Alain's Adventure - Da Brotherhood

Wooooow, I have been quite lazy these last few weeks :P ! But me writing now doesn't mean things have changed ^^. But I have experienced and discovered many things worth sharing during this 3-day week-end celebrating the birth of the United States of America.

During the 4th of July, Celine and I didn't do anything special, just hanging out in a mall and enjoying ourselves, the weather not so good. But on Saturday, we finally decided to go and visit Philadelphia, the city where every thing began ^^. Since I am still lazy, I won't write much and mostly post some pictures of what was the most important for me :) :

Yummy

Rocky Steps

Philly's local "Chap Sa Khou" ("XIIIeme" or Chinatown :P )

It's been so long ...

The Liberty Bell

The USS Carney at Penn's Landing

Fireworks at Penn's Landing

That's all for today, I don't know when I will get enough motivation to post again, but you can be sure that this entry won't be the last one, I will at least write one when a get back to France :) !

Wooow, I never thought I would let this blog without any activities for so long. But it's true that I have been kind of busy, but the main reason is that I became somehow lazy :). But here are some fresh news from Princeton where the weather doesn't seem to stabilize.

I have done a lot of things during this month, from my last entry, and it will be hard to recall everything, that is why I will only talk about the most important topics.

On April 18th, my love Celine came again to Princeton for two amazing weeks, and since the followin day (the 19th) was our 4th year anniversary, we decided to celebrate it in the good way : we went in a nice place for a full week vacation. But I will let you judge by yourself :

But our hotel was located here (click to zoom) :

The place was awesome, the weather was awesome and it was really great to spend a week far from everything with just the two of us. This was the best vacation I have ever had and the first real vacation I could enjoy with Celine :) !

Since we arrived early on Saturday, we had the time to enjoy the rest of the afternoon at Miami Beach and started to visit the area. As you can see, this was what I could see in front of me :

When I looked to the left :

To the right :

During this week, we visited a lot around Miami Beach and Downtown Miami ; we spent most of the morning on the beach, sun bathing, and the afternoon walking around the city. It will be a real pain in the ass to describe every thing we did, but one word can describe the week we spent : AWESOME !

So, I think the best way to share my experience is to show you some photos of this amazing city where "Fiesta" is the master world.

Lummus Park

Burger King

Holocaust Memorial

Espanola Way

Bal Harbour

Bal Harbour Mall

Dolphin at the Miami Seaquarium ...

... and Killer Whale (guess you imagine what happened to the mother and her baby on the picture :D)

When we were walking around Downtown Miami, we stopped by a place called the Bank of America Tower where there was a Starbuck's Coffee on the ground floor. Since I had to go to the restroom, I asked where I could find one and they told me to go to the "Skyline" floor ; not knowing exactly what they were talking about, I took the elevator where I found only two buttons : "GF" (Ground Floor) and "SL" (Skyline). And what was my surprise when I got out of the lift :

This is a photo taken from the terrace, I forgot to take one from the inside ... Nevertheless, the view was amazing and in fact, most of the building have a Skyline here. Since they can not dig below the ground to make a parking, the parking is located between the ground and the Skyline.

Another great place in Downtown Miami is called "Bayside" :

Near the bay, there are a lot of restaurants, shops, bars, free concert etc ... It is a nice place to spend the evening, listening to music while enjoying a mojito or a daiquiri.

We took a lot more photos than this, around 300, but I am just to tired and lazy to put some more on the blog. I will maybe create a Picasa Gallery (like Fabien :p) if I find the motivation or I have enough demand ;) !

So, after this amazing week, we returned to Princeton almost black and had to face some bad weather :( ... Nevertheless, being with Celine made me forget about this and we spend another nice but lazy week :).

Unfortunately, she had to go back to Paris because of school ... But hopefully :D, she is coming back on the 18th of June ! I am so happy and eager to see her again, less than 5 weeks to wait before spending the rest of my time in Princeton with her !

After that, i didn't do anything special : went to work, to the Gold's Gym etc ... Just hoping the time will go fast until the 18th :D !

An entry before the week end for a special event ! This is with pleasure that I can write about the happy wedding that occurred yesterday at New York City :).

