TBJ_02 Simon Geschke, Time Square and kinship can be wonderful

Dear followers, it's been quite a day for the chronicler. He is now safe and sound in his great cousin's bed in the university town of Princeton. He has travelled around 125 kilometres and is now as content as a full baby.

The first day of this journey. He had peeled out the mummy in the morning and it had remained intact. He had already put together the talisman gift from his partner Norbert on the train to Amsterdam: Simon Geschke from Team Cofidis in Playmobil. And of course something like that belongs on the bike.

Simon Geschke as figurehead; was also on in the evening

Just as the chronicler is not on his own. All the important people around him have given him their blessing for the endeavour and wished him all the best. That's quite a good thing. Very well indeed! Thank you for that.

The chronicler had placed three POI (points of interest) on the blue line and cranked them out nicely. Before that, of course, a crossover in Centralpark was part of it. A really beautiful area in the centre of the city, full of strollers, sportsmen and women and people.

One of Zaha Hadid's last works; residential building from 2017. Behind the chronicler his first customers of the day: Eileen and Paul

The house was next to a repurposed old railway line. He told the couple from Connecticut about it and asked them for answers in return. And lo and behold, they came as expected. It does work. Eileen 0-40-60, she thinks Mr Trump is terrible, Paul 10-30-60, he criticises Biden for sitting out the border issue. The chronicler has to give a few more explanations about the photo, but in the end it is done and he dutifully hands over his cardboard strip with the blog link printed on it. If they don't like it, they are welcome to write an email.

Then it will be just as he imagined it. He swims in the traffic through the heart of the city. Sex and the city of fine town houses, the colour and flashing lights of Time Square, the rather sober block of the Empire State Building. And he recognises from the building sites: the steam is not tourist steam. It is part of a district heating system.

Public steam cleaning and Times Square

And then the elegant flapping of the Path's wings at the World Trade Centre. This immediately made the chronicler's eyes water. This feather-light, innocent white monument to elegance as a response to the brutal attack of 2001.

Path Station makes your eyes water

For the chronicler, this is an ingenious building by Spanish architect Calatrava; you can put something up for four billion dollars.

The human ability to pulverise a car full of supposed enemies from a desk chair hundreds of kilometres away with the help of a drone can be described as extraordinary. The development of such weapons is similarly expensive, the mental effort similarly complex.

The chronicler prefers to stick with the built, the painted, the moulded.

The blue line forces him to take a ferry to New Jersey and leads him straight to a pretty good omelette and new customers at the neighbouring table. The sun is shining, New York has shown itself from a good side, business is good, the chronicler is happy.

A mother and two daughters are having a relaxed Sunday morning. The chronicler asks politely and explains his request. At first, Mr Trump has zero chance. But after a few questions from the chronicler, the trio of Patricia, Kim and Kerry agree on 10-40-50.

Patricia and Kim; Kerry doesn't want to be in the photo: Is she leaving because of her job?

This is followed by arterial roads whose verges are at least as littered as many in Italy, if not Africa or South America. Some streets are snow-covered with the beguilingly fragrant blossoms of robinia trees. The line also takes him through these suburbs with their tidy middle-class houses; you can even see the lawn in front of them mowed diagonally and the edges trimmed as if with a razor blade. The greater the proportion of "sub-" in the word "suburb", the further the houses move away from the street, sometimes putting a thirty metre driveway between them and the public. None of this is meant to be disrespectful! Please!

The chronicler drives almost 40 kilometres along a canal on a paradisiacal gravel road. But even in paradise it can get boring. To make sure that this doesn't happen, Finnegan and his companion Sam take care of the coarse gravel sections à la Paris-Roubaix. Finnegan is a full bike packer on the road. Everything still shines like it's fresh from the shop. It's Finnegan's first stage of a one-year break that will take him all the way to Argentina. He joins in and opts for 0-20-80. That's the way to go! Sam only accompanies him for this stage and will return home by train.

Finnegan on his way to Argentina; Bon Chance!

The chronicler has an appointment. A date with his great cousin Nyasha and her family.

Nyasha and chronicler 1992

He is happy not to have to settle down in a sober hotel and somehow search for food. No, he is welcomed with open arms, green tea, a hot shower and a terrace dinner with friends. Princeton is a university town, his hosts and friends are academics. This gives the story a completely different direction. It's amusing when Alain, the husband, objects that Jesus shouldn't be in the trio at all. He died too early. In the USA, a presidency is only possible from the age of thirty-five! The whole group then explains to the chronicler that Jesus is appropriated by the right in the USA and could be interpreted in a completely different way in the further course towards the west, i.e. in the question game. This brings the chronicler back to his niece's thoughts: Will he keep his teeth as the adventure progresses? He is optimistic. The fifteen-year-old daughter's percentages are refreshing: 20-30-50!