Balance of 9/11th

Ok, ok, I'm super tired but I know I owe my readers something here. Today was what I expected, some sad people carrying flowers, people around the city with signs and posters about those they lost, some things going on close to the Ground Zero, but what really amazed me was the amount of police officers around the city. It seems it wasn't like that on the previous years, and the reason was that the two presidential candidates were here. Well, it can't be ONLY that, because I don't think they went for a walk around the Stock Exchange and it was really crazy there, streets were closed to cars and even some streets to people.


One thing was really surprising: how empty everything was. It was worse than a Sunday in the middle of summer holidays (if that expression does not make sense to foreigners, it does to Brazilians, at least for people from São Paulo, when the city gets really empty). Stores were closed, people weren't working, buildings didn't have people coming and going.

I think there is not much to say. Just 2 pictures (one below) to see .

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O post é breve pois o dia foi longo e cansativo (ai, pézinhos). E qual o saldo? Muito foi o que eu esperava, pessoas com flores, com cartazes e uma muvuca no Ground Zero - presente em qualquer dos outros 365 (sim, pois esse ano foi bissexto!) do ano. Um ponto que me impressionou foi a quantidade de policiais na rua, fico pensando de onde todos eles vieram. Tá, NYC tem um monte, mas não pode ter tudo aquilo espalhado por aí e hoje eles simplesmente tiraram de uns cantos e acumularam em outros. Pelo que entendemos, todo ano tem mesmo bastante, mas esse ano foi um volume especial pela vinda do Obama e McCain. Essa história não me convenceu muito, até na rua da bolsa de valores tinha uma penca, rua fechada e bagunça - o que pra mim é uma prova de que tinha policial em todo canto por precaução.

Mais do que policiais era a quantidade de máquinas fotográficas e filmadoras. Avistei na rua uma moça com uma câmera num tripé se auto-filmando para uma reportagem. Pensei comigo mesma: "Nossa, essa emissora deve ser meio pindaíba, não tem nem câmera-man!" E qual a surpresa ao ver as três letras gigantes do SBT em seu microfone.


Mas o mais impressionante da cidade foi o vazio. Imaginem São Paulo em terça-feira de Carnaval. Havia lojas fechadas, prédios fechados, e o barulho do silêncio (profundo, hein?) incomodava. Era uma cidade triste, estranho pensar que as pessoas indo e vindo, as sirenes, os carros e a pressa fariam algum dia tanta falta.

É isso, e ficam essas fotos.

7th anniversary

Uma mistura de sentimentos passa por mim nessa semana. Quinta-feira comemora-se - se é que eu posso usar esse verbo nessas circunstâncias - o sétimo aniversário do 11 de setembro. Haverá vários movimentos pela cidade e eu já marquei na minha agenda a ida para Battery Park na casa do Rodrigo para ver as luzes que devem ser acendidas na obra do antigo WTC.

A primeira vez que eu vi aquele buraco foi em 2005, e se você passou por lá antes ou depois disso e ficou com a curiosidade de como andam as coisas, de cima da terra continua tudo igual. Já estão adiando parte das inaugurações para 2012, e aparentemente obra é a mesma ladainha em qualquer lugar e deve ainda demorar um pouquinho mais. Se você nunca passou por lá nem depois nem antes do atentado, agora não está perdendo muito. O que era antes está pra todo mundo ver em muitas fotos e livros. O que tem agora pode ser visto em qualquer canteiro de obra, so que provavelmente quintuplicado ao quadrado, adicionando algumas flores, rosas e bilhetes que sempre estão por ali. Então espere um pouco mais para conhecer aquele canto da cidade para poder ver a torre super alta e o museu.

E o que eu acho? Honestamente depois do [Museu de Hiroshima] acho que não pode ser tão tocante. O museu ficará ao lado do [Museu do Holocausto] de Battery Park e acho que esse, e obviamente os da Alemanha, são comparáveis ao de Hiroshima em nossa geração.

Mas enfim, daqui alguns dias escrevo mais. Eu não sou tão INTO nas coisas e não vou a nenhum evento formal. Só vou mesmo acompanhar a cidade, o clima, as pessoas e as flores. Não é todo dia que McCain e Obama dizem-se unidos por uma causa, certo?

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This post is just a warm up for this Thursday. It will be my first 9/11 here in the city and I have to admit that I am looking forward to it with anxiety and curiosity. I'm not joining any specific event, I'm just going there, we'll be at Rodrigo's place in Battery Park to watch some lights show that should be settled for the night.

If you've never been to the WTC, there is not much now compared to a construction site. It's just a huge one, with some flowers, notes and sadness around and there shouldn't be much until 2012, when the new building, a museum about the story of the WTC and the 9/11 should be opened to public. What are my expectations about it? Hm, honestly I think after the [Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum] I would be much more impressed by the [Holocaust Museum] (WTC's neighbor and similar museums in Germany) than by this one. Being a foreigner changes my perspective and those are museums with a similar historic relevance to my generation.

