That is a real bonafide humbling experience. I walked down the west side of Manhattan from 25th street and suddenly a large hole appears behind a building. Ground Zero. If you do not expect it, you really just halt and try to grasp what happened there.

NY is beginning to grow on me, although I really do not see myself living here. It is just too large. But lower western Manhattan really is a nice place to walk around; Hudson River park is a heaven for runners and cyclists. The fact the sun is shining today makes up for a lot I guess.

They are forecasting storms for tomorrow, so I'll probably just stay home and tinker on the prototype.

"How's New York treating you?" It is a normal question here, people wonder what your opinion is about the big apple. Everybody has a different story, but some elements are the same.

You never have to be bored if you are in the mood for a day out in the town. The city lives and breathes 24/7, but in the evenings the bars and restaurants really take over. Choice enough, you might even say too much choice.

For me as a western European I notice a lot of other differences, a lot have to do with the default attitude of the people here; you take care of yourself. That brings its own mentality, especially here in the big city. It really is a mixture of the up-and-coming, the now, old news and the forgotten...

Most people are friendly, but I get the feeling that attitude is something you have to earn and work hard for. Being introduced by friends gives you that privilege, but you can really feel that is not the default.

Today I recovered from the flight to the states and I probably need tomorrow as well. It is humid as h*ll here and the temperature makes it tropical. I walked around the neighbour to see where I have to be next week and it POURED. I almost got soaked with an umbrella. So I went back and read up on university stuff, read my book and chilled with some music.

People know I do not like big and crowded cities and NY is no exception; for now, I'll take Stockholm any day of the week. But hey, I still have 9 more days to adjust that attitude.

We voted for kommun and landsting today. We are not full-fledged Swedes, so we are not allowed to vote for parliament (Riksdagen). For us Dutchies this was new, normally we vote for everything separate, now we could vote for the whole shebang in one go.

The system is quite okay, but it involved a lot of paper. Especially because you get the names for every type for every party in your mail, delivered by every party themselves. And the adverts on the street could almost be called extreme littering. It was funny to see the environmental party missing, admitting the pollution, but that could be a coincidence.

So you pick three pieces of party paper and you can select a specific member, but it is not required. You see a lot of people take a lot of papers inside to hide their affiliation, which seems like a bit of a waste. You put the paper in an envelop and give them to the people sitting there. To let them see the difference between the different colours (yellow for Riksdagen, blue for landsting and white for kommun) there is a small open corner so they can see if you did not by accident chose a wrong piece of paper.

The whole election was quite educational and interesting. You really try to relate the parties to the ones you already know. For most there is a 1-to-1 relation, but there is always a twist. What is "different" is the pre-elections coalitions, almost forcing two options; we'll see how that will work out with such a small gap.

Tonight we will probably barricade ourselves in front of the TV and see whether they also have a fancy touch screen.