Thieves in Correos [the Spanish Postal Service]

I imagine many of you, if you have followed me for awhile, remember my ordeal with the iphone. Well, a few days ago, I bought another one for my brother. Last week, on Monday October 22nd, I sent it by Global Express Mail to him. The tracking service indicates that it left the US on Monday, but it didn't enter the Spanish international office until Friday. I was tracking it and wondered where it's been all these days? Now I know.

*** IT'S BEEN STOLEN ***

Check it out by yourself, at the Correos website or at the U.S. Postal Service, package number EB816886559US. Leaving International Office in US: Monday 22nd. Entering International Office at Destiny: Friday 26th. Where was it all those days? It was being open and robbed. Maybe it was stolen over the weekend at Customs but it really doesn't matter.

Some motherfucking thief in Correos, probably using a scanner or an X-ray machine to pick it out, opened it nicely, stole the phone, and closed it up again with tape. And the package has followed its way until today, when my brother picked it up and found it empty.

I think it's a shame that in the 21st century, in a service like Correos, in a first-world country like Spain, there are still thieves robbing packages, and it can't be trusted that a stupid package with a fucking $400 phone arrives safely. There's some son of a bitch in Correos getting a nice extra paycheck reselling stolen merchandise. And of course, in Correos nobody accepts any responsibility, since they are funcionarios, [State workers, tenured for life, can't be fired] so what do they care? It's a royal shame.

Now you know, if you have to send a package which is worth more than 5 euro, use SEUR or MRW [Spanish private companies, similar to FedEx or UPS], because the chances of your package being robbed in Correos are high. At least in private companies they do care if their employees steal.

Barça/Madrid and Sox/Yankees

My two favorite sports teams are Barça in soccer and the Red Sox in baseball. And what happens is that both teams have followed parallel paths along history, with many common details. Among them, the worst catastrophe of their history in 1986, or the two championships won recently. If you don't believe me, check out this table I have written with the coincidences. Read it, and then tell me the similarities are not amazing. These two clubs should sign a cooperation agreement or something :-)

Sox win!

The Boston Red Sox are the winners of the World Series, after a sweep of the Colorado Rockies. This team, which was once cursed for 86 years, now has won two championships in four years.

Together with the Patriots having won three Super Bowls in the last years, it's a great time to be a sports fan in Boston.

NFL

Today we went to an NFL game, the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills were playing. The game was awful, horrible. Pictures are good though.

The best part has been to observe first-hand an interesting aspect of American culture: tailgating. Tailgating consists in going to the stadium like six hours early, open the car trunk, and get out all sort of picnic material as if you were in the middle of the country, instead of a football stadium. People have everything: barbecues, tables and chairs, tents, even TVs with satellite dishes (to watch other games and the pregame shows of their game). Supporting groups with buses full of stuff, food, booze... Inflatable dolls, flags, power generators, you name it. It's a great spectacle to walk around the parking lot of a stadium the morning before the game. Here are some pictures so you can see for yourselves.

Macy's

Macy's is a department store. But it's huuuge. It occupies a whole block (between Broadway and 7th Avenue, and 34th and 35th Street), and it's got like, 12 stories. You can imagine like 10 times the El Corte Inglés in Plaça Catalunya [one of the largest department stores in Barcelona]. It's unbelievable. It even has a Starbucks on level 3 and a McDonald's on level 7. And it specializes in clothes, complements, and housewares, unlike El Corte Inglés, which has books and electronics. Not in Macy's. It boasts the title of "the world largest store", and very likely it is. Macy's is always full of people.

Founded in 1858 by R.H. Macy, occupies the current location since 1902. The house on the corner of Broadway and 34th St. is a separate property, which Macy's rents from the owners, and covers it with red signs so as to look like it's Macy's too. It has one of the oldest escalators in the world, between the first floor and the lower level. It's made of wood. Looks weird.

