[:en]

Romanians have always been fascinated by the land of promise aka America. It seems that in the 1900’s Romanians help building the ultimate skyscrapers in USA like The Empire State Building. After the 9/11 The Empire State Building remained a landmark of NYC and Manhattan. I always dreamed of having the opportunity to visit USA and New York. After I moved to UK this dream started to be much closer than ever. June 2018 was my stepping stone and got my visa. The countdown for my ultimate trip started.

End of august in NYC feels like summerish hell (not joking) for 5 straight days got temperatures of 35C – 37C that where actually felt like 40C. The moment I left my hotel on 48th st corner with Broadway a hot air just hit my face and my beautiful trip of walking through the streets of NYC begin. My first encounter after I went through security boarder and had my admitted stamp on my passport was of two people, speaking perfectly American English, while waiting for my car they where just talking outside T7 at JFK, out of nowhere I had a familiar feeling when they start speaking in Romanian. Made my night, felt like, huh, Romanians are everywhere and what where the chances of finding Romanians at the JFK. After a 30 minutes ride, I looked out the window and saw the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.. That was Manhattan by night, the moment you where going up that hill on the highway from JFK, my god! It looked like in those American movies we always see.

I can’t describe in words what I felt, it was absolutely fabulous! Big cars, big skyscrapers, at every corner you have at least 2 starbucks! Americans…they do love their starbucks coffee. Manhattan it’s like a jungle with aggressive drivers, big cars and lorries, it has an attitude.

Times Square doesn’t sleep at all. Doesn’t matter if it’s 4:00AM or 22:00PM, you always here police cars, ambulances and fire trucks. It’s true when they say that is the city that never sleeps! You never can get lost in Manhattan because the streets are straight and forward. You have the East and The west side, you have the Hudson River, you have Park, Maddison and 5th avenues. And the very heart of New York it’s the most greener space they could have it, ladies and gents I present you Central Park. The famous park with it’s famous benches where you can adopt one and write down whatever you want. It quite relaxing and therapeutic to just go straight through the park and read all those messages. Fun fact about the yellow taxis, they’re just in Manhattan, I came across a green taxi and asked my friend, Oana (she lives in NYC and she’s a bad ass Newyorker) why is that a green taxi? (We where in Williamsburg area in Brooklyn neighbourhood). It seems that yellow cabs are just for Manhattan area and green ones are for Brooklyn and Queens.
Seen it with my own eyes, the Marble Arch in Washington Square, of course the emblematic scene from beloved sitcom called Friends.The vibe of the site was like no ordinary European vibe. To actually feel and see with your own eyes how America is and how people are.

New York it’s a must, with the bad and ugly. Yes, when it’s summer it smells horrible, seriously, with it’s rats walking all over the city (saw a rat while walking in Cetral Park, thought it was a squirrel but nope was a rat).
I heard from my friend, Oana, that NY it’s magical when it rains, didn’t get rain just on my last day and it was like a breezy English weather. Next time hope to catch it and make some photographs.

Text and photographs: (c) Mihaela Andreea Andrei

[:]
The following two tabs change content below.
Still can't tell exactly my origins because of my suspiciously ‘Chinese eyes’.