Crazy Shopping I: Pizza Margherita

This is what you get when you order a Pizza Margherita in an Italian Pizza restaurant entirely run by Hispanics with Greek decor;-)
It was delicious, though. And for being a ‘medium’ pizza, it was huge. Fed two people and still we had leftovers. Probably due to the thick crust and tons of stuff on it.

Pizza Margherita from Centerbrook Pizza

Wenn man Twitter mal braucht

weil auf einmal 5 Löschzüge aus 3 verschiedenen Orten an einem vorbeirauschen und man wissen will was grade abbrennt, dann tuts natürlich nicht.

Und wo geht man dann hin und sucht nach aktuellen Infos warum denn grade Twitter nicht tut, ausser auf Twitter, bitteschön?

Inzwischen tuts übrigens wieder. Aber was brennt hab ich immernoch nicht rausgefunden.

Foto der Woche, oder so: Noch ein Nummernschild.

Oh I just love these license plates:

The Aftermath, VI: Back online. Sort of

Power in Centerbrook was restored yesterday. Cable access started working about an hour ago. It is still a little patchy though.

So, I am back online. Sort of. The fridge is empty, but functional. All mobile devices are charged. Laundry done (My mom was right, though: those American top loaders are shit).

After trying to arrange to meet Thomas in Boston this afternoon didn’t work out we’ll be heading straight for Montreal tonight. Back and online for real next week.

Hurricane Irene, the Aftermath V: No power. No Pump. No water.

The fifth day without power now. I am out of clean clothes. The ice in the fridge has all molten away. We have started throwing out all perishable food we hadn’t eaten/thrown away yet. Too bad, since just before the storm we had been shopping (e.g. ice cream) and since we’re also house sitting another place, we had two full-sized (American) fridges of stuff.

The house we’re currently staying at has the great advantage of a gas stove (and a pool! and a great view!!), so, hot meals and no more Starbucks coffee. The BIG disadvantage: water comes from a well. It is pumped up. Therefore, by now, we’re out of water. So, toilets remain unflushed. Dishes undone. We unshowered (I took the fitness studio on Old Saybrook up on their offer of free hot showers yesterday. They were really forthcoming and did not try not sign me up;-). We have a couple of jugs and we will be refilling them in the shelter soon. So, we’re not dying of thirst, no worries.

One of the disaster preparedness sites wrote in all seriousness, that we should stock up on bleach because it could be used to disinfect water. But I’d rather not try that.

The Wall Street Journal wrote about this area yesterday:

“… The quest for ice has proven to be critical. Mr. Lawrie bought 35 pounds of ice for $10 from a man selling bags to a line of people out of the back of his truck at parking lot of a restaurant of Old Saybrook”

We bought ice yesterday, too, but thats gone by now. At the package store where we bought the ice (and a sixpack), we found the following notices:

So, today we figured we might check the shelter out, and here we are. There is food, wifi (school Wifi, so Facebook and Hidemyass are blocked;-(), hot showers and a rescue dog. For unknown reasons.

The food is, well, what you would expect from a school canteen. But the people are all volunteers and really friendly.

Here are some more pictures:

Hurricane Irene, the Aftermath IV: Photos, finally, part two

Whereas in the first post today I uploaded images about the live without power in Connecticut, the following images are the few fallen trees,  downed power lines and flooded streets we encountered while driving around these last days.

Hurricane Irene, the Aftermath IV: Photos, finally, part one

We’re still without power. The ice in the freezer has melted away and our food is going bad. I could use some fresh laundry and a shower. Starbucks in Old Saybrook is online and as stuffed with people charging mobile Apple devices as usual. I do not like hanging out at Starbucks too much, so I’m just uploading a bunch of pictures now without editing them. The rumor is that power wont be back for at least another four days.

We moved to a house with a gas stove (and a pool!). At least we can cook now. It is a lot farther from this haven of connectivity, though, so it might be a while until I am back online.

Irene, the Aftermath III

there is still no power, no warm water, no gas. I am back at the Starbucks in Old Saybrook. OSB’s Main Street still seems to be the only place that has power.

Yesterdasy, Gas stations around here were either out of Gas or did not have power to work the pumps. We were almost in Rhode Island until we found a Gas Station that was open.

The weather is perfect. I’d guess about 25°C, sunshine, no wind whatsoever. At night, everything is pitch black. No electrical lights. Perfect for stargazing. And it is really calm. We are adapting to getting up and going to sleep with the sun, it seems.

Nobody knows how long it’ll take till power is back up.

We should have bought a camping gas stove or sth. I’m dying for homemade coffee and real food.

Most of the ice in the fridge has melted by now. Stuff starts to go bad. Nobody’s selling refgigerated goods anyway. So soon we ll be eating crackers, bread and fastfood only.

Sorry, still no pictures. I need to find the time to sort them.

 

Irene, the Aftermath I: Quick update

Irene has passed. Nothing happened here. A couple of downed trees. Lots of water. I basically slept through the whole storm. By 6am yesterday, the power had gone down and hasn’t come back yet. In Europe, I have never (!)experienced a power outager that long. Dear American power companies: How about putting powerlines underground at least in Hurricane-prone areas? Half the state is without power, apparently 1 million New Yorkers do not have power either.

Since I do not have US-simcards for my smartphones (another long rant some other day), I was basically completely offline. We spent yesterday afternoon driving around mostly deserted roads, with the occasional downed tree or powerline blocking it. There was mostly no wind whatsoever. Only little rain. I’ll be blogging photos later. Nothing all that spectacular though.

We still don’t have power in Centerbrook, but Main Street in Old Saybrook is back on the grid. We’ve been camping out at Starbucks for about two hours now, recharging batteries on all kinds of devices. People are standing in line out to the curb and have been doing so since the store opened. Starbucks is packed with people recharging iPhones and Laptops, having their first coffee since Saturday.

Now that more or less everything is charged, we will pack up and drive East, out of disaster struck Connecticut to Rhode Island, go sightseeing. Hoping that power and hot water will be working when we get back into town.