The "other" New Yorkers

They say that in New York there are more rats than people. It's not difficult to see them on the subway tracks, and since the first day I saw one, I wanted to catch them in a picture. I finally did the other day, there was this big rat with a little mouse.

But the ultimate has been today, when I found one in my office! I threw my morning Dunkin Donuts coffee cup to the trash can, and then I hear this noise coming from the can. I looked and there it was, a little mouse, very tiny, but gross nonetheless.

Turns out that since the cleaning crew stole some computers, the offices simply aren't cleaned. If you want a clean office, you clean it yourself. Unbelievable.

Anyway. All things considered, I think New York, as famous and glamorous as it is, it is a tad dirty for my taste. I've seen cleaner places.

Gone, baby, gone

Last night Albert and I saw a movie. Gone, baby, gone is a thriller about a missing girl, and it deploys a fascinating moral dilemma over what's the right thing to do. See the spoilers below if you don't mind, but I recommend you see it, it's not the same if you know the ending. It's based on a book by one of my favorite authors, Dennis Lehane.

Lehane is the author of Mystic River, the book on which the movie with the same name was based, starring Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins, and directed by Clint Eastwood. Besides Mystic River, Lehane is the author of a series of five novels based on a detective couple, Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, who live and work in Dorchester, one of the worst Boston neighborhoods (and where Lehane was born and raised). Gone, baby, gone is the fourth book in the series. I highly recommend Lehane's books to everyone.

And as a side note, the premiere of this movie in the UK has been delayed due to the similarities with the case of Madeleine McCann, the missing English 4-year-old girl.

SPOILERS

(highlight with your mouse to read)

The movie is about a missing girl, but it's all a ploy by the chief policeman, who lost his own daughter a few years back. He arranges everything to keep the girl, planning her supposed death at the kidnappers' hands. The moral dilemma comes because the real mother is a drunk druggie, and Kenzie, when he uncovers the whole case, will have to decide whether he stays mum and lets the cop keep the girl, where she can live a normal, loving life, or he blows the whistle, probably sentencing the girl to a life of poverty, drugs, or prostitution. Moreover, Angela has clear and strong ideas about the subject, so he risks losing everything...

The Brooklyn bridge

Today I wanted to take a walk and the weather was good, so I thought I'd walk across the Brooklyn bridge. The Brooklyn bridge is 5,989 feet long, and is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the US. Built between 1870 and 1883, at the time of its construction it was the suspension bridge with a longest span in the world, and the two supporting towers were the tallest buildings in the Americas. The engineer who designed it planned for the structure to support six times more weight than it was needed, and that's the reason it is still standing today.

Besides the six lanes for cars, it has an elevated platform for pedestrians and bicycles. It takes almost exactly half an hour to walk across it. Here's a picture, taken from the middle of the bridge, where you can see its structure and the Manhattan skyline.

In this other Southbound picture, you can see a small Statue of Liberty. Also you can see Governor's Island, and at the back, Staten Island, the fifth borough of New York. You can also see the orange-colored Staten Island ferry. This ferry is free, and it goes by the Statue of Liberty, so it's become one more tourist attraction.

Bumper stickers

Here in the US there is this long-standing tradition of bumper stickers, that is, stickers you put in the back of your car to declare your opinions on something, politics, religion, or whatever. Here's an example:

Here, the owner of the car declares that he can't wait till January 20th, 2009, the last day of Bush in office. But this other one I think is fantastic:

If you are one of the four people in the world who still don't know, Voldemort is the ultimate evil guy in the Harry Potter books. So, first this sticker causes a smile, since it is using this fictional character in a political context. But the real message is that if Voldemort were real, he'd be a Republican, and this kind of means that all Republicans are evil. Can't do a much better job in just three words.

Peace Nobel Prize

I find out that they have awarded the Peace Nobel Prize to Al Gore. In my opinion, this is blatant proof that this prize is completely worthless and they give it to almost anyone.