So yesterday, I went at Siemens to work only until 12am. After that, Razik, Philippine and I had to be ready to go to NYC with Alexandra and Benoit for their happy event ! The schedule was really tight and it was hard to do everything, but we managed to enjoy everything and hope that they felt at ease :).

Arrived at the City Clerk around 2pm, we went to the office so that they could do what they had to do for all the administrative papers ; the place didn't look great at first glance, and we were quite afraid that the wedding would took place with the person pronouncing the usual ritual behind a glass. Thankfully, there was a private room where they could say their "I do" and put their nice wedding ring.

After that, we took the car to go all the way up to Central Park to try to take some nice pictures with the great weather we had yesterday ! We were really lucky to find a good parking place for the car and quickly took what we were there for.

This is the only picture I was able to take with my iPhone where there are only the two of them :). But it also nice to have some "making of" pictures :p !

Around 5:20pm, we took the car again to go down to Madisson Square to meet Benoit's brother and other friend for the second part of the event. And we had a really nice ride, look for yourself :

We had a two hours ride around Manhattan enjoying a really nice glass of Champagne. The drive was really great and didn't hesitate to ask us where we wanted to go or if we wanted to take some pictures.

As for diner, we went to the Planet Hollywood at Time Square where we enjoyed quite nice food :)

Yesterday afternoon was really busy, so that we were really tired when we came back at our respective apartment. The festivities continue on Saturday afternoon at Alexandra and Benoit's to take more picture and drink again for their happiness.

It's been a while since my last post, I've been quite busy, or maybe just too lazy, to write anything, but I will try to catch up from now, even if it's not much.

So, what did I do since last time ?

As scheduled, I went to the Gold's Gym to do my usual program : 30 minutes running, stretching, abs, pull-up. The place it's really nice, full of different people, very kind :). It is really better than the small Fitness Center at Avalon and just for $30 a month, less than $1 per day.

During the last week end, all of the French guys went to Boston to visit the city. They took off on Friday and stayed there for the whole week end. I didn't follow them because I wanted to use the week end to have some rest ; it was a wise decision since the weather at Boston was really bad ... It was raining all day long, and not small rain.

Since my bedroom was quite a mess, I decided to go to Ikea to buy a desk and a chair ; thanks to the cashier, I didn't pay the chair :). I was afraid not to be able to hold everything to the car, but there was some free locker (25 refundable cents) so that I could put my cart in it while getting the car near the deposit area.

On the way back, I stopped by the Target to buy an Ice-shaver machine :D ! Thanks to that, we can now do awesome cocktails !

Back at the apartment, I mounted my new furniture and the result looks great, my bedroom is way much tidy now :).

Last Sunday was a lazy day : I slept quite a lot, do some clean-up, and spent the entire day with my love Celine. I wanted to go to the Gold's Gym in the evening, but it closes at 7pm during the week end ... Seems like most people in the area are from the morning : the first lesson there, like Fitness, Body Pump ... starts around 5am, and the last one finishes at 8:30pm. So, I spent the evening eating a sandwich while catching up with some TV shows like Dexter :).

Last week wasn't much different from the previous week, especially because I can't talk about what I am working on. Nevertheless, each evening was quite busy.

On Monday night, we invited some friends for a "Cocktail tasting", so that we could try our new machine :D. It was nice to be at the apartment, talking to friends without having to be scared of someone spill its drink on the carpet. Since I hasn't been able to go to the Gym the previous day, I left them around 9pm to do some sport.

On Tuesday night, I went to the Gold's Gym again to attend to the RPM class, or most commonly known as "Biking". The class room is really nice, well ventilated, a lot of bike, black lights ... But there wasn't much people, less than 10 I think. Nevertheless, the class was great, since you control your own difficulty, I could do as I used to do in France : give my best. I think I will go there every Tuesday evening. After the class, as usual : stretching, abs, pull-up and some running to flush-out my legs.

On Wednesday night, we went to Vincent's apartment for a Poker. Even though I didn't play, I don't have the patience, it was nice to be there talking :).

On Thursday night, I went to the Gold's Gym again to attend to the "Body Combat" class. I didn't go all-out because of my knee, but it was great to move again, to "shake" my body :). And I had the opportunity to speak to some of the people in the class :D. I felt some tiredness on my right leg, especially the knee but I think I will go to this class again.

