Excuse me. With 864 words, this post might seem relatively long to the permanently stressed ASL student, as well as to all my other very busy friends. Is it worth reading? Maybe to some of you. Bold key terms might help guide you through it. And don’t worry, I won’t write entries of this length every day of the next 8 months :) Enjoy and comment!

Today was a genuinely good day. I rose early—about 7am—and took a short walk through Central Park, along the frozen Jacqueline Kennedy Reservoir. Maybe it’s the bleakness of trees in winter, maybe it’s the fact that I am used to beautiful (if not huge) parks in Leipzig, but Central Park did not look that great. It’s nice indeed, but in no way did it feel like a special park. Then all the way south to Battery Park and the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Overlooking the huge Upper New York Bay, seeing the distant shores of Staten Island, Governor’s Island, Ellis Island, Jersey City, and Brooklyn already changed my understanding of words like vast and huge. A thought came to mind that back in Germany, nothing might ever seem huge to me anymore. I guess I’ll have to update my idea of that term repeatedly during my time in this country. There’s more to see. Anyway, the ride to Staten Island was great. Thanks to Miriam for suggesting the ferry! Enduring the chilly air, I was rewarded with some great photographs. I would have explored Staten Island a bit, but lower Manhattan was waiting.

I boarded the next ferry and roamed the area around Broadway and Wall Street, visiting (among other places) the beautiful Trinity Church and finding that, in front of the New York Stock Exchange, you do not see any ruthless brokers with sinister smiles and hands forming a pyramid. I guess that this is legally confined to the building’s interior. I went on towards the East River and towards Brooklyn Bridge. Finding the sidewalk (which is in the middle) was kinda hard due to construction sites and stuff, but I managed. I’m quite positive this is the largest bridge I’ve ever crossed. Walking on it, it became clear to me that I just won’t ever understand how something like this is possible. Millions of tons of stone and steel, spanning a distance of I think more than a kilometer, holding their own incredible weight, defying gravity, waves, winds, and thousands of cars every day. And how do they do that? Physics. I say we can calculate that, we can learn and see that this is possible. But I am skeptical that we are really capable of comprehending such phenomena. If you can (and care to) follow me. The view from the bridge was amazing as well. I have never seen anything like Manhattan’s skyline before. Had I not experienced it myself, I would not have thought it possible, the amazement I felt today at the architectural grandeur of that city. I can’t find better words to describe it. It simply exceeds my verbal skills.

            In Brooklyn, I bought and ate my first American pear, and it was good. Then caught a train to Coney Island. Long ride again, at least 30mins, but at least not underground. The amusement park Luna Park at Coney Island was closed due to the season, and it somehow appeared to be closed since the 70s or 80s. Everything looked somewhat vintage, used. Anyway, closed amusement parks have a greater appeal to me than opened ones. The boardwalk along the beach, both partly covered in snow, was cool. I read in a tour guide that there is a Coney Island museum, so I walked a long and lonely way through a pretty run-down residential area, about 20 blocks, to the given address. What I found was no museum, but a gate to an area that looked like a gated community. I asked the guard, and he had never heard of said museum. Back I walked. About 20 blocks. Through the snow. Online I found out that the museum might have been closed a couple of years ago. 

Back to the subway, exiting at Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. The only actual plan I had before coming to New York was to visit a place where Jack Kerouac had been. Café Reggio, opened in 1927, is such a place. Very pretty. Huge Romantic paintings, bronze busts and china plates on the heavy burgundy walls, and dark wooden furniture. Crowded with people, a mixture of local boheme and non-local tourists. I found that the Village hipster does not really feature any visible distinction from his or her distant relative in Leipzig or Berlin. Home. Later I walked the streets a little more and went to a comedy club in the East Village, this time even paying for it, and ordering drinks (unlike yesterday). The host and four comedians were, in sum, quite good. I learned that in Arizona, you can buy a gun at age 17, but not rent a car until you’re 25. And there is a Puppy Bowl! Google it! After that, I decided to call it a day and headed back home.