New York 2006

Like I said today we needed to hunt for a good camera. Zicar really wanted to make cool pictures and my camera just didn't cut it. So we went to midtown ready with several shop adresses to go look for a camera and some music stores that should be really cool. That meant Zicar got his first experience of the New York subway. It was only 2 stops downtown on the express so after a few minutes walking we found the first store that should give us a good change to find a camera. Zicar did the web research so he kind of knew what he wanted. But let me tell you about the shop first. It was really weard. Like all shops in NYC there is ofcourse thight security. But having 1 employee on every 2 customers most of them helping customers does sound a but overdone even for New York standards. So first you look around in the store and with every shelve of stuff there was indeed one man that could explain all the details to you. Then you go to the checkout counter where you ordered the stuff you wanted. Ofcourse like any good salesman you end up with a lot more than that cause of the usual. Would you like the special case with that it's only 12 dollars? And how about a memory card we have a 2 gig card....You want .... and so on. Than the items are picked by another guy and put in a basket and send in an elaborate net of rolling bands over our heads to the pickup section just behind the registry. At the registry ofcourse there is a fourth person helping you. And finally there is the guy at the pickup counter. That is 4 people total spending a total of about 15 minutes just helping one customer. And that is not counting the man holding open the door when you enter, the men holding open the door when you leave. The various people just looking that customers only take out what they payed for and now doubt the various people looking at all the other people making sure they actually do some work. How the hell a store like that can make any money at all is completely beyond me. I suspect labour must be very very cheap here. And one more detail...it seemed that half the jewish population of New York worked at that one store, but that probably was just my perception.

All in all.. we did get our camera and it seemed we got a very decent deal on it. So after a short rest in a Starbucks where Zicar had some icetea and I was stuck with just water. (cause I don't like coffee and don't drink tea nor any childrens drink like milk or stuff like that.) But atleast Zicar did sit in a real Starbuck. The original american coffeeshop. Now you guess why Amsterdam is the only major city in Europe where this worldwide amercian coffee equivalent of McDonalds doesn't have a coffeeshop.

The rest of the afternoon we spent drewling over very expensive guitars in various shops on 48th street like Manny's. The shop where every respectable and mainly famous guitar player played on the shop's 'you must test on this guitar' Ol' Yellow which is on display in the center of the shop like it is the world's most precious diamond. It looks like shit but then what would you look like if you where played and abused by thousands of different people in several decades of the shops long history. It is a good thing they named the guitar Old Yellow. Otherwhise you would never have guessed that that was its original color.

After that we took a rest in a fancy diner on the corner where Zicar for the first time was defeated by a plate of Tiramisu. I quote "This is the first Tiramisu I ever had that I will not finish". But it did taste very good just like my ceasar salad which together with the lovely waitress was a very good thing because we ended up paying 30 dollars for only a salad, 2 drinks and that large tiramisu.

On the way back just before we got off the subway we just heard the starting of the sad story of the homeless lady in the sub that plead for help since she had nothing and no one to help her.

So while me and Zicar are enjoying an Italian hero and Mark is counting up his hours so he can sent his bill. Zicar is playing more virtual pool and wants to go back to Amsterdam Billiards again and I am finishing up this entry for the blog....guess what the next one will be about ......