all the cities in the world, New York must be the most tolerant one. And see what happened there. Furthermore, you see the brooklyn Bridge.. hiphop, jazz, music.. Also a painting I saw at the MoMa museum, the Museum of Modern Arts.. Macke (Hope), Monet, Picasso, Kirchner, Mondriaan, Warhol.. its all there, incredible to see that finally!! I went to Chinatown, where there was a streetfair (the photo with the balloons) and I had several chats and noodles. There{s the neighbourhood-discussionpic about Beirut and Israel, very interesting to read what they say. Theres Carnegie Hall where I went in for free... to see a piano recital of a famous american composer (??) Leon Fleisher. And of course my mom and Josien came for a couple of days to join me and! We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, thanks to Baukejan en Gerlinde. I had a tour in the United Nations building as well, very impressive (The Freedom of Expression-pic). Furthermore I met friends of Nynke´s. Monika and Emon, they took me out for dinner with other friends, we went out as well to a real non-smoking Manhattan-cafe so I got a little impression of New York´s nightlife. Then there was Brooklyn, Soho, Levi´s trousers for 35 dollars and other important things :)





As a whole I think New York is so friendly. At first a got a little scared because the moment I put my foot out of the hostel for the first time, a women came over, asking : are you from Holland? You look SO European!!´. But then I noticed people really laugh to eachother and step aside for eachother on the sidewalk. IN the restaurant there´s free water and bread. Waitresses that are willing to serve you. SO not Amsterdam :) Then there´s the intercultural thing happening everywhere and it doesn´t seem to be a problem or a reason for anxiety. Can´t forget the little food-bar with american music, kosher meat and halal sausages. The black busdrivers that help old posh ladies into their bus and giving all the information about the traffic you want. Funny. Ofcourse I´ve only been there for a short time but still, the atmosphere seemed friendly and tolerant.

So far my New York Tales letting out a lot of stories ofcourse but I guess if I write more it really gets too weary. It's late and my Spanish class is already at eight tomorrow morning. So good night!














































zondag, oktober 29, 2006

¡Hola Guatemala!

Antigua/Guatemala - Hiii everybody, just a quick word to let you know everything is okay up here! I´ve been in New York for a week and that was awesome.. Right now I´m in Antigua, a nice small kolonial town in Guatemala. I wondered if everything would work out, but it did, more than I expected. I was picked up at the airport in Guatemala City by the driver of the Spanish School I´m in (he had a paper in his hand with ´JANTINE VANT´ in huge green capitals, couldn´t miss that :))

I stay in a studenthouse with eight others from us, canada, holland, sweden and even liechtenstein. Aged all between 23 and 30... I was a bit afraid I would be an old woman here but that´s no problem. I helped Ana, the housekeeper, with dinner (Tina-dinner) and we ate
with the whole group. Ana is 21 and has got 11 brothers and sisters. It turned out that yesterday everybody went out. It was ladiesnight - cuba libres for 20 cts.... (reminds me of Zwolle..) Luckily I heard this is not a daily habit, cause I´m here for other purposes right?! My room... ah well you can see it on the pictures, I think about organizing salsaclasses or futbol in there...

This place Antigua is sooo sweet, it looks like a fairytale, the little streets, the cobbledstones, the coloured houses, nature around it. But ofcourse it´s not. Most of the people are really poor. That´s something you have to
realize when you´re in this kind of ´comfortable school-studenthouse environment´.

Right now I´m going out to find a lunch somewhere. By the way, my Spanish is quite allright, I didn´t know it was still there!

Groetjuuus Jantine