Got Fall?

While uploading some of my holiday photos to the (no longer quite so irritating but still damn slow) Flickr this morning, I was reminded of the striking contrast between autumn in Cambridge and autumn in Mont Tremblant, just north of Montreal. Here are two photos of the same ilk, for comparison; I don't need to say which is which.

Elizabeth I (I)

Channel 4 thoughtfully decided to show Shekhar Kapur's take on the early years of Elizabeth I's reign this evening, after I was reminiscing about it last week having seen the sequel (Elizabeth I (II)) and not been very impressed.

Mariah, Marilyn and Madison

Another early start ce matin. Today we headed down to Rockefeller Plaza for a Dean & Deluca breakfast in front of NBC's Today Show. We were wondering why there were so many policemen and purple-clad women standing outside until we realised that they had all come to see Mariah Carey talk on the show (is she still famous? I wonder if she has learned to sing yet). In any case, people were super-excited...

Golden Balls — Elizabeth: The Golden Age Review

It was inevitable that I would see Elizabeth: The Golden Age (AKA Elizabeth I II) given that a) it stars Clive Owen, b) I saw the parts of it being filmed in my college, c) it involves Tudor history (with hindsight — ha!) and d) it stars Clive Owen. In fact, I've been looking forward to the film's release ever since the filming took place during my finals (revision...Clive...revision...Clive...) and I have to say that I was sorely disappointed.

SoHo, Sienna and Serendipitous Hot Chocolate

After a rather late and mojito-filled night, I wasn't overjoyed to be woken by my parents at about six-thirty. Still, a hot shower and coffee from Au Bon Pain made me feel a whole lot better and I persuaded the parental units to catch the subway down to SoHo for breakfast.

Home, Sweet Home

Well, not really, but the more time I spend here, the more time the Big Apple is starting to feel like home. It says a lot really when a scummy, shared dorm room in an Upper West Side hostel feels more home-like than my house in Cambridge, and now I have a room to myself for the first time in weeks, the effect is amplified.

The Goodbye Girl

Another city, another coulda-woulda-shoulda, another farewell (or should that be ciao, adieu, take care or even a simple bye?). It’s odd how easy it can be to let someone into your life when you know it will be for such a brief, fleeting moment. You know you shouldn’t and that you won’t see them again and yet you have seen Before Sunrise and Before Sunset and have faith in the philosophy behind these movies. It bothers you, somehow, that your cynicism can be worn away so abruptly in the right circumstances and yet it probably shouldn’t. It is a good sign, you are sure.

After immense bullying from every American I have spoken to, I decided against catching the overnight bus from Montréal to New York last night and instead caught the train from the gare centrale this morning. It’s a long journey – ten hours – but very scenic. In fact, it feels as though I have teleported into the middle of The Last of the Mohicans (another favourite movie of mine) or Sleepy Hollow. The train travels around the Adirondack Mountains and hugs the base of Lake Champlain and then descends through the Hudson Valley at a somewhat leisurely pace.

However, my seat is comfortable, I have plenty of leg room and those thoughtful folks at Amtrak have even provided a power source for my laptop so I can write to my heart’s content and even watch a movie (Twelve Monkeys) now that I have finished the sequel to Brightness Falls, entitled The Good Life, which I enjoyed even more than its predecessor. Jay McInerney has a talent for evoking our sympathy towards the four central characters, none of whom are particularly moral.

ETA: Not so impressed with Amtrak now that I arrived in NYC at 11pm instead of 8pm. No dinner and no night-time activities for moi. Error.