Back in the Netherlands

Yesterday it was good being back, I missed James but the weather was nice, it was great seeing my family again, and I was hyper all day (which helped me stay awake). It's set in now, though, nobody's home but the help, the weather is grey, and I feel incredibly groggy. I'm glad my job starts next week, because I can't stand doing nothing, and I need something to distract me from thinking about James all the time.

Oh well. At least the last days were fun. As you know, we spent them in the "greatest city in the world" (James managed to make me admit it is as great as Paris, after mucho nagging), and here, at last, is my report.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon. Unexpectedly, I had to fly over Cincinnati instead of directly. It was a little annoying, but on the other hand, it means I have now set foot in 4 states, and it also meant James and I arrived in NY within ten minutes of each other. We took a van service that James' uncle recommended, which used a yellow school bus as a van, and after two hours in traffic we arrived at James' uncle's apartment in the south of the Bronx. The apartment was kind of small and dirty, but the view was amazing: we were right on the border of the Hudson.

In the morning -well, around 1 pm, when I finally managed to wake James up- we took the train to Grand Central Station, which is absolutely gorgeous. Big, with a really nice dining concourse, and over 100 tracks. From there, we walked to the NY library, another building that amazes by it's spaciousness in such a cramped city, where they had a Gutenberg bible. After seeing the library we walked up fifth avenue, seeing many of the famous shops (Tiffany and co. for example) and buildings, and the Rockefeller center. When we came to Central Park we of course went into it, and I have to admit this is where I fell in love with New York. It's great walking in this enormous, huge park, seeing the Bethesda fountain I only knew from the Angels in America opening sequence, and all along seeing sky scrapers sticking out behind the trees.

We spent the evening looking for, first, James' pizza place and, after it turned out it probably had moved, for a pizza place his parents had liked 30 years earlier. Unfortunately, when we finally found it, the pizza wasn't that great. After dinner, we walked to Times Square, which is really something to be experienced. According to my guide, nothing can be built there without neon, and it shows: huge moving bilboards you wouldn't expect outside of Japan, flashing light everywhere, een the subway signs flashed on and off.

We took the subway home, but that turned out not to be too great and idea. The train didn't stop at the station we were supposed to get out, and from the next one it was a long walk back, through a kind of shady neighbourhood.

The following day, for some reason, we left very late, only around four, and didn't arrive at Central Station until five. We bought bread and cheese at the Grand Central market, took the subway to Central Park, and had a very nice breakfast/lunch/dinner in the park. After this we spent about an hour and a half in the metropolitan museum (seeing only a small fraction, it took us fifteen minutes just to find the entrance, that's how big the thing is), and after some searching finally had real, good, NY pizza, pizza that James had been telling me for months is the best in the world.

Sunday was the big money spending day. First we did the Circle Line cruise, a three-hour boat tour around Manhattan. The guide was entertaining (though not always 100% accurate, as far as I know, "Yankee" isn't the Dutch word for "Johnny"), and it was amazing seeing the skyline for real. Of course, seeing the Statue of Liberty was really cool too. After the tour was over, we walked to the Empire State Building and -after an hour in line- went to the top. Unfortunately James got really bad vertigo up there, but I absolutely loved it. It was dark by then, and Manhattan was a sea of light. My favorite sky scraper, the Crysler building, looked especially gorgeous, but i was also the sheer scale of the island that was imposing.

We had dinner on Times Square, unfortunately at a chain, bought hard lemonade and went to James' uncle's home for the last time, staying up as long as we could (we were planning on staying up all night, but we were just too tired) to enjoy as much time together as possible. Around two, James went with me to JFK, and we had to say goodbye.

I'm not going to whine too much about how I miss him, but I do. A lot.

I loved New York, and I'm determined to go back. I mean, I have seen nothing of Lower Manhattan yet, and I feel like I only caught a glimpse of what there is to do and see there.

I had the best six month stretch in my life during this exchange. It's going to be hard to get re-adjusted to my life here, but I'm sure I'll manage. I'll cherish the memories I made forever, as corny as that sounds. I had a blast, and I want to thank everyone who made it so great, not just James but the whole 1-0-5 crew, my apartment mates, my professors for interesting classes, etc.

Interested in what I'll do from now? It will probably be much less exciting, but I'll update from time to time on the 105 blog. Also, I'm planning on making at least one more update on this blog, to tell you about my short trip to San Franciso.

Cheers, and thanks for reading!

Hedwig