
Recently I had the luxury of traveling to New York City for the first time in my life. I was curious to see the city that I’ve heard so many people talk about. Apparently the weekend we decided to travel there, New York was experiencing a storm and temperatures of 38 degrees, down from the bearable 65 degrees it had been just the week prior. It didn’t matter nor did it sour my experience. Instead I embraced what the city had to offer me.
Aside from first noticing how grandiose it really is, I got the feeling that I wasn’t in San Francisco anymore, nonetheless Los Angeles. There was something different about the people, about the place and culture. I picked up on some sort of unspoken connection. I couldn’t help, while walking downtown, to wonder how erractic and stressful it must have been during the 911 fiasco, but I don’t want to turn this post into a piece of melancholy, so…
One thing is for sure 3 days in New York is not nearly enough time to explore and get a taste of what this wonderful state and city really have to offer, but I was able to savor a sip of New York city. The other unique aspect of my trip is that I didn’t just spend the entire time in Manhattan, I started out in the less touristy areas. After we stepped off the plane we started out on a 2 hour subway ride to the very last stop in Brooklyn, Flatbush Avenue.
It is in this neighborhood that I visited my first White Castle, being aware of the many references this chain has provided for popular culture ( i.e. Beastie Boy songs and the ever popular Harold and Kumar). It was here, while waiting in line for my sliders that I first thought about escapsim. Being hundreds of miles away from home and in this large, urban city that I had immediately fallen in love with, I thought about how exciting it would be to just drop everything and move. Hundreds of miles away from the problems that were bogging my mind down. I thought about all the american authors who’ve played with the idea of escapsim in their works and it was in this moment that I truly understood the allure of it all.
The rest of my trip, which flew by, consisted of one day in Manhattan and an entire day visiting the streets of Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn. I enjoyed all the sites I got to see and all the food I got to eat. Including the quintessential street side peanuts of which my best friend had told me about. She mentioned the sweet smell that engulfs the downtown air. I enjoyed the shopping and enjoyed seeing the many styles of all people rich and poor which I must say have a sense of how to put things together.
While it was my first bite of the big apple it certainly is not the last and I am itching to go back already, and perhaps maybe one day I’ll call New York home for at least a small period in my life. What I can say is that my first bite was crisp and cold, the way I usually like to enjoy my apples.