Former winners of this prize are, among others, Henry Kissinger (puppet master of Latin American dictators), or Yassir Arafat, Menahem Begin or Shimon Peres, presumably for bringing peace to Middle East. You can take a look over there to see the peace they brought.

In Gore's case, he is just a rich boy who wanted to be president and lost (or rather, was robbed), and now dedicates his time to tell us gloomy tales about global warming. To do that, he gives inspirational speeches at $100,000 a pop, and produces commercial documentaries to cash in on people who are environmentally concerned.

I'm not saying that he is not doing anything interesting for the environment, he is, but he is not an altruist, and I believe the Nobel Prize should go to someone who has a longer history of fighting for humanity, and not to someone who a few years ago was just a politician. Had he won the election he would not have done anything for the environment (what did he do when he was vice president?)

Precisely the opposite to the Nobels in literature, physics, chemistry or medicine, which are quite impressive and really significant, the Peace one is weak. There's so few people fighting for peace that if one of them all but moves a pinkie, they give him the Nobel.

By the way, check out the contract for Gore's talk in San Diego, at the link above to The Smoking Gun. Airfare for Gore and a partner, $12,200. I will defend the climate, but I fly first class...

And while we are at it, mathematicians' legend has it that Nobel didn't make a mathematics Nobel prize because his wife cheated him with (or left him for) a mathematician, named Mittag-Leffler. Although it seems the legend is false.

Autumn in New England

New England is the northeastern corner of the US, and it includes the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Although southwestern Connecticut is really a suburb of New York and it shouldn't be considered New England. They root for the Yankees and not the Red Sox after all, so they aren't real newenglanders.

One of the most interesting features of New England is the intensity of its deep forests. Weather is quite wet, and that makes for incredibly green woods. And in the Fall, the leaves start turning, from their original green, to different tones of ochre, brown and even deep red. You can see an example here, taken in Maine this weekend from the car (with great peril to my life XDDD).

Here's another example, a tree which is starting its process, taken Saturday on the Bowdoin College campus. Imagine the sight of going up a mountain, and seeing the next one covered with a cloak of all colors, from green to red.

It is very spectacular to see a tree with its leaves deep red. See these two beautiful trees, which flank the door of the Tufts math department. My office window was in front of the right hand one, and in the Autumn afternoons there was this red glow coming in through the window. Quite spectacular.

Maine

Today Sunday I arrived from spending the weekend in Maine. Maine is the notheast corner in the US, see it in the map, and it is famous for its woods, mountains, and the rocky coast. Also for a large Navy base, and for its lobsters. It's really beautiful, quiet, and people are very friendly. I have been visiting my friends Jen and Thom, professors at Bowdoin College, and their lovely kids Maia and Micah.

During this trip I have experienced some sensations I hadn't felt in a long time:

• The pleasure of driving during hours on the impressive American interstates. These big highways, with six or eight lanes, give me an incredible feeling of freedom. I love it.


• The beauty of the New England Autumn. This deserves a post by itself. Next post.


• The feeling of being at 44 degrees again. Being cold when you take your clothes off, then get under two comforters and warm up. Mmmm.

Tomorrow back to work.

Visit

This weekend I have had the pleasure of hosting Jaume, a good friend and coworker. Jaume is visiting the University of Delaware for the month of October, and since I was here he decided to spend a weekend in the big city. We have spent a very enjoyable weekend walking around New York. In the picture we are sitting at an outside table in Union Square.

And a warm hi to all our friends and colleagues back in the department, especially to Mónica, Xavier and Narciso.

Les Misérables

Last night we went to a Broadway play. The play was "Les Misérables" at the Broadhurst Theater, on 44th Street, and I must say I was quite pleasantly surprised.

Based in the well-known, melodramatic novel by Victor Hugo, Les Misérables tells the story of Jean Valjean, a French ex-con who climbs back to a respectable life and ends up in the higher classes of Paris, living first-hand the social events taking place in the first half of the 19th century, right after the Napoleonic Wars.

