There was some cake leftover that my colleague had brought in. Well, leftover from Thanksgiving. It was a strawberry cheesecake, and it was heavy. Heavy as in you needed effort to lift it kind of heavy. There was half a cake left as my colleague tried to get my other colleagues to eat some but didn’t quite succeed. Somehow, the cake landed on my desk. I was given a bet, that if I could finish that remaining half a piece of cake, I’d get $100.

I gave a time limit of 6pm, so had about 4 1/2 hours to devour it. This was no ordinary cheesecake and when you plonk a slab of it on your plate, you could really hear the thud. I just had lunch, so managed only a semi big chunk. I laboured at the cake and was only half serious when I took the bet. The more I chewed on the cake, the more I knew it wasn’t happening. This cake was like just cream cheese, with all the liquids sucked dry from it. It was darn tasty, but half a cake that was probably 8 inches in diameter.

So I laboured and I laboured. Washed the cake down with black coffee but soon that became unfeasible as the coffee quickly turned cold. It really isn’t something you can compact and hide in your stomach, as it is already compacted as it is. By 5pm, I knew it was a futile task. I had only managed to eat 20% of that remaining half and I’m sure I could have eaten another 20% of that, but there’s no point. I didn’t want to destroy my stomach under those circumstances.

So I failed. Failed, to finish the cake. As good as it was, unfortunately, the rest went into a bin. And sadly so.

So today I finally managed to get my ass out of my apartment. The temperature was a cool 3 degrees C. Heh, imagine standing in a refridgerator, that’s how cold it was. The chill in the air reminded me of the holidays I had with my mom and grandmother going to Perth and New Zealand. It was very cold and there was that freshness and energy in the air, sort of like when you are chewing mint gum.

My goal today was to go see Miss Liberty but I’d only be able to get a rear view as she was facing Manhattan. I would be looking at her from Liberty State Park, which was on my side of New Jersey. On my way there, I noticed some shops and other places that I never realised was there. That’s just me, having been here for nearly 3 months and still a stranger to my surroundings.

This here is sort of a self portrait. By 3pm, the sun was already casting long shadows. I just continued walking and managed to head in the right direction with all the street signs. Cutting right through the park, I managed to end up near the coastline.

Its’ kind of a touristy spot, with the Liberty Science Centre nearby, a big, sprawling park and access to Ellis Island to see the Statue of Liberty. I was just walking along the coastline and snapping pictures as I went along.

Finally got to Miss Liberty and was quite disappointed.

Sadly, she was just too far away and that was the best shot I could get with the limited length of my lens. On the bright side, I did manage to see a spectacular sunset, even if it didn’t quite turn out on my camera. I’m not sure if it’s technique or a limitation of the camera at this point, but the contrast between the bright and dark areas was quite great.

* * *

Looking at my previous set of photos at central park, that one seemed to be more a study of colour, without a sense of where the picture was taken. The shots I did today were more descriptive of the location, and I had to keep it at wide angle to grab the scene. Taking pictures of wide expanses and far away objects isn’t really my kind of thing, but I need to be able to see things differently when taking these sorts of shots, so it’s a good way to practise these shots.

The cold weather messed up my brain a bit as I was fumbling with my camera every now and then between squinting at the bright sunlight, keeping my hands warm and just framing the shot. I didn’t even try too hard to manually get the settings right as well. Wrestled with the cold weather, but managed to get some decent shots, so I’m satisfied at least. Heh.

Today was my first Thanksgiving. A very uneventful one for that matter. Heh, no turkey or cranberry sauce, and no stuffing myself until I couldn’t eat anymore. That’s what I hear you do anyways, besides watching football, if you are a fan.

I read that there were 38 million travellers for this Thanksgiving week, and this is just a logistical nightmare, with the weather causing havoc to flights and just trying to move all these people across the US of A. To think that this is only the THIRD busiest time of the year, with Christmas and Independence Day topping it.

The weather report was wrong today, and instead of raining, it was rather sunny, and the temperature was relatively warm, topping out at around 18 degrees C during the day. Anticipating the cold, I decided to just stay indoors. My body has sort of adapted to the temperature, as I feel comfortable sitting here with my t shirt and short pants. I figured out that food makes a big difference in how warm you get, and just piling on carbohydrates like pasta or rice will help keep the cold away. A steaming cup of tea helps.

Heh, my colleague explained the weather patterns, where sometimes you get winds from the north in Canada, so you start freezing your ass off. Other times, the winds come from the south, depending on pressure systems, and you get a week or warmth, a week of frozen fingers and it doesn’t really start freezing until early December, where it’s consistent throughout.

These days I’m just into reading and cooking, alternating between hobbies. Just trying to get a change of perspective every now and then, to keep me occupied. Heh, if I stick too long to any one hobby I start becoming obsessive, and I don’t think I want to get into that now. Left my camera sitting in my apartment for a while now, maybe I’ll take it out this weekend.

Being here now, I realise how culturally different everyone is in different countries. It’s not like being a tourist, you just come and experience the good things on offer, and you don’t quite dwell into everything else that’s going on around here. Heh, just pondering I guess.