Yes it is true

The information first came from Richard: Trader Joe's has opened its first store in Manhattan. The only time we had tasted their products before was when we stayed at Ina's in Seattle and it was a really good experience.

So we had thought about going there browsing their cheap and good quality groceries (mostly organic) and wines. Last wednesday, after a nice dinner at a romantic thai restaurant in the East Village, we were walking towards Union Square and just came accross Trader Joe's. Still open for 10 minutes! We had a quick look at the supermarket and were quite happy with what we found. Then we moved to the wine store and then I was really impressed: for the first time since I came to the US I saw affordable wine! Trader Joe's is famous for its californian wine at $2 a bottle (price is now $3), but it's not the only one, they had a good selection of bottles, all at at the price really lower than in other place I had been to. We bought four bottles but haven't tried any yet, but I'll keep the blog posted to see it is a real bargain after all :-)

Running session of the day: "pas glop"

When you see this kind of weather map, there should be only one thing to think: I'll stay home. But I still need to go running for my training. Ouch!
This was a very very wet running session. It has been raining since saturday morning after a sunny week. The funny thing is that now that I'm back at home it stopped raining and I can even see a little bit of blue sky...

Recent news

It's really hard to keep posting entries to my blog. Even once a week is a lot.
But I know if want to keep it attractive for my readers I'd better take the time to write. And interesting posts wouldn't hurt.

So it's definitely running season in Central Park. I've be running 10km 4 times in the past two weeks and it was almost always very crowded with runners and cyclists. It's also the end of the 3 week spring season in New York. We had a snow storm less than two weeks ago and it was a hot and damp inferno on saturday (28 Celsius). I even had kind of a heatstroke, not expecting this heat, I was completely dehydrated after 2/3rd of my running and shamely had to stop and walk for a while... Fortunately I ran better today.
I wonder if there's an official direction for running in CP. I always run the loop counter clockwise, but it seems many people run in the other directions. Does anyone know?

On the way back from CP to my home I always find myself in the middle of a situation that can only happen in crazy cities like NYC. Last time, it was a hummer limo full of sexy black dancers (you know the kind of ladies you see in R&B videos) - waving at me.... And this time I saw a cab parked on W90th st, the driver was out and had set up his carpet on the sidewalk and was actually praying in the street, the carpet orientated towards Mecca I guess... Incredible! I still get surprised by such things almost every day!

Other pictures from Red Rock

Just received a few more pictures from Corinne and Guy of the days we spent in Red Rock, NV. I liked the first one, whereas Elise preferred the second one.......








The climbing team at Hoover Dam, while waiting for the rock to get dry

Did I always love NYC?

On her blog, Katia found this old picture of me with the Dark Seb from New Year's eve 2004. At this time I didn't even know I'd be moving there!

Finally: a year later: I was a true tourist in NYC!
























Here's a picture from the same party: Katia and the Dark Seb.

How american are you ?

Not too much Americanized...

Hey I know, it's because I'm NOT American!

You Are 20% American

You're as American as Key Lime Tofu Pie Otherwise known as un-American! You belong in Cairo or Paris... Get out fast - before you end up in Gitmo!

How American Are You?

The mythical marathon

Today might be an important day in my life...
After much hesitation (but I had a sign that I had to do it, i.e Mona, this mysterious nyc blogger decided to go for it too), I have decided to sign up for the New York marathon. Wait wait... I said "might be important" because it's not sure that I will participate yet. I have to wait until the beginning of June.
Actually, the NYC marathon is so popular that not all those sign up are accepted. If you have a U.S address, there's a 50% chance that you win the so called lottery. Or a 50% chance that you lose...
I'll write some more of my impressions once I get accepted, or rejected... Let's see what happens...

As a matter of fact, I really have to go running more if I want to finish this race and be able to walk the following week... And build a real training program... And go running one or two half marathons before the big event.

New features!

I've been reading quite a lot about the evolution of blogs, Web 2.0 and all this stuff lately.
So I've decided to install 2 new features on my blog, hope you'll enjoy them.

The first one is the ability for me to publish audio posts. That's pretty cool, I just need to call a phone number, leave a voicemail on the machine and it instantly appears on my blog. Therefore now you can listen to my voice. I made my first audio post last sunday, directly live from New Patlz, NY. I can blog from anywhere, without even needing a computer or Internet!

The second addition is the newsletter: you can now be notified by email everytime my blog is updated. Please don't hesitate, subscribe! That's quite easy to use, even for those of you who open wide eyes when I say RSS aggregator :-)
The subscribe link is on the right column, just above the links to other blogs section.
I have also made a copy here:

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The same Gunks day in pictures

Richard is climbing Columbia, 5.8.
Actually the hero of the day was Tom, who led this route and broke the psychological barrier of 5.8. He won the little contest that the 3 of us had. Congrats Tom!








Elise is happy, she has just climbed Columbia too



















Jn is not very happy: I was belaying in a bad position and fell when Elise fell too. That was 1.5m fall, stopped by his sling, but ny arm was finely stratched. Fortunately, it's just bruises and stratches. And it's all my fault so I'm just angry at myself...



















At the end of the day, I led the first two pitches of Hawl (5.4), which is a beautiful climb, exposed and with a very nice traverse. Plus the rappel is completely in the void, that was a very scary and adventurous feeling! 

A day at the Gunks: audio-blog