I’m Daniela, coming from Berne, Switzerland and doing a four-week internship at the Wf360 Company. This is my first time in New York but I have already traveled around California and Florida. I have been in New York City for almost 8 weeks. I love it!
This whole 24-hour lively atmosphere amazes me. I live in Chelsea right on 8th Avenue, at 25th Street. Even though the apartment is on the 18th floor I still hear every siren and every other possible noise coming from the streets. So I live directly “in it”. Sometimes when I watch TV I don’t know whether a noise comes up from the streets or if it’s in the background of the movie. That sometimes makes me feel I am in my own movie.
Once I sat at a table at the window in the Starbucks in Grand Central Station when out of the blue the woman sitting next to me started to talk to me. This is another thing I like about New York and still surprises me every time. In Switzerland it is uncommon to start to talk with somebody you don’t know. If it’s not in a bar or in a club, it’s quite unusual. Here, people start a conversation with strangers anywhere, whether waiting in a line or in a stuck subway or in a store. And when they hear my accent, they are curious as to where I come from. Even if it’s only small talk it might lead to some kind of relationship. It makes the whole adventure here in NYC even more interesting because you don’t know whom you might meet on any given day.
To get back to this woman in the Starbucks - she asked me “Isn’t watching people here better than TV?!”. Of course I agreed. Both of us were observing all the many different people passing by. There was one man who stood out from the crowd. He was standing close to the wall, while all the people were rushing by, trying to catch their train. Nobody noticed anybody else; they were too busy getting as soon as possible to wherever they were going. This man was very nicely dressed and was holding a bunch of flowers. He had already been waiting for quite a long time and kept checking nervously on his blackberry. So we wondered about him, and were talking about who he was going to meet and guessing about what that person would look like. Who would it be? A good friend, his mother, a first date? Finally there was a happy ending to our “movie.” A pretty woman arrived and they happily walked away, hand in hand.
That is how we started our conversation, and ended up talking for almost 1 hour and half. We agreed on how important it is to always take some time for one’s self, even if it’s short, just to escape from the daily stress and rush.
It is always so interesting to see how other people think and you can always learn a lot. We even made an appointment to meet another day, to continue our chat. For me this was one of the nicest experiences during my stay here. To get to know people to whom you somehow feel connected, and you share similar points of view makes me feel more at home here.
Another example of a lovely encounter: yesterday, sitting the first time on the bus M104, I was looking around to make sure I wouldn’t miss my stop. The elderly lady next to me started to talk with me, in order to help me. It turned out that she also spoke German and has relatives in Switzerland. She told me she has been living for more than 70 years in New York. I was impressed by her lasting delight in the city. It was funny;- she sounded like me when she was saying that she loved the city and that there was always so much to do.
It’s true that there is a wide range of great activities around the city. From the different neighborhoods to explore, to all the shopping stores – which sometimes are open even late at night – to the Broadway shows and Exhibitions, to the wide nightlife and great varieties of restaurants with food from all over the world. Just to mention some…
In New York it’s impossible to get bored, even if you just sit somewhere to relax or rest your legs from all that walking, you have an interesting movie flashing by in front of your eyes. And it’s all free.
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