Friday night was Gloria's Farewell Party, she is an au-pair who was friend with the 2007 guys. Before the party, we had diner at the Hooter near Avalon. The place looks much more like a sport bar than a restaurant but it is nice. I had a chili-cheese dog and shared a plate of "quite oily" chicken wings with some friends. The party was a hat party, so we had to buy some. Couldn't find anything nice, and since we wouldn't wear them anymore, we set our choice on this one :

And it was quite a success :D ! The party was great, in a big American house, and without too much people.

I slept a lot on Saturday morning-afternoon and talked with my love Celine when I woke up. I did some laundry and around 5:30pm, we went to New York for the Saint Patrick's week-end. Unfortunately, we were stuck in some traffic jam at the exit of the Turnpike ... So we arrived at NYC around 8:30 ...

We went to the Greenwich Village area in the south of Manhattan. This area is really nice, with a lot of restaurants and pubs and is really different than Time Square and the place we used to go. Since some of my friends and I didn't want to spend to much time and money in diner, we went to a place America is well-known for : McDonald's. After that, we walked around enjoying the place and stopped by an Irish pub to have a drink.

Back at the apartment around 2am, I took a quick shower and went to sleep :).

It's been a while since I havn't written anything on my blog ; the main and only reason was because I was with my love Céline :) !

The last week was one hell of a busy week where we had the opportunity to try a lot of food ! I will start with last sunday and New York City :

Sunday

So, as scheduled, we went to NYC last sunday with Alexendra and Benoit. They came to pick us up around 10am but we decided to have our breakfast at the Dunkin Donuts near the apartment so that we took the road around 11am.

As we got out of the PATH station at Madison Square, we went to the Macy's so that they could have a quick look to one of the biggest Mall of New York. Since there was a lot of people and we didn't want to buy anything in particular, we got out of the mall to go on the 5th Avenue. Thanksfully, the weather was really good and it wasn't too cold there.

We went North up to Central Park and stopped in a McDonald's to have a quick lunch ; I still can't understand why this fast food is so bad here ...

Central Park was beautifull under last Friday snow and some of the lakes were totally frozen ; the view was amazing and it was really funny to see some kids brang their luge to play on the snow.

I thought that squirrels won't have the courage to get out under this kind of weather, but there were quite a lot of these little creature there ; we also had the opportunity to see some little girl feeding one :)

We continued to walk on the famous park to enjoy the view ; it was nice to hang out there under the sun, especially while holding Céline's hand ...

As Celine and I were starting to get hungry again, we decided to go to a location we were waiting for : Gray's Papaya ! Ever since we heard from this famous hot dog store in many movies or TV shows like How I Met Your Mother, we wanted to go there and try one of their hot dogs !

They only have one kind of hot dogs with two kinds of toping : Onions or Sauerkraut ; there are also different kind of fruit drink including their famous Papaya Drink. Their hot dogs were really good and for only $1.25 each, no wonder this store is so well-known !

As we were getting tired, we decided to head back home and go to the steakhouse KC Prime near Avalon for diner ! Céline had a salad with grilled salmon and shrimp and I chosed a Salmon Crabcake Sandwich with grilled mushroom and onions ; as we expected, it was really yummy :p !

For desert, we shared with Alexandra and Benoit a Tiramisu and a Brownie Sundaie ; I won't hide you that the sundaie was delicious ! Nevertheless, I am way too lazy to upload some photos at the moment ... maybe tomorrow ;) !

Monday

As Céline was here, I went to work earlier than usual, 8am, while she was at Benoit's house staying with Alexandra during the day ; nothing much interresting to say about that execpt the fact that I enjoyed every lunch we had together. Since Alexandra and Benoit don't eat much at noon, we had delicious home made soup everday. It was really nice to eat something light and with a lot of vegetable !

For diner, Celine and I went to a Mexican restaurant "Chili's" where we shared a plate of Fajita's with marinated beef ; it was excellent and the beef was really soft ! I can't wait to go there again with her !

Tuesday

The day was quite the same as Monday but for diner, we decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory with Alexis and Fabien's. They should have been at their Taekwondo lesson but the class was canceled because of last sunday competition.

The weather was really bad and it was raining a lot so that it was quite hard to read the sign on the road ... Thanksfully we made it to the big Mall where the restaurant was located.

