New York New York

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I'm here in New York to visit my friend Ariela who I
havn't seen in three years since we met in Peru. There
will be no further mention of the Statue of Liberty,
Staten Island, Times Square and Fifth Avenue as its
already been seen and done.

I ventured into Brooklyn. This area is a burough of
New York and does have a reputation of being a
immigrant and latino neighbourhood with some areas
being extremely poor. Many Manhattaners won't venture
across into this area which they consider somewhat of
a suburb. It has a pretty comprehensive collection
including art from the ancient city of Ninevah (the
only other western museum to have reliefs is the
British Museum in London). The feature on display was
Basquiat, who was a famous graffiti turned real artist
who then tragically died of a heroin overdose at age
27 (isn't that how most artists become famous?)

To get to Williamsburg, the cool part of Brooklyn with
funky shops and restaurants, it was actually faster to
leave Brooklyn and take the train via Lower Manhattan
than it was to walk. If you're into observing
different cultures right in your own country, Lee
avenue would be one of the destinations. When walking
through there you have a feeling of not being in
America. This neighbourhood is completely Yiddish and
is supposed to be the biggest concentration of them in
America. The men wear these huge fur hats that
resemble oval hat boxes with curls of hair at the
temples. They also wear long black coats down to the
knees. Women wear hats and wigs, navy blue dresses and stockings while pushing baby strollers. Turns out that in the 17th and 18th century, the Jews wore the
secondhand cast offs from the Polish nobility. Today,
the clothing worn are exact recreations.

On the lighter side of things, we went to check out a
documentary airing with the Tribeca Film Festival. The
movie Punk: Attitude was a documentary on the
evolution of punk music. It was airing at the old
Guggenheim Soho museum which is now the Prada clothing store. Inside, the store has downward curving wooden floors that would be a skateboarders paradise.

I've also decided to try and find the best cheap
things to eat in New York. So far I've found the best
cheesecake, supposedly, (Juniors), falafel (Mamoun's)
and I'm going in search of the best cupcakes, bagels
and hummus sandwiches.

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