718, BROOKLYYNN!

Finally, finally finally finally! This is really the peak of my whole American Adventure, that much I can tell you already! New York City is the coolest city on earth and Brooklyn has got to be the best borough ever. My first couple of days have been long indeed, which is not a bad thing in any sense. I wish the days here would be even longer.

My flight arrived in La Guardia airport in the evening of Tuesday, December 26. A little late but hey, it was through Denver; what do you expect after all the blizzards and all that. Some people probably had to spend their Christmas at Denver airport so I can't really complain...much. I saw New York from the plane and wow wee indeed; it is impressive to say the least! Never have I seen anything like that, built by man that is. We got the cab to our place in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and quickly settled in. It's a nice place in a very nice neighborhood. Fort Greene is quite close to Brooklyn Bridge, between Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant (also known as Bed-Stuy). Bed-Stuy is one of the less comfortable neighborhoods here in Brooklyn, at least by reputation. Home of Biggie, Jay-Z and even Big Daddy Kane himself…so I guess I gotta pay a visit if I have time.

These photos are from just around the corner...actually the upper one is from our window.

I can't even begin to describe how much I like Brooklyn so far. It's just...you know, it's seen a lot of life, or that's the feeling I get when walking around. Taking clothes to laundry, visiting the nearby deli or just walking down the streets is very, very pleasant to me and I honestly could picture myself living here. For the first time during my stay here I actually feel that I could stay here if it wasn’t for some ongoing, important things in Finland. The situation being what it is, I really could not stay at the moment, but I love this place nonetheless.

Central Park, some more Brooklyn

The first real day here we went to Manhattan and just strolled around, got to see Wall Street, Ground Zero and all that. The Empire State building we saw too, even if from afar. Managed to catch the Staten Island ferry and got a great view of Manhattan, Hoboken, Brooklyn and the Statue of Liberty. It was a breezy day but the weather was great otherwise, no complaints really. Most of the time I was just looking around, totally awestruck by the size of the buildings. It was kinda like in one of my dreams in which I was walking in New York and feeling dizzy from the height of the buildings surrounding me. We also did Times Square, which was off the hook! It was incredibly crowded there and the lights kinda reminded me of Vegas…but the amount of people, the size of the buildings, made it a totally different experience. Of course we went to Toys R Us which was the most ridiculous toy store ever, the mother of all toy stores so to speak.

On the second day we slept kinda late due to sleep deprivation but managed to get to Central Park after all, had some hot dogs and all that, and after that we went to 5th Avenue to check some high end showrooms and shops, like Nokia, Dior etc. We also went to Comic Strip to see some stand up comedy, cost like 7 bucks each. Comedy Strip is the place where Seinfeld tells jokes at the beginning of every episode by the way. It was a brilliant show mostly, but one of the performers was just horrible. Apparently they had all been on TV at least 5 times but only a couple seemed even vaguely familiar. After that, at like midnight, we went to Lower East Side, near Chinatown, for some underground-esque clubs and it was actually quite a bit of fun. Then we took a cab back home.

Today we were supposed to go to Empire State Building to admire the view over New York City but couldn’t get up early enough and didn’t feel like standing in line for 2,5 hours. So we just went to Chelsea and walked around for some hours and had some pizza and stuff. Also went shopping a little, or tried at least. I did buy one hoody from a mall at Columbus Circle. The price was right so I thought what the hell…but in reality, the only shopping I’m gonna do here is a pair of sneakers. Don’t what sneakers though, that’s what I was trying to find out today…most likely either Adidas or Le Coq Sportif…the Le Coqs were really nice for the price and are the ones I’ll probably get. At the moment, the others are preparing for a night out while I’m preparing to go to bed early to get up early for a run perhaps, and an expedition deeper into Brooklyn. Still gotta walk Brooklyn Bridge, see Coney Island, check some record stores and yadda yadda. Brooklyn!

Jugi

In the uppermost picture all three of us get to shine...Arno, me and Alex. Though I really don't shine in that particular pic :S