Céline decided to try the famouse "Tons of fun Burger" while I had a "Factory Burrito Grande" ... I think this was one of the worst decision I ever made. Even though the burrito was delicious, it was as big as my forearm ... I still can't understand how I manage to finish it and still had the courage to share a Cheesecake with Céline ...

It was really hard to fully enjoy the Pistachio and Chocolate flavored Cheesecake but I can still remember a really good taste :).

I wanted to take some photo but there wasn't much light and the iPhone hasn't got any flash ... I will try to get some next time hoping that one of my friend will try the burrito :) I won't do that mistake again ...

Wednesday

This evening, Alexandra and Benoit invited us at their house for diner. Since Céline was already there and Benoit and I quit job around 5pm, we helped them prepare the meal : Rosted Chicken and Risotto.

The chicken they bought was really really big so that it took a long time to cook ... It was so big that we couldn't finish it eventhough it was delicious, especially with the home made Risotto :) !

It has been a long time since I didn't eat a Risotto and it was really good to see the preparation of it !

Thirsday

While I was working, Céline and Alexandra went to New York City to do something different than staying at home studying ! They walked a lot during this day and decided to visit the United Nation Plaza.

Céline took some photo to show me the building and it seems quite beautifull ; we will try to go there again together :)

For diner, Benoit and I went to New York to meet them at the Red Lobster. I had some Linguini with shrimp and lobster but the restaurant was quite disapointing ... The food was good but way too expensive for the poor quantity ; I don't think we will go there again, or maybe in another town in New Jersey where it should be a lot cheaper.

Friday

Since Fabien took the car to go to his Taekwondo lesson, Céline and I decided to go to the Mall near Avalon (the only one where we can go by foot) to have diner.

We went to the same bar as last Friday : Lawrence Grill. As for starter, we took a plate of French Fries topped with cheese and spices, paprika maybe ; it was really good !

For the main plate, we decided to share a full rack of Barbeque Grilled Baby Back Rib ; it is usually for one person, but I think we made a good choice sharing it as you can see on the picture ...

The meat was really soft and juicy and it seems like it's been a long time since I didn't eat pork :P !

Saturday

This week with my love Céline went way too fast ... It's seemed like she only came yesterday and already had to leave ...

The D-day finally came and she had to prepare her luggage ; but since her plane was at 11pm, we decided to spend a last day at New York City before her next visit in 7 weeks ...

Not knowing where to go, we walked where we usually walked : Madison Square, Time Square and the 5th Avenue. It was really nice to walk just with her, hand by hand enjoying the city under the sun. It seemed like it's been like years I couldn't be alone with her like that ...

As we were stopping in many stores to see some clothes and shoes, I stopped by the Diesel store to buy a new pair of shoes for only $85 ; I don't know why there weren't any taxes. I will send some photos tomorrow :) !

As last time, the goodbye was really hard ... and it was really sad to see her go threw the gate ... I can only hope that the coming 7 weeks will be very fast !

Sunday (Today)

I didn't do much thing today ; since Alexis and Fabien did the house works during the last week, I did my part by doing the rest of the laundry, washing black and white clothes.

Thanksfully, Céline doesn't seem this far away from me with the Internet and Skype. I spent the beginning of the afternoon with her but since she was tired because of the flight, she went to sleep quite soon ...

Around 5pm, Alexis, Fabien and I went to buy some food at the Shop Rite and bought so much that it was hard to put every thing in the fridge ...

I miss you a lot Céline ...

As schedulled, we went to Trenton yesterday morning before going to work ; eventhough we got there quickly, finding the office was a real pain in the ass ... The address said "635 S Clinton Avenue". Okay, we were on "S Clinton Avenue", but still, no 635 ...

So, we decided to go inside a set of building in case the office was inside, but still, no 635 ... After looking for about 10 minutes, we finally found a number close to the one we were looking for, we asked some people who told us we had to go all the way round ; finally, we got there but I still can't understand how they managed to do such a mess in their addresses ...

Nevertheless, I took a picture of the sight we had over there :

In the evening, we went back to the apartment around 7pm when we decided to do some cleaning. I don't know if the vacuum totaly sucks or if our apartment was really dirty, but we had to empty the bag after every room ... But I think we now live in a clean place :).

