Thursday, 20 November 2008

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New York, New York Big City a Dream
Written by Pablo Castañeda   
00019issue_13.jpgA couple of weeks ago I had a business trip to New York, I needed to leave Guatemala and get to New York ASAP as I was helping my brother to place a hotel supply order for Guatemala. Not only I love to do business but to travel so I guess it was going to be a perfect time for us.

I guess I was really excited as I'd never been there before. I was looking forward to visiting this enigmatic place that has been going through a lot of changes. I guess after September 11th New York turned into a symbol of hope and freedom all at once. More than anything else I wanted to visit the Statue of liberty and the Empire State building, but it was a good experience to visit both places, so full of history and meaning. People from all over the world visit these two places. I was amazed that after this tragedy New York is so full of life.

I always heard about the subway systems so I really wanted to live the experience and I was impressed with the amount of people that travel every single day in those. You have to be fast and clever to make sure you don’t get lost of you get the wrong station, that was a good experience for me. But guess what during; the experience my friend Jan and I, got lost, they funny thing was that she supposed to be the tour guide as she was in NY a couple of years ago, not only that but she was getting tired and I love that kind of rush and she doesn’t. So it was a tense and fun experience for me.

00021issue_13.jpgWe got to the point that she decided we were going to take a cab, and we did once we though our salvation was the cab. Our hopes were destroyed when we realized the guy didn’t know how to get to our final destination in Brooklyn, and then I got so mad that I told the guy to simply stop the cab and go from there. He felt really bad and guess what? He was from somewhere from the Middle East so the stereotype was true, all those taxi drivers are from India, Pakistan, or so. After that we were able to find a subway station that will take us home (hotel) , we were so tired after that, I think we walked all together like 10 to 15 miles and we were not in out best moods.

After that we got to a place where we needed to take a bus that will take us in front of the hotel. The bus was packed and we didn’t sit together or so. So our plan was that we going to get off one bus stop before the hotel to some food and then walk to the hotel. Along the ride I guess I understood that plan was different so my friend got off at the bus station and I waited until the next one.

There I’m getting off at the hotel bus stop and my friend wasn’t there, it was the most funny experience of the day, I was laughing so hard and she wasn’t having fun, she was 2-3 blocks away from the hotel so I walked to find her and there she was starting to cry, I guess we got to live or feel the experience in a different way. Well I need to remember women enjoy living an intense drama. At the end we ended up having dinner at this really nice rest-café from the neighborhood, it was a great experience. It was one of those cafés where everybody knows everybody and they are a big family, I felt we were the only strangers but they treated us like one of them.

At the end all I can say is that New York is one of the most amazing places you can visit, in fact in two weeks I’m going back.

 

00022issue_13.jpg That tells you something.

 

Pablo Castañeda is a Guatemalan writer and spends his time between his country and the U.S. He is the author of Latin Lovers: Do We Really Exist? To read Pablo’s complete bio, click here

 




  
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