USA trip 27 April – 4 May 2014 Pt VII: Cancellations and New Jersey

Myself and the other two colleagues went to Penn State University on different agenda. Unfortunately, mine was cancelled due to some technical reasons at which that personnel emailed me later explaining. We had to rush the next day to Newark airport as one of us was going to catch a flight to Washington DC. As for me, I got a meeting tomorrow with a professor from University of North Florida who wanted to meet me for an attachment at UTP. He will fly to meet us at Newark. However, he also cancelled. So that was it. All official business done. I got another two days for leisure. Mind you, this leisure time was paid on my own, OK!

Because of that, I had to move to a cheaper hotel within my budget (Days Inn Newark). It was a double storey, small room just like you see in NYPD kind of tv drama. In fact, on one of the nights, there were an argument of a couple with screams and F words. I was living in an American dream!

New Jersey is an old city mostly populated by black american. At the area of Clinton, I cannot find a single white while we were driving around. Talk about segregation of the population.

But the main agenda of taking two extra days was not to stay in the cheap hotel. The agenda was, to get a bus and head for New York! Not that this was my first visit to New York, this was probably the umpteenth time but who can get enough of it?

So my plan was this… the 1st day, I’ll do some crate-digging in the so many record stores at the New Village area of New York. Then on the second day, I will be immersing myself at the Central Park. Let’s see how it goes.

Jumaat prayer. We were early. There were ladies as well at the back. Our congregation was about 20-30 people. It must be a different experience to be a Muslim in the USA. The gist of the khutbah was not to whine but strive hard. That is what being a Muslim about. Whining is a thing that Malaysian Muslim does every time. And also fighting each other on miniscule matters.

Posing time!