Around 9pm, we went to Princeton to see the Taekwondo club for Fabien ; since he brang his Dobok, he tried the lesson. I don't know if the level was good or not, since it was my first time watching a Taekwondo class, but he seemed to enjoy and will maybe subrscibe to the team. It is just a question of money ...

Before going back to the apartment this evening, we stopped by the Wal*Mart to buy some more furniture, since we got some money in our bank accounts.

This is were we bought a nice Microwave Oven and something to scare the dirt : a vacuum ! We bought them for about $50 each, I don't know if it is good quality but the price seems alright.

Some friends had to empty their apartment for tomorrow, so they were giving some furnitures to anybody who wanted them. So this is thanks to them that we got a big arm chair that we put in the balcony, a mattress and some blankets in case some people wanted to sleep in our apartment and other more or less usefull stuffs.

Because of yesterday pizza, I was feeling guilty, so I went to the fitness center again to do some exercises :).

Tomorrow morning, we will go to Trenton before going to work to ask for our Social Security Number ; I hope this will be the last time we will ever go there ...

Yesterday evening was our housewarming, that is why I didn't write anything :).

The party was nice eventhough there weren't so much people and so much things to eat or drink. I didn't drink a lot and was cleaning the entire time, I was just too scared to see someone throwing every bottle or gobelet flying. The party ended sooner than scheduled, around 4am, and the result of my job was so that we didn't have to clean anything this morning, just throw the trash.

Since I didn't drink much, I wasn't too tired and woke up around 11am. I waited for my love Céline to come back to her house so that we could see each other by Skype :D ! In the mean time, I did the laundry since we were running short on socks and other clothes :p.

As last week, it was really nice to see her and speak with her almost the entire afternoon. I just had to leave her during 1 and a half hour to go to the Wendy's for lunch.

After she went to sleep, we went to Princeton to "visit" the university. This place is really amazing, it is so big with "old" building, it is like a town in a town ; it was also really nice to see "young" people, since we don't see much people walking on the street near Avalon, there are no place for pedestrian on the road ...

We also had the opportunity to try our friends' car : a Pontiac G6 GT ! This car is awesome, with leather covered chair and other "state-of-the-art" equipment. We swapped our car because they were going to Toronto for the week-end and wanted a more spacious car.

Back at the apartment, I went to the fitness center to do my program : 30min run, 50 abs, 10 pull-ups, 50 push-ups and 65 sit-ups ; I still have to lose some weight, and most importantly, stay in shape for Céline :D !

I am just too lazy to post some photos of the car, so I will do it tomorrow when I wake up. Stay in touch folks !

A short entry to wish a Happy Valentine's Day to my love Céline.

I love you and can't wait to see you next week !

8°C ... This was the temperature in the apartment when I woke this morning at 7:30am ! Event though it was hotter than the outside (-12°C), moving around in the apartment was really really painful !

After eating my breakfast, washing my face and changing clothes as quick as possible, I waited for the Comcast technician to come and install our desired internet connection. The guy came around 8:40 and finished around 10:15, the modem he brang with him didn't work and he had to go to the warehouse to grab some new ones.

Just after he left, we ran to the office to tell them that our heater wasn't working at all ; thanksfully, a technician was there and came to our apartment to fix it. It took him less than 5 min to restablish everything and it was really nice to feel warm air getting out of the ventilation.

Since it was around 11am already, we decided to have lunch at the apartment and leave for work just after that. We took the road around 11:40am and stop by Best Buy to buy a Linksys router for $45. We arrived at work around 12:15.

We left for home around 7pm and started to configure our wireless network as we arrived. Once finished, I got out to run at the fitness center while the other two stood at the apartment. I wanted to run 30 minutes but at slower pace than last time so I started at 5 miles per hour.

As I was running for 15 minutes, the f****ing alarm started to ring again but I decided to run until 20 minutes. This is really annoying and I will try to report this as soon as possible ...

Back at the apartment, I took a nice shower while chef Alexis was cooking some pasta with tomato sauce and beef steak.

Tomorrow, we will have a mandatory CDS orientation meeting ; something we have to do to validate our visas I think. Since it takes place at New York City, we won't be able to work :).