Jul 19, 2010

My American Journey. Summer 2010. A Travel Diary - Reminiscence of Teenagehood, Trashing Around



Looking through the window of McDonalds overlooking the Grand Central station across the street, there is a lot of commotion. There is no internet at home, so now I am seeking out wireless points, mostly at McDonaldses. All these people are so distracting, even if you try to ignore them. I am not very used to doing my daily surfing routine and write, even in the blog, surrounded with so much movement and crowds. A lot of motion on the streets, motor vehicles and pedestrians along with the occasional pigeon and squirrel. Yesterday I finally saw rats, two of them in the train station. It was close to midnight and there were just a few people waiting. You don’t see these notorious creatures during the day or maybe they don’t hide, but you just don’t see them because of the commuter crowds. There are a lot of squirrels in public parks and paranoid pigeons who always seem under strain.
New York, it is a big city, a vibrant one, filled with so many different peoples. A place of crossroads, where paths meet and converge. Where life paths cross for a moment amids the chaos, exchange knowledge, experience and emotion and then part again, each following its own destination.

I feel somewhat nostalgic about leaving New York after about two weeks from now. I messed things too much and don’t really have free time to stay longer. Maybe later on. Yeah, I will definitely be back, but next time it will be very different. So now just enjoy the most out of this first encounter with American culture in the Big apple and enjoy we do. Me, Samantha and Anna. I will miss them too.

Since the beginning of July I lived like I haven’t since my late teen years. Drinking every other day, doing crazy things, hanging around streets and parks and sleeping from the mornings on until early afternoons, lol, after a night out of drinking in and around the streets of Manhattan. We visited a few clubs too, though Samantha is underage and we can’t go to the real dance clubs, apart from a few. We tried Websters hall, but this place was really crowded, hot and messy, don’t think I’ll be back there again.

A lot of night clubs here have dress codes that require women to wear high heels in order to get in. Well, if this isn’t some kind of male fetish discrimination. I mean, how can you dance if you wear high hills?! This is just ridiculous and funny too, those women trying to move it with high heels on. Anyway, I don’t wear heels, even less so high and I am close to broke again, so I’m totally out of the scene, I guess, lol.

The past two weeks were tough, I haven’t drank so much since years ago. The other day, me and Sam went to a supposedly rock concert at Coney Island. The concert was dull and the music very weak, but it was crowded alright. A lot of young people, a lot of beer. We began drinking from three in the afternoon that day and finished off the last bottle of wine sometime after seven in the morning on the next day. And in between we wandered at Coney island, where I stole a bottle of beer from a grocery store, which I later broke in the train, due to a lack of properly controlled movements of the extremities. Incredible, I totally lost it here, my reasonability and mature behavior, lol.

But hey, experience is what counts and gains now, everything else is not that important. How fun. Then we went off to Times square, already quite drunk. There we met two guys “On the streets” as Samantha said on the next day when I asked her where we met those guys from yesterday, before my memory returned to me. The guys from the streets took us to a home party that turned out to be old classmates gathering, so our presence there was kind of awkward initially, but then we merged in the party. Afterwards me and Sam wandered around the streets in an attempt to go to the ferry station by walking, but I gave up on this and took the transport, then fell asleep in the bus and rode it to the last stop and had to go back. Drunken heads stories, but not with too serious excessions, of course.

Samantha still will get assignments at the more early-party clubs, so we can still go to some, though it would have been better if we were a group of friends, not strangers who just met there. Anyway, this way is fun too, all the prerequisite questions of new meetings are asked, everyone is jolly and slightly reserved. We are to explore more of New York in the week to come, trash around some more and then our paths will part, though we may meet again in another time and circumstances.