The most
beautiful city in the World !!! At least
some people say so. I am not quite sure about that. It’s a cool city
yes, a huge city yes, an impressive city yes and you can do what ever you want
to do there yes. And it’s such a noisy city !! YES!
We would
stay at Paul’s. I met him a year ago in Berlin
while he was travelling. He was so kind to let us stay for 5 nights (at first
we though to stay 4 nights but after a night there we decided the three of us
that it would be too short!).
We would
stay in Brooklyn, directly on 4th Avenue.
It was pretty warm and at night we would keep the window open. Sometimes the
cars were so noisy that you had the feeling the would just stop next to your
bed.
The first
evening Paul would make a little walk through Brooklyn
with us. A quite nice area but as it seems Brooklyn
has different kind of areas. I’ve read somewhere that if Brooklyn
was an independent city it would be the 4th biggest city in the
States… Hard to believe.
However,
the next days we made our way to downtown Manhattan
but took the subway straight from the beginning in the wrong direction… I would
say that I have a pretty good sense of orientation and that subway maps are not
really complicated but NYC should me that it can be tricky. Anyways the weekend
we were there half of the lines were under construction and would have some
deviations…
So day one,
Friday 25th, a long walk through Greenwich Village, Soho, Chinatown (which is really huge!! As it seems they even
have separate schools with only Asians), down to the Pier close to Brooklyn Bridge.
After that
a relaxing night at home making diner and watching a movie with Paul
Day two we
walked up pretty early as we wanted to be at 10am and some hostel and some
“famous” guy called Jerry who is around 70 something or so makes a guided tour
during… 16 hours. One guy from Boston
told us about how cool it was. We were probably 15 minutes late because of this
complicated subway system which wouldn’t run regularly.
But the
tour was cancelled as Jerry was sick :o( A reason probably to come back someday
to NYC. We decided to make our own tour and visit the “important” things of the
city: Time Square (Why is everyone talking about it. It’s nothing amazing about
it, just huge, bight and noisy!), Rockefeller Centre, Union square and then a
ride to Staten Island to see the Statue of Liberty a bit closer. She doesn’t
look that huge compared to all those huge buildings.
Last but
not least a quick walk to the Ground Zero which was basically still a big
whole.
Sunday was
a rainy day and we went to the museum. We wanted to see the Guggenheim. At
least the building but the line was so long that we skipped that. We walked
through Central Park, left Manu at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art and Steffi continued to the International Centre of
Photography. After that we met again at “Burger Joint”. This is a typical
American diner but… it is a hidden one. Eli told us about. To get there… well I
won’t tell you… well okay I will. It’s in the Meridien south from Central Park. So a pretty fancy hotel. No sign telling
you beside a little neon sign at the end of a tiny corridor. And on lunch time
a long line! Better come around 4pm or so there is more chance to grad a seat.
We walked
dawn to Broadway to the book shop called “the Strand”
which has 18 miles
of Books. Great store but better come with a book or an author in mind
otherwise it might be difficult to find something!
We made our
way to the East Village. We popped into a Music shop in
that area. It was like paradise for Steffi and I as there were thousands of Cds
of “indie” bands, folk singers and whatever… We came after an hour or so out of
the shop with around 8 cds I think…
To relax
from that we went into a little cosy place and had a tasty Chardonnay and made
our way back home.
Monday
April 28th, last day in NYC, last things to buy. It was a pretty
rainy day, we would chill in a back street of Broadway in some nice café and
finally make our way back to Brooklyn, stop at
Junior’s to get a cheesecake at eat it at home!! Very yummi and fun last night
with Paul and his flatmate John.
