Street performers at Times Square, New York City, NY.
Our time was up in Boston. Despite working ourselves to the bone, it felt like a holiday – time to check our luggage in and prepare ourselves for the normal world once again. Amazingly though, this wasn't the case at all, this was only the beginning.
I think I
could have slept through anything on Sunday morning. Looking at my
phone, my vision still hazy and my mind half in a dream, I had missed
twelve alarms. Generally, I set about five alarms, one every minute
in order to annoy me out of bed. My tolerance for annoying default
apple ringtones must have been pretty high on this morning. We were
unsurprisingly running pretty late for our car collection so much as
back in London, we reached out for the emergency services – Uber.
We were exhausted. I prepared myself for the inevitable faff of the
car rental, these things never-ever go as smoothly as they should.
However this time it couldn't have been smoother, everything was as
planned, the car was waiting for us and the manager even waived a
HUGE fee on our account. Seriously, I am in love with Alamo. We
jumped into the elevator, keys in hand, the doors opened and in front
of us was our friend for the next month – a brand new, shiny-grey
Toyota Camry that we nicknamed Jackie (friend's have to have names,
right?). The dashboard was overwhelming, a bit different to my T reg
Volkswagen Polo, but I figured out how to turn it on (you turn the
key) and headed out onto the wrong side of the road.
Our first
stop wasn't a distant one. Straight back to Deborah's, we picked up
our luggage, promised each other the most positive reviews Airbnb had
ever seen and beamed huge smiles as we coasted down Oak Square
Avenue. Exiting Boston through Brighton, we sailed past beautiful
wood panelled houses decorated with hanging baskets and American
flags. We wondered how much they retailed for and whether we would
one day live in something similar.
'We'll
check out whatever the American version of Rightmove is when we get
home'. These rows of homes quickly morphed into fields of vivid green
trees and fields, muddy brown rock faces occasionally peeping out
from the steep slopes flanking the road. We were on the interstate,
on the road to New York City, and it felt incredible.
Before
long, we crossed the invisible border that placed us from
Massachusetts into Connecticut. For four hours we moved through the
New England landscape, stopping only to stuff ourselves with an
excessive amount of McDonalds fries and burgers. The houses started
to appear again, only this time they were a bit rougher around the
edges. Doors hung off the hinges, paint jobs were often unfinished
and none of them were baby blue. We had entered The Bronx, sweeping
around the back to reach Brooklyn where we were staying. At one
point, we soared high up over a bridge that I wish I knew the name
of. Manhattan appeared to our right, sitting in front of a canvas of
deep oranges and reds that bled into each other – a glimpse of the
sun could be seen disappearing between the skyscrapers. Bekky reached
for the camcorder whilst I cranked up the volume of the jazz radio
dancing through the car's speakers. Rising above the city, the only
sounds were the 'bipp-bopp-bippadee-bee' of the saxophone against the
hiss of the wheels racing across tarmac. Manhattan's building's
pierced the sky. We were here, I could feel it. We were desirous of
everything, anxious to see what New York had to say. The city that
influenced my childhood; I felt I already knew it but of course I
didn't.
We pulled
up in Brooklyn – on Eldert Street, right outside our host's flat. A
wave of humidity hit as we pushed the car doors open, sweat
immediately pouring down my forehead. Ryan showed us to our room
which consisted of a hand made bunk bed with a small, wooden desk
space underneath it. After placing our luggage down, he invited us to
join him and his girlfriend at a cinema screening of Big Hero 6 at
his local park to which we thankfully obliged. It was awesome to be
welcomed into a new city straