So on Thursday I took the Hampton Jitney, a bus which connects Manhattan with the Hamptons, from Quogue back into the city, then went to my two favorite stores (Ann Taylor Loft for clothes and Barnes & Noble for books), stopped by at Veronika’s as Maximillian was sick, and then went to the movies in the evening (Harry Potter – liked it).
On Friday I ran some errands and went to the East Village to check out “East Side Ink”, a tattoo parlor where Rihanna (the R&B/pop singer from Barbados) got one of here tattoos recently. In the evening I babysat for Veronika and Christian – part of my birthday present for her.
On Saturday I met with Stephanie, a former student of mine, at Pinkberry’s, and then met up with Michelle, my friend from Chicago, whom I have known since my first year in the city when I was living at the Webster. Hanging out with Michelle is always funny, she’s hilarious! We ended up rowing a boat for 2 1/2 hours at the lake in Central Park - something we both had wanted to do for a long time, but never did. So we were rowing in Central Park, talking and cracking up. Whenever I meet Michelle I have a stomach ache afterwards because we always laugh a lot. I don’t know what it is, but that’s the way it is with Michelle 
We also have this idea (from our days back at the Webster) that one day – when I’ll be living in Vienna and she’ll be living in Chicago or New York – we’d do a “kid swap” over the summer. When we met we thought it would be fun, partly also because I’m white and she’s black, or in politically correct terms: Caucasian (I still remember how puzzled I was when I found out that I’m Caucasian racewise – I never knew until I moved to the U.S.) and African-American. So we think it would be a great experience for the kids. Well, now that I’m writing this it doesn’t sound particularly funny, but believe me, for some reason, when I talk about this with Michelle, it IS funny…
In the evening I had dinner with my dear colleague from my former school, Alla, her husband and her daughter. They had made a reservation at “Counter”, a vegetarian restaurant in the East Village. Alla and her husband are originally from Russia, and she knows a lot of math. She is one of the best math teachers I have met during my 6 years in New York! And she is such a nice person! I’ll miss her and working with her when I go back to Austria… So we had a really nice evening together, first talking about school and then leaving school behind and talking about our travels and all sorts of things Alla also mentioned that she had checked my blog and I hadn’t written anything since 7/7…
On Sunday, today, I got myself a nice birthday present in the East Village in the afternoon, and then went home (staying at Jan’s place in the city this week) to update my blog. – So now my blog is updated and it’s late, almost midnight. I’ll be going to bed soon. – I have two more days in the city before my trip ends. It doesn’t feel like it. It doesn’t feel like it is going to end soon. I’m very much living in the present these days…
However, I’m not totally planless 
I’ll be arriving in Zurich this Wednesday morning (the last leg of my RTW-Ticket) and be in Vorarlberg from 7/29-8/7, then in Graz for the weekend (8/7-9), and then in Vienna from Aug.10 onwards – looking for an apartment there…
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