With all the canceled flights, I only got to spend three days in New York, rather than the whole week I'd planned.
But as our cab came within sight of the city by night, I honestly did not care. I was enraptured by the beauty of the city; I loved the narrow streets, the old houses, the bright lights, the irate honks of cab and other drivers.
So what was little old suburban me doing in the city that never sleeps? As an early college student, I went to New York on a study-abroad class through Weber State's art department with my aunt, a student who let me know about the trip in the first place. So I got my schoolwork taken care of, saved my pennies, packed my bags, and eventually found myself standing outside of the Big Apple Hostel on west 45th Street between 6th and 7th. Avenue, that is -- sorry, I forget you didn't have to live there and ingrain the system on your brain. It's confusing, but a good experience.
Once our bags were in our rooms, we walked the minute or so to Times Square. Everywhere lights and sound, even at 1 in the morning.
Oh, it gets better.
Every day, we toured art museums of New York. We got to see the Whitney Biennial, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), and, my favorite, The Brooklyn Museum. Every single day! And we also had tickets to pre-shows of Nathan Lane's new musical, "The Addams Family," which was SOOOO amazing!!
Oh, yeah. I was enjoying myself immensely, and earned two college credits for my trouble. We had to do a lot of research for this beforehand, especially on the artists at the Whitney Biennial and on William Kentridge, a South African artist who has an exhibit at the MOMA. So it wasn't all fun and games, but still fun to learn and get such a culture shock.
I was actually a little worried about this trip, being the only early college student (which I thought others might see as "glorified high school pipsqueak") among serious art majors much older than I who could paint, sculpt and photograph circles around me. But everyone was very kind and accepting, and I even made a few new friends.
I have two stories about adventures in getting around the city. On the way back to the hostel one day, we discovered Viand on Madison Avenue. It's a little diner where I found the greatest lemon meringue pie EVER! Lemony filling that was sweet but just tangy, and meringue piled high with a texture like whipped cream. That was the good experience.
The other one wasn't good at all -- at first --and came the very next day. Some of us went to the Museum of Modern Art and were to meet everyone else at the Met later. After seeing the museum, we perused the subway map to plan our return. We would take B train or D train, whichever came first, to 81st Street, get off and walk across the park to the Met.
What nobody told us was the D train, which came first, is an express train that doesn't stop until ... we landed ourselves in a high-crime area of West Harlem. Four women, no guns, no knowledge of Sean Connery's more advanced techniques, and all the taxi drivers -- save the one we eventually found -- were just getting off work. Our taxi driver and Angel of Mercy, Ivan, took us out of Harlem by the scenic route. And this was when it got good.
The sun was shining on the East River, we were driving under an el-train bridge, we could see trees and pretty buildings on our left, with Jersey on our right. And then, to top it off, as we were relieved and breathless, "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys came on the radio: "New York ... /Concrete Jungle where dreams are made of/there's nothing you can't do."
That's what it felt like there -- each corner holding a new adventure, bringing you closer to your dreams.
Lindsey Larson is a senior at Roy High who enjoys reading, writing, acting and watching movies. E-mail her at chocolate.anonymous.19@hotmail.com.
Comments