Livin' it up in the big apple...

I took the Luckystar Bus (15 bucks one way) from Boston to NYC. It was quite a comfy 4 hr ride. I arrived Thursday April 3rd around 8pm and took a cab to Elizabeth’s place, who was so kind to give me shelter :P
The next day I was eager to go exploring. My first stop was Grand Central Station and then the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately you can’t really get close to the statue anymore, the only option was taking a walk around which was somewhat impressive.
I also had a look at Ellis Island, which served as NYC’s main immigration station in the early days. There was a nice Immigration Museum where I’ve spent quite some time looking at all the exhibits.
After getting back to Manhattan I took a walk to Wall Street and Ground Zero. I stopped at Century 21 (a cheap ass department store selling mainly American brands), however that place was like a zoo, I only managed to buy some socks and was happy I made it out of there alive :)
On the way home I found a small store selling HB Weißbier, it was totally overpriced however I had to get it as I was longing for a taste of home…
Elizabeth and I had a great dinner at the Spotted Pig. It was funny to see most restaurants in NYC don’t take reservations, you just have to show up and wait for a table. Then again there are worse things than hanging out at the bar having a couple of drinks until your table is ready :P

On Saturday we went for a culinary walking tour around NYC. It was a beautiful day and we started off at Union Sq Market where we bought some granola and some pretzels. Greenwich Village was the next stop, we had some falafel at Mammon’s, continued on to Soho where we stopped at Café Havana (the corn and the Cuban sandwich are awesome!). Chinatown and Jo Shanghai, which is famous for their soup dumplings, were next on the list. We concluded the walk in little Italy where I had some sorbet at Ferraros.
For dinner we went to Pastis, a French restaurant that surprisingly took reservations, and we enjoyed some excellent mussels and steak :)

Sunday turned out to be not that nice, weather-wise!
We stayed home and watched Blades of Glory left the apartment around 3pm to get some food but it was cold and miserable outside so we immediately retreated. In the evening we went to the Cinema to watch 21, which was quite an enjoyable flick, and had some Mexican food for dinner. Pretty uneventful day yet very relaxing :)
I visited the MoMA on Monday, along with the NY Library, Bryant Park and the Parker Meridien for lunch (thumbs up for their burger joint!). On top of that I took a stroll through Central Park and dropped some cash at A&F on 5th Av.
Later on I met up with Elizabeth to watch the Yankees playing vs. Tampa Bay. It was my first baseball game ever and I must admit it was truly amazing….well not so much. I’ve sat there for two hours and nothing really happened so we decided to leave after the 5th inning to go bowling which turned out to be a brilliant move as we had the opportunity to mingle with some “real” Americans and listen to their stories about bloody walls :P

After so much excitement we returned to the apartment to watch Kansas beating Memphis in this year’s college basketball final.
The Guggenheim Museum was my cultural stop of the day for Tuesday, followed by the top of the rock (Rockefeller Centre), Times Sq and some shopping at Macys, allegedly the world’s largest store. In the evening we had an amazing dinner at Yama Sushi.
My time in the US and A was coming to an end and I had to retreat to Boston on Wednesday to catch my plane on Thursday. I met up with Chris and Claire on Wednesday night for some beers to celebrate them getting rid of me :P

Thursday, April 10th, was the last day of my travels and I arrived back in Munich safely the following morning.

So that’s it.

I just want to thank all the great people, who I’ve met along the road, who helped to make this journey a truly remarkable experience for me!!

So long, hasta la vista….


Bernhard

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