The trip started in Washington DC.
The first few days of my trip were for a working meeting on colorectal cancer screening. This was all very good since the people present were really talking with each other and seemed to be open for our approach for research also. The talking with each other is not so natural since they are from different medical disciplines each of which have a certain interest in promoting their test for colorectal cancer (precursors).
After the weekend I had some further talks mainly about the project on bias in case control studies, but also about some other issues of mutual interest between the cancer control and prevention people of the National Cancer Institute and our department.
My vacation started with one day in Baltimore, staying with Harry. I met him over internet. He had already come over for sharing dinner while I was in Washington. In Baltimore we had some more time together and it also gave me the opportunity to see some of Baltimore which is quite close but also quite different from Washington. I spent most of the time on my own in the Walter museum which is quite good.
After that one day I left for 5 days in New York City. There I was also staying with a Harry, though a different one. I know him since my first visit to NYC where we appeared to meet several times at different occasions. He is a dwarf which comes with all kinds of physical problems. That's is also why until my last visit to NYC he was still living with his parents in Queens. But now he has an apartment for himself on Lower East side. It is in a building mainly inhabited by deaf people. I met some other guys who I met through internet: Stephen and Gerardo. Stephen was a nice guy whom I met two times for some pleasant chatting. I met Gerardo only one time. He is a very cute and sweet puerto rican guy.
I also managed to see quite some of the variety of the gay scene concerning bars and the like. I came to the conclusion that the variety as well as the professionality of the commercial gay scene is much more and better in NYC than it is in Amsterdam which claims to be the gay capital.
I closed the trip with two days in Toronto with talks about the Canadian breast cancer screening trial. That was also quite successful since we are going to be sent all data from the trial.
There I also got a chance to personally meet with Alex who I met earlier over internet. We had a pleasant chat and dinner together during my first evening in Toronto. During the second evening we became more intimate which was quite good too. I would not stay for the night with him because I was getting too tired, later this tiredness appeared to have been from my illness. I think Alex is a real nice guy. I pity that we are so far away from each other, would that be different I would make more serious attempt to try to come to become partners.
I also had a very special room to stay in at the campus of the University of Toronto. It is a copy of Cambridge university. I was staying in the French-Canadian Room of Hart House. The building was from 1919 but nevertheless had a quite medieval atmosphere. And my room was sort of special. For instance there was a pile of old papers next to the bed, which at more thorough inspection appeared to be from books which had a hand written dedication by the original author especially for the French Canadian room, and these books had been there all the time since the dedication, which dates ranged from 1921 to 1942.