New York: If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere...

So I've been moved into New Haven for a few days, though it seems like I've been here longer from the amount of things I've been doing.

My mother and I drove down on Sunday. It took longer than expected, we didn't consider the waiting time at customs and traffic but we eventually arrived after braving through intermittent downpours and of course, stopping to have a picnic on the trunk of our car at a parking area by the side of the road.

Before leaving, my mom bought Maryn and I some freshly ground espresso and biscotti - after all, we are living in New Haven's Little Italy. The three of us went for a walk around Yale campus and visited the beautiful Sterling Library - where you'll be sure to find me quite often once fall comes around.

Maryn and I have been fixing up the apartment and right now we're only missing a few things but the place is already starting to feel very cozy. A "new haven" if you will. Please forgive me for that, I was bound to use that pun sooner or later.

We've met a number of our neighbours already and everyone seems so nice. Not only that but everyone is so diverse: a history student who was a painter for fifteen years before deciding to do his PhD, a writer, a law student, and so on.

Today we made our way to New York so I could visit Columbia and get acquainted with the train and subway systems. The trip isn't too long, about an hour and a half and it was pretty easy to get around once we knew where we were going.

Once I signed in at the university and did some of the necessary paperwork, we took a campus tour and learned some interesting factoids about Columbia, for instance: the French language house used to be an insane asylum, the Italian language house was commissioned by Mussolini and the lawn in front of the library is paid for by the royalties from The Ghostbusters movies.

Apparently they filmed a lot of scenes on campus and the school didn't expect the movie to be a hit but after it did, they continue to receive royalties from it and so now they replace the grass on the lawn almost every week because they don't know what else to do with the money. Seems like they should spend the cash on other things but hey, why look a gift horse in the mouth, right?

I saw many of the buildings I'm going to be taking classes in and yes, I'm a bit of a keener because I can't wait to start. After all, Columbia is where the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William S. Burroughs met; Leonard Cohen had a brief stint here; and they award The Pulitzer Prize on campus every year. Maybe some of the campus' literary history will rub off on me and get my creative juices brewing.