Another great day in New York. I spent the morning recovering from yesterday's explorations, my hamstrings and feet reminding me of how much walking/longboarding I did yesterday as soon as I hopped out of bed.

I visited Jamba Juice at Penn Station for the first time, sorely missing my daily Robeks fix. Let me tell you, it's not the same or even half as tasty as Robeks.

I decided to relax a bit and brought my computer to the Starbucks to work on a bit of my practicum project and, after struggling through some InDesign work and battling some writer's block, I was able to at least knock out part of my ongoing assignment.

Finally, my feet felt rested enough to explore further. I decided to see what the Village was like and wandered through the East Village, popping in and out of vintage clothing shops and trying to wheel and deal on used bikes. Still no luck, but I understand there will be flea markets this weekend. Most of the appeal of buying a bike is just being able to bargain for it!

Dinner was half of a rotisserie chicken at Whole Foods, accompanied by a panoramic view of Union Station and the Empire State Building poking out above the trees.

Union Station was alive, buzzing with the clack of skateboards on cobblestone and the raspy crackle of PA systems. There was an open forum where people could walk up and deliver a speech. After a few speakers offering loosely relevant and shaky arguments, I headed back for home, stopping first in the subway to listen to two very talented performers, You Bred Raptors?. It was amazing what an 8 string bass guitar and a small drum kit could produce.

I've noticed a theme in New York, and I'm sure it's not exclusive to this city; I suppose it's just more visible here.

There's a stark contrast that I've been seeing while out on the street or in the subway. One minute you're watching passengers on a subway train jump to stop the doors from closing so complete strangers can get on and not miss their train. There's nothing in it for them. There's no reward, just an exercise in human compassion. I watched a mom and her son learning math on the train yesterday. She'd hold up her fingers to show him what 2 and 2 makes. This woman cares for her son and it was fun to observe.

Then there's the contrast, the heartbreaking and ultra-realistic truth that one rarely sees living in the suburbs. Walking through Penn Station today, I watched a woman scream at passersby for no apparent reason. This encounter wasn't long after walking through Penn Plaza and witnessing an elderly African American woman scribbling in a notebook, a fresh hospital wristband dragging along the paper as she wrote. And everyone here on the street has a sign, a short, dejected plea for help and assistance:

HELP! Family is homeless. No work. Every cent counts.

Out of work. Need food or a place to stay.

It would be easy to hand each of these people $20 and hope it would make a difference but, realistically, even a thousand dollars isn't going to buy these people out of their hole.

I suppose all that I can do is help when I am able, step up and do something when I need to and try to make some small difference, even if in the long run it doesn't make a difference. Until then, I'll try to concentrate on the moments of human compassion and dignity and work to help where I can.

A few things I've learned today:
1. Don't buy gold, buy bicycles and sell them in New York. It's a greater return on investment.
2. 1 in 5 New Yorkers look like they made an appearance in Goodfellas.
3. Conversations in most other languages sound like a confrontation to ears accustomed to English.

Day 2 is coming to a close and I have a blister on my ankle that, I'm quite certain, has its own heartbeat. I suppose that's the price one pays for walking/longboarding at least 5 miles in a day-- or more.

My day started early with a trip down from my place here at 34th and 8th down to Chelsea to look for a bike. Hoping to stumble across a flea market, I eventually realized it was a futile effort and returned back to my room. On the way back, I wandered through Macy's. I was expecting something grander, something much more vast like Harrod's of London, but was fairly disappointed, minus the collection of vintage Indycars lining the cologne/perfume section.

I also watched a fairly interesting interaction take place. A man on a cell phone flagged down an NYPD car. The officers lowered the windows, asked him what he needed and the man went on with his phone conversation. The officers continued to ask him what he needed when the man walked to the back door and tried to actually enter the rear door of the police car. Hands on their guns, the officers got out and convinced the clearly confused non-native man to move along.

You really just never know what sort of surreal, bizarre nonsense you'll see here-- and this is only 2 days in!

Directions to a Goodwill and a few other thrift stores in hand, I went back down to Chelsea and still had no luck finding a bike. Bikes seem to be as valuable- and as rare- as gold here. I stopped at a Whole Foods for their lunch buffet (I've decided officially that curry doesn't taste very good, from a buffet or not) and then headed back to my room to pick up my longboard.

