Planetina

In keeping with tradition and escaping the central European December, made me wonder where can I go this year to get more sun and to climb. Because I needed some advice I asked father Google about the destinations and he recommended some spots in South California and Nevada. So I booked a ticket for the States and was looking forward to some warm temperatures. But first I wanted to see the city that never sleeps, so I went to New York, New York…

The US is huge, and so it is impossible to escape the winter completely, meaning I was not surprised by the temperatures that were awaiting me in New York. The first surprise was this symbol: °F… If I wanted to know how many Celsius degrees that is, I needed to do the math: [°C] = ([°F] − 32) × ​⁵⁄₉. Okay, I will have some daily brain exercise here I guess 🙂 . Another problem was the time zone change, my day got longer by 6 additional hours, turning me into a baby, seeing as I wanted to go to sleep at six in the evening. And of course the a.m. (lat. Ante Meridiem for “Before Noon”) and p.m. (lat. Post Meridiem for “After Noon”) for time. Something else that confused me were the dates… the first number stands for month and the second for the day, which is the contrary of what I am used to…

European dates were also confusing to my couch surfing hosts, because it looked like I want to stay with them for months 🙂 . But as I can communicate in English it helped to overcome some misunderstandings 🙂 . My first stay was in Brooklyn, where I had some nice grounding by walking bare foot with my host through the Prospect park. It was freezing, but a nice experience for 2 minutes with nice sensation in the feet afterwards. During my stay I went everwhere by foot and so I also managed to walk to Manhattan by taking the Brooklyn Bridge.

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Then I changed location and went to another host to New Jersey and got a surprise that I changed the State just by crossing the Hudson River… I actually left New York by taking the PATH train and went to fourth smallest State in America. What I liked about New Jersey was the atmosphere there… the streets weren’t crowded and there was space between the buildings, so I actually felt like I was outside and not captured between four walls, like Manhattan makes you feel. It was quieter and you can see the Statue of Liberty if you walk down the State Park of Liberty. The prices here are also more reasonable from groceries to rent for apartments.

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Walking down Manhattan is hard core stress. So many people walking down the streets… But there are also some nice parts that are not that crowded for example, West Village, which is more known as the bohemian part of the city, where the artists live. I headed towards the Central Park, because I wanted to see the boulders, where it is possible to climb. After hours of walking I realised that the city is big, I didn’t manage to get there before nightfall. When I reached my desired location I went for a walk in the park… it felt spooky, so I then walked to 5th avenue to be more in the well lit streets.

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The walk through the 5th avenue is exhausting, sooo many people, it was really tiring, but I met my host and he took me to a nice chocolate place, where I earned myself a delicious hot chocolate 🙂 . I must say New York is a place to visit once, but I can’t imagine living there. The winters are really cold because of the wind, the prices are damn high and also the working hours there are just crazy…

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As Sinatra sings “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere”, filled me with confidence for my next destinations in the US. ‘So where next???’ you ask, Hm… let’s find out in the next post 🙂 …