Today I went to get a haircut and also the first shave of my life. It’s a good experience and it will definitely be a treat I’m giving myself in the future again!

And funnily enough I went into a place in Astoria, Queens (Val’s barbershop) where Tony Bennett was getting his haircuts for a while.

Which makes me realize again that one of the things that the US is really good at is creating things that are larger than life.

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This is such a blatant proof of how the American economic system tricks everybody into constantly thinking they’re not doing enough or aren’t good enough themselves because they’re told that other people out there are “going the extra mile”. Personally I think it’s bullshit and plain not true. There’s only so much you can do.

I just saw a guy who had his flip phone stuck between his ears and held up by an ear warmer. That’s one way of having a headset…

The difference between Europe and the US? Here it is in 2 pictures:

It’s really quite amazing, I’m sitting in the Highline Park and I can read the news, in the sun, write blogposts, publish pictures etc…

I know it’s everyday life for a lot of people, myself included, but every now and then I have to take step a step back and remember how incredible that actually is.

It’s been 10 years since I was last in New York and I personally feel that the city has changed significantly since then.

It feels much calmer, people seem extremely friendly (I’ve gotten more excuse-mes, certainly more than I would be getting in Berlin!) and the subways are clean.

What I find strange though is, that since every one knows the NYC aesthetic from posters and films it feels a little bit like a museum. I know that sounds strange but it really feels like that to me.

I have two friends with studios here and both their locations are crazy cool. One is across he street from the flatiron building (I’m looking at it while I type this through a big glass front!!) and the other is on the top floor (21st to be exact) on union square. That’s where I took some pictures.

The following are the notes I took while walking along… Unfortunately communication isn’t where I wanted it to be so I have Internet on the iPad at edge speed 😐 and no Internet on the iPhone so the tweeting of pictures while I go isn’t possible. Bummer.
Prepaid phone service from AT&T, was easy enough to set up, this would have Bernd such a pain only a couple of years ago.

Prepaid data service was only available from t-mobile since AT&T refused a foreign credit card for data plans. Whatever. The t-mobile daily data plan of course had two drawbacks: speed is limited to Edge (jeeez) and I can’t stick the SIM into my iPhone because the iPhone is locked from t-mobile Germany. To sum it up: we came _long_ way but there’s a universe of room for improvement. Start at the ridiculously high roaming fees.

First train I have to take is rerouted because the station is under construction for the direction that I needed. So I got to see the view from the beautiful overground Astoria station. Sometimes a detour works wonders.

When I take a picture somewhere I _always_ get the stink-eye from people around me. Do I look like a spook??

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