Having read the more than a thousand pages of the 19th-century drama, I was wondering how they were going to fit it in a two-and-a-half-hour musical, but they do a great job. The stage has a moving, circular part, which lets the company change the set very quickly and scenes just go by at a fast pace. The singers were exceptional, with wonderful voices, and I really wanted more. Maybe I'll go to see some other musical before I go back to Barcelona.

I recommend to anyone the TKTS service, where you can get tickets for same-day Broadway plays at half price. It has two locations, one near Times Square and one down on the Seaport area. Get there early, the lines are long.

The New York Subway

This blog wouldn't be complete without a post about the Subway. The New York Subway is really the city's soul, without which it would collapse immediately. With 2058 miles of tracks, 734 stations, and more than 4 million travelers every day, it is the way to move about the city we can't do without. Everybody in New York takes the subway, rich and poor, white and black. Even the mayor takes the subway to work.

The New York Subway has some features that make it different to the rest. For instance, it is so big, that it has local lines and express lines. The express lines only stop in every fourth or fifth station, and they are great when you have a long trip. Obviously, the local lines and the express lines can't go on the same tracks, but they do share the stations. This is possible because each line has four tracks, two in each direction. This is the most important feature of the New York Subway, in each direction you have two tracks, the local track and the express track. You can see the green line (4,5 and 6) in the picture, which is a detail of the subway map, of the 5th Avenue area. Lines 4 and 5 are express, and line 6 is local. On 59th and on 42nd Street, they all stop, but on 23rd, 28th or 33rd, only the 6 train stops. The same way, in the orange line, the B is local while the D is express. The only way the express trains can pass the local ones is if they go in separate tracks.

As everybody knows, the New York Subway never closes, it runs 24/7. Again, this is possible because of the four tracks in each direction. In every subway in the world, the tracks need maintenance, and to be able to do it, the tracks have to be empty for some time (usually at night). That's why the Barcelona subway stops from 12 to 5. I had a student once who worked in the subway maintenance and he told me that they run up and down all night repairing tracks.

In New York, thanks to the double track in each direction, they can fix one track while the trains in that direction can still run on the other track. This is crucial to be able to keep the train running at all times. But then, at night, or on the weekend, the local or express lines can change at any time, or run on a different track than they normally do. You can be riding a local train and suddenly they announce that it's running late and it becomes express. So you see some people getting off, because it doesn't stop at their station, and some others quite happy because now they arrive faster. Or you can find the train running on a different track than usual, which can be quite confusing.

Every weekend there's a long list of changes, due to maintenance, and which you can see in the weekend changes website. The employees post the changes signs in each station, which you must read if you are taking the subway at night or on the weekend, because your train may have changed.

As you can see, this coming weekend (October 6th-8th), the C train doesn't run. In small print you can read that you must take the A instead, which is the express in the same track. But if you were expecting the A to be express, now it's local. And so on.

The New York Subway has its own jazz song, Take the A train, by Duke Ellington. It's said in it that the A is the fastest way to get to Harlem.

A ticket is $2. If you use a MetroCard the ticket goes down to $1.66. And there's daily, weekly and monthly passes. I am currently using a monthly pass, which is $76.

Anyway. The New York Subway is expensive, dirty and chaotic. But it also is fast and reliable.

Winter Crocs

I am sure all of you know the Crocs, those rubberized clogs/sandals that have become quite the rage this Summer and which are so ugly (but so comfortable). I am sure many of you who think they are ultra ugly are thinking that people won't wear them now that Winter is coming. Well, think again.

Digital Life

Yesterday, my friend Albert and I went to Digital Life, the computer fair at the Javits Center in New York.

It was OK, but I thought it was small and actually not that great. Madrid's SIMO is much better. But anyway, we spend a couple hours, and we saw a few novelties. The best was a stand where they were giving away tattoos with the company logo.

When I was a kid, these tattoos were called calcomanías. [Removable tattoos for kids]