Hello from my home in Matinkylä! This is NordLetter #58, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.
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/programming notes
The thing that I should have done, but didn’t, is I should have mentioned in the last edition that I was going to be away for a while. But here’s the thing this was not the plan.
Here’s a brief recap:
- I stopped hosting my website on Ghost. Why?
- I started to build my own website with Astro.
- I decided to send NordLetter using Buttondown.
- I went on vacation.
- I came back.
- Building the website is taking longer than I had imagined it would.
The website is still WIP. Though it is accessible now. This was not at all well planned. Anyway. We move on.
/trip to NYC
We visited NYC in May. We stayed in Midtown Manhattan for the eight nights we were in NYC. Before flying we were a bit worried about immigration with all the Trump news going on. We did not face any issues during immigration.
day 1
We left Helsinki at 5PM and reached JFK around 7PM. Hello jet-lag! The JFK airport is not pretty. It feels like a Tier-2 city airport in India. That is the thought I had while waiting in the immigration line. It got dark by the time we left the airport. The city did not feel impressive then. There was a ton of construction happening around the airport. And, it was dark.
Then, we saw the Manhattan skyline from across the bridge. There truly is no place like New York.
day 2
Did I say already - there is no place like NYC.
For the next couple of days we walked around with a sprain in our necks from constantly looking up while walking. It finally made sense to me why Spider Man had to have happened here.
We ate our breakfast at Saravana Bhavan, which was a cool 2.5 kms from where we were staying. From there, we walked to Central Park. On our way there we saw the Chrysler building and Grand Central Station.
Our friends joined us in Central Park. Central Park is huge, an oasis of nature in this bustling metropolis. We walked its trails, stood on a meadow overlooking the massive skyline, saw the Bethesda fountain, the carousel, and then exited from the American Natural History museum side.
We ate our lunch at a Korean restaurant. It was an adventure in more ways than one.
Then, we roamed around town. We saw the Louis Vuitton building, the Trump Tower, the Rockefeller Center. Finally, we walked to my mecca, the 5th Avenue Apple Store.
This was my first time in any Apple store. And this, well this is, the Apple store. The store is massive. It might not look like it from the outside but most of it is a level lower. There is a glass elevator, with no visible wires anywhere. There are tables upon table of iPhones, Macs and iPads, walls upon walls of accessories and Apple TVs, and a veritable army of Apple Geniuses.
I had to buy something while I was here. And so I did. A steel band for my Apple watch. Over two further visits I got an iPad Air and a Macbook Air as well. Prerna got a band for her watch as well.
We ended the day with a banana pudding from Magnolia Bakery.
day 3
We started the day with the breakfast at Saravana Bhavan.
I saw the first of these sorts of wine/beer/coffee/tea + books places. NYC has a bunch of these. I love this.
We took the ferry from Pier 11 to DUMBO. It’s a short ferry ride, but what it allows you to walk the Brooklyn Bridge from the Brooklyn side.
Savya enjoyed himself at the pier and the Brooklyn Bridge park. For some reason, he was scared of the grass though. We walked to Dumbo, and got a picture taken there. It was full of tourists though.
From there, we walked to Juliana’s pizza. The pizza was great, so fresh. I saw a gentleman behind me order an ice cream and an espresso, pour the espresso a little bit at a time over the ice-cream and eat it. I had to have that. And so I did.
The reason you take the ferry from Pier11 to DUMBO, is so that while walking the Brooklyn Bridge the Manhattan skyline is in front of you.
We ended the day with a jaunt through South Manhattan - the 9/11 memorial, the World Trade Center Oculus, the NYSE. I got a hot dog from a stand. It was not good. The picture is nice though.
We ended Day 3 with a dinner at Spice Symphony, an Indian restaurant which had both delicious food and was across the street from where we were staying.
The rest of the days will follow in the next NordLetter.
/five things to share
1. How I wrote the notes app of my dreams (no coding required) and Why vibecoding your own apps is so amazing—and exasperating
This aligns with what I have been feeling, building this website of mine. It would not have been possible to build this without cursor. And it did delete all my posts at one point.
2. This Might Be The Beginning Of A POLLUTION FREE DELHI!
A little click-baity maybe. But any hopeful bit of news is welcome.
3.Vibe Coding Is Coming for Engineering Jobs
Is it a surprise? :D
4. Design Patterns for Securing LLM Agents against Prompt Injections
5. Survivor of racist attack now worried about his residence permit, future in Finland
Ridoy said he has been unable to return to work because the trauma has caused constant fear. “I’m afraid someone will come from behind. Or from the right, or the left. Sometimes my whole body shakes,” he explained. Walking through the city, Ridoy sometimes finds it difficult to breathe. Eventually he moved out of town— but that didn’t help either. “I can’t go out alone. I’m afraid of going shopping for example, because I don’t know who is behind me,” he said, adding that those kinds of thoughts have been continual.
If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄
Until next week.