Angel Esajas

New York, NYC, the city that never sleeps, the Big Apple, a town that is famous as a place of movie scenes, or the concrete jungle where dreams are made of… you name it! As soon as I stepped out of the yellow cab I could relate to all the names, clichés, songs, books and movies about this city. I have always thought that a lot of stories about this populous city were exaggerated. However, the New York ambiance has taught me otherwise. New York was everything I have ever heard of, dreamed of and even more.

NYC, in my opinion, is a city of small details shaped into bigger perspectives. High sidewalks, numerous calories added to the food in several cafes, huge rush and a lot of shop employees asking customers ‘’Hi, how are you doing?’’, a question which they often expect to be unanswered. I reckon the city that never sleeps as the focused delivery man who is working from early in the morning until early in the evening. Likewise the bellhop that kindly welcomed us at our residence and not to forget, the taxi driver that tried to swindle us as tourists from the moment we arrived. New York is New Amsterdam but a different one compared to ‘’old’’ Amsterdam.

The concrete jungle where dreams are made of is the place of hustle and a melting pot, since it contains a lot of diversity, both in ethnicity and in income. That diversity in income is something that really bothered me. Clearly like every play, the play called ‘’the Big Apple’’ also has a ‘’behind the scenes’’, which includes a huge amount of homeless people, high costs and inequality. I would like you to close your eyes and try to imagine the young woman I saw in Harlem. She had an aura full of dreams and ambitions, whereas she dejectedly pushed a child in a baby carriage. She didn’t seem to have any head space to even think about chasing her dreams and ambitions. She seemed to be worrying about much greater issues, like the food she and the child would need that evening. Seeing and feeling such a big contrast made me feel extremely grounded. I even felt a bit of shame because of the chances I get offered in my life and the relatively small issues I have to worry about, in comparison to the problems the young woman in Harlem gets to face on a daily basis.

You can tell that New York has inspired me a lot so far. But hold on, I think you would like to know if I received that Tiffany & Co. engaging ring, don’t you? Well, here you go: I got confronted by a situation that reminded me a bit of the movie ‘’Coming to America’’. On a cloudy yet sunny day, on our way to Top of the Rock, a man who was promoting tourist activities stopped us on the streets. We weren’t really interested in his promotion material but we did wanted to know the quickest way to Rockefeller Centre. He gently explained the route and started to ask us questions about our background. ‘’They have black people in Holland?’’, he asked a bit stunned. ‘’Yes, they have.’’, I answered confidently. He looked me straight in the eye and asked: ‘’But you like New York, right?’’ ‘’I love it.’’, I answered without any doubt. Randomly and in the rush of the moment he asked: ‘’You want to stay in New York? I want to marry you!’’ I definitely wanted to stay in New York, though, marriage seemed to fit more into the story of ‘’Coming to America’’, not into mine.

P.S. So no Tiffany and Co. ring… yet!