But we have to wait at least until Thursday. I'll try to feel the city, all the people and their flowers and write about it later.

Anti-magnet fridge

Our really nice, fancy and stainless-steel fridge is not magnets friendly. We've been collecting magnets since we arrived in the US from every place we visited and now we have a fridge that is not going to have them. It seems Ga (my sister in law's husband) was right, nice fridges shouldn't have magnets and GE agreed with him. Not totally, as I was still able to put some magnets on its side, but it just wouldn't have enough space for all of them.

So the first picture of our home, it couldn't be different, is from the kitchen! Also it's the only place that is already completed and with no boxes around.

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Eis que descobrimos que uma super chique geladeira de aço inox não gosta de imãs. Nós começamos a nossa coleção de imãs aqui nos EUA, comprando um em cada lugar diferente que visitamos. É, o Gá tinha razão, geladeiras bonitonas não combinam com imãs multi-coloridos e até a GE concordou parcialmente com ele, fazendo uma geladeira em que só se pode colocar imãs na lateral. Ah, mas nesse espacinho não iria caber toda a nossa coleção e também os que estão por vir, então eu tive que dar um jeito.

Pois é, a primeira foto da nossa casa, como não poderia ser diferente, é da cozinha, o único lugar pronto e sem caixas pelos cantos.

Buying furniture in NYC?

So after three weeks here and so many hours spent looking for all our furniture I decided to write about it. There is not a single store that could sell and deliver things perfectly. I'm not sure if we were unlucky, or if this is just a typical characteristic of setting an apartment. I really appreciate any comments everyone has from all over the world, I will publish my own opinions about all these stores, but everyone is welcome to criticize and praise them as long no bad words are written.

There should be a first one. Not the best, not the worse (or you can conclude by your own opinion). We went to [Straight from the Crate] recommended by a friend as "an Ikea that delivers and assembles". We bought 2 dressers (cômodas), a desk and 3 floor lamps. So the dressers were fine, Ikea quality indeed, but that is what we expected. Lamps were terrible: we ordered black, they delivered silver, there was one that would take extra 6 weeks to be delivered and one that was supposed to have a "marble finish" that seemed like 2 huge scratches. We returned it all. Oh, and the desk? Hm, have you heard of Marabras? Really similar, and a translucent glass became a clear one.

[Bed Bath and Beyond] is a nice place. Things are not the cheapest, but they deliver on the same day for $15, nothing compared to other delivery fees. Good place for sheets, kitchen stuff and bathroom - there is a super nice [OXO toilet plunger] (desentupidor de privada) and many [OXO] stuff, good brands and not super expensive.

We also went to a place called [Jennifer Convertibles] for our sofa. Things went well, delivery date is scheduled to only 4 days after what was previously said, but prices were good, less expensive than [Crate & Barrel] and [Macys], but still good quality. The guy from Jennifer recommended us a store called [Lee's Art Shop]. It's a design store, they carry super duper expensive things and China version. Yes, I'm not mean, it's exactly what happens there. So we bought 2 cute stools and a dining table with 4 chairs. We only received the table and 1 chair when they first delivered our stuff. After complaining and explaining that we won't take turns to sit on the chair to have dinner, they also delivered a second one, previously on their display. So today we called - these people never call! - and we were informed that our stools are coming 1 week after promised, but our other two chairs will take 6 weeks. WHAT? Oh yeah, baby. "We don't call customers, there are so many."

Last but not least, famous [Ikea]. That's a 50 minutes trip to Brooklyn and extra $89 for delivery (no matter what you buy). Things were pretty good, I have to admit that I enjoy assembling their furniture and things were supposed to be here the day after. They tried. But the delivery guy broke our coffee table glass into a million pieces as well as our picture frame glass. So it was returned and we would get it in 3 days, IF the delivery company didn't try to bypass the system and blamed us for their mess. That's one of those moments that a lawyer comes in handy to solve all my problems and by the end of that week everything arrived.

Ok, so you might be asking: If almost everything is there, why are there no pictures? Well, not only our furniture is here, but our 45 boxes also arrived from California two days ago. Until things are neat, no pictures will be published, what I do hope to be able to do ASAP. You are only curious, but we are living with boxes all over.

Click pizza

Every single moment I think I'm getting used to New York, or at least becoming less tourist and turning more into a resident (carrying a camera inside my purse does not account for being a tourist, or I wouldn't already have so many pictures in this blog), something comes to me and I stare at it for a couple of seconds. Well, even these seconds of surprise got shorter, as NYC doesn't allow me to stare longer at something as Palo Alto did.

So my staring moment of the day was to this image here:


Don't feel retarded if it takes you a while to guess what this copy+paste means. It's the main page of our building website.

You - we, in this case - can contact your neighbors and front desk (=doorman), check the schedule for movies in the area, check any deliveries and even order a pizza or make reservations in a restaurant. Oh, I feel like caveman (ops, cavewoman!) sometimes...