back in the NYC

I've been back in NYC for a little over 2 weeks now, and it is GREAT to be back. I didn't quite realize I lived in the greatest city on earth until I visited a LOT of other nasty cities. I feel like I kind of know something about the world now and can confidently say that NYC is really the best.

I've been to:

China - Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong
Philippines
Thailand - Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Ko Samui
Australia - Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Kangaroo Island, Fraser Island
Spain - Madrid Barcelona
France - briefly Paris
Israel - Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Eilat
Germany - Berlin, Munich
Prague
Vienna, Austria
Montreal, Toronto
Puerto Rico
Budapest
US - Chicago, San Fran, East coast, LA


That's a substantial list... Europe is OK, Asia is horrendous, and the US just always wins out.

Anyway, some news:
1) Zak moved out, Paula moved out. I switched to Zak's big room where Maddy will be joining me in about 6 weeks (she's still in China). My little sister moved into my old room. Steve (the subletter) moved into Paula's room. Both of them wil move out the end of the summer and Maddy and I will get to hike up rent a LOT and find 2 new craigslist roommates who will make our rent the cheapest it will ever be.

2) Upon returning from China, i felt 2 things. 1) everyone i saw (IE, non-chinese people, all over the place) all looked familiar, like an old high school aquaintance. very odd. 2) I felt like a movie star, living the most luxurious life, as we went to a nice dinner and a regular downtown bar -- these are things you simply cannot get in China and returning to them made me realize how lucky we are to be living like this. Several dozen episodes of Entourage which i had watched on the flight back helped solidify that concept - i literally felt like those guys, even though going to a regular dinner and having drinks at a nice bar is fairly typical here, it truly felt like I was living like a millionaire.

3) The flight left HK at 12:45pm. (Before then, i woke up at 6am, got to the ferry with maddy and made it with only about an hour til the flight left). 13.5 hrs later, we got to chicago. The flight to NYC was delayed by 1.5 hrs bc of lighting, but it was ok because i was on american soil and thanking god i wasn't in china any more (as if i had just been freed from a POW camp ala rambo or john mccain). It helped to be sharing the flight with 2 movie stars: Maggie Gyllenhaal and her husband Peter Sarsgaard, who was wearing one of those baby backpacks that go in the front... that was pretty funny. I finally got back ot the apartment at 10pm with zak helping me and the big luggage I had bought had literally torn apart at the seams by the time I got up the steps. The entire thing was breaking apart before my eyes from the beginning when the rolling handle broke off of the main luggage just steps BEFORE we even got to the ferry. Chinese shit really sucks. I went to sleep at 3am after doing a lot of unpacking and cleaning, thinking I would sleep 15 hours since I had been up over 30 hours at this point. Instead, i woke up WIDE AWAKE at 7:30am, barely 4 hours of sleep. Made it thru the whole day cheerfully and passed out at 10pm. I got up at 6:30am, and there my new improved sleep schedule began. I've still been sleeping fairly early and waking up way earlier than normal.

4) I started running again, thank god. Jogging at 7am before it gets hot is really good, and exercise helps relieve the jet lag, which i basically avoided entirely. I'm up to 6 miles again, so that's good.

5) Benny's bachelor party was in Puerto Rico this past weekend. It was nice to see everyone, good to be on the beach, plus i won $250 at the casino playing blackjack, which was entirely unexpected since I'm too scared to lose money so I never gamble. THere was a minor problem with scheduling of the flight, as I was stupid and accidentally scheduled a saturday flight on jetblue rather than friday, and had to spend quite a few hours between going to JFK and trying to get on standby (nope) and calling at 12:01am Saturday to get a same-day ticket change which worked out. Still 30 hours in Puerto Rico was pretty nice and I didnt feel like I needed much more time than that.