New York
What a crazy and awesome 4 days. It didn't go with the best of starts, as I forgot to write down the name or address of my hostel - I then couldn't find an internet cafe to look up this slightly useful information. It took nearly 2 hours of wandering the streets in the dead of night with all my luggage, this might be the city that never sleeps, but apparently it is also the city that never uses internet cafes. I finally found a computer in a takeaway pizza place - the obvious location. Somehow, it turned out I was only 2 streets away from where I wanted to be. It was a knackered but tightly wound me that checked into my hostel around midnight, that's my excuse for finding the nearest pub. A pub that had served my favourite beer (Old Speckled Hen) and my favourite whisky (Oban). I may have created my own nightmare, but I ended it with some amazingly good luck. I was bloody happy to arrive.
There's something about Manhattan - a buzz, an energy, a certain look, an international vibe. There's too much going on to say what exactly it is. I know I felt completely at home, and that I was excited each day to see another part of this huge city - a city that has so many things to see and do. I went around like an idiot, I reckon I walked more than 20 miles that first day. My feet would testify to this - they hurt like hell for the next few days. I then hobbled around the city like an idiot instead. Central Park, The Statue of Liberty, Grand Union Station, The Rockefeller Centre, Times Square, Macy's, Bloomsbury's, 5th Street, 34th Street, all the streets in between these streets and more, The MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum, The Guggenheim, The Natural History Museum, The Empire State Building, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens...a million tourists, a million workers, a never ending hive of activity and energy. Boy am I tired.
I didn't know quite what to expect from New York, even though I may have seen it a thousand times on TV. Reality is always different, and this is America, and I guess I have seen a lot and done a lot of late. My views are mixed up with my current circumstances: I can drink tap water again, I need to wear shoes and a coat, toilet paper goes in a toilet and although I sometimes need to repeat myself, people speak English. I'm sad for leaving Guatemala, and for my journey to be ending soon. I'm excited to be in a big city, to discover all these places I've seen since I was a child, to try a hot dog and to stand on a boat in front of The Lady - imagining myself coming to the land of apparent opportunity. Buildings may only be a couple of hundred years old at most, but they are big and exciting, and if the are like the Grand Union Station, they are a wonder to behold. I also like the multicultural medley of people, I don't feel an outsider here, and it's great to catch bits of Spanish, French and Polish amongst others. It almost feels like home...