Waiting for the train, I helped a fellow Ohioan get onto the right train and onto Times Square. I must've tricked him into believing that I knew what I was talking about; I did take the wrong train once today.

I arrived at Central Park and longboarded/walked the entire perimeter and encountered some seriously fast hills with entirely too tight of turns for my longboard or myself to handle. I ended up jumping off a few times and walking down the big hills; hitting 45 MPH on a piece of plywood just didn't appeal to me today.

On my way back to drop off my longboard and get cleaned up, I arranged to meet up with Esteban, a fellow CBS intern from Colorado. I took him on a small, amateur tour of some of the must-see parts of Manhattan and, at one point, we even made it down to the CBS studios to see where we'll be working this summer.

The return home found me helping a Frenchman get out to Queens and ended with a quick trip to K-Mart (just a block away) for a stocking up of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, the breakfast of champions.

At this point of the night, I'm exhausted and am looking forward to crawling into bed and finishing this Top Gear marathon on BBCAMerica that has been playing since I arrived.

Tomorrow will be pretty low-key, I think. I'm planning to tackle some writing/page design for my practicum assignment so that I don't have to balance it quite so heavily with the internship itself. There's a Starbucks across the street from me, so I may drag my blistered feet across the road and hunker down there for a good while. The idea of walking or exploring more tomorrow is a bit horrifying when I think about the ache in my legs and feet, but we'll see how I feel once I get a good night's sleep.

A few things I've learned today:
1. If someone approaches you on the street trying to give you a free CD of their music, it's not actually free.
2. Don't eat curry before longboarding in 90 degree weather.
3. If there's a Ferrari dealership and a Rolls Royce driving down the street, you can't afford the restaurants in that area.

Well, I made it. And not just in the sense that I landed at Laguardia today around 2:15, but in the sense that this is an accomplishment, a goal that I'd set out to achieve since I'd visited New York City a few years ago. A small check mark can be printed on my bucket list: I will be living in the Big Apple (even if just for the summer!).

So here I am, typing from the ninth floor of The New Yorker Hotel at the corner of 42nd and 8th in Manhattan, 6 floors above where 20th century scientist, Nikola Tesla, died in 1943. Walking a block or two in either direction leads me to Koreatown or the Garment District. I can see the antenna of the Empire State Building, could crawl to Penn Station and, despite everything being fairly exotic and strange, I feel strangely at home here, something I didn't quite expect to feel.

I keep considering what coming to New York City means. I think about Ellis Island, that tiny piece of land that served as one of the main entrances into the U.S. for years, and all of the people who came here. They came here hoping for a better life, hoping that what they'd find here was better than whatever overcrowded, old world nation they originated from. Consider the people who came here across the Atlantic, pennies to their name and started a new life. Or, less pleasantly, gambled everything and were turned away by U.S. Customs to return broke and broken-spirited back to their country of origin. I keep asking myself: if they can do it, why can't I?

When I think about the millions of people who have seen New York City as a place of hope and progress that I realize the scale of this move. I've engrained myself into human history in a small, fairly insignificant way: I've seen New York City as a place of opportunity and growth, just like millions of others have in the past and just as millions more will in the future.

My first day was spent unpacking and setting up my small room here at The New Yorker. It's basic, no-frills and simple, but I like it and the utilitarian aspect of its simplicity. It's already starting to feel like "home" and I'm hoping to post pictures of it in the next few days.

I decided to do some exploring after setting up my room. I did some grocery shopping, picked up some basic necessities and took the subway up to 50th Street and decided to get off and walk up to Central Park. I stumbled upon Columbus Circle and, having only eaten Pop Tarts and an Uncrustable earlier in the day, filled up on a buffet at Whole Foods.

The remainder of my night was comprised of walking through Times Square (and trying not to trample tourists in the process) and has ended with a bit of Skype with my family and Top Gear on the TV.

A few things I've learned today:

1. New York City rats are very real and quite common.
2. NYC taxi drivers don't use their vehicles so much as modes of transportation, but menacing battering rams and tools for securing dominance.
3. International visitors need to recognize the affinity that Americans have for personal space. I met two nice people from Spain and Brazil, but kept finding myself stepping back just for some room. This is America! We have plenty of room!


All right, well that's all for tonight. I'm hoping that I can keep up with this blog to detail my time here. If I begin to get lazy, let me know! If people are still reading it, I'll still write.

A few pictures, too: