Indian Summer

The true experience of an Indian Summer day I had today... what a day. But let me start at the beginning. I left Amsterdam yesterday on time. Lines at Schiphol are unbelievable these days. 45 mins. at check-in and another 25 through customs. Relatively fast I suppose, seen the amount of people traveling. Had a pretty good flight to Iceland. Tried to sleep, had a bit of a hang over, due to Vincent's birthday party, but could not get to sleep. In Iceland I had a 1.5 hr. lay-over. I thought I would had to get through some serious customs check, but none of that. NONE... not one customs officer in sight. Weird, because I did not have to go through customs in Amsterdam either. I suppose they think Iceland is too far north for any terrorist to be planning anything from. And the airport there was almost empty anyway. Had a 5.30 hrs. flight, which went well and arrived at JFK on time (7.00 p.m.). Here there was a customs line... a long, long line. Lennert was waiting for me at the gate and we grabbed a cab uptown (I made the mistake telling the cabby we had to go downtown. What do I know, right?). Apartment is great. Just between Central Park West (that's the street) and Colombus ave. We were supposed to go out, but I was seriously knackered, so after a light meal of omelette and rice I went to bed. Boy was I glad I brought ear plugs... this is New York you know... the neighboors like hanging out on the steps, drink a lot of beer and talk really loud. This all, when they try to over-scream their Jamaican hip-hop style music. Fortunately for me, it got too cold around mid night so they had to go inside. After a good nigth sleep (I woke at 11.45 a.m, so we missed the planned church service in Harlem to get the Gospel experience), we went outside into a beautiful day. Clear skies, 17 degrees C, sunshine. We walked to Broadway Ave. where we enjoyed real Sunday brunch in a small (french) pancake house. Walked down Broadway, stumbled apon a street fair, did some shopping, checked out a few stores and headed back to the apartment. Meanwhile it was 4 p.m. and we needed activity. Lennert went cycling in the park, I went running. Together with about a million other people.... not a million, but a lot. The Park is closed for all traffic on weekends, so there's nothing but cyclists, runners and roller blades. 45 mins. of uphill/downhill running was great. The park is beautiful. Got back, took shower, crashed in front of TV, and thanked God for 24 hrs. of movie channels. Around 8 p.m. we headed out to get some dinner and meet up with two of Lennert's friends (one colleague, one ex-colleague). They had gone to a gallery of a Dutch artist who trailed along. So it was Toon, from Amsterdam, Corinna (Germany), Nina (Austria) and Lennert and I. Went to this great Italian place with gorgeous food and wine. It was one of those perfect evenings among friends. Just sit, talk, laugh, joke, drink and eat. Around 11 we went to take a look at Toon’s studio/gallery, which is opening soon and found this amazing space in the middle of the city where he and his co-painter Peter paint and will expose. Nina, Lennert and I shared a cab uptown and around midnight I was tired and went to bed. It was too cold for the Jamaicans to sit on the steps, so a quiet night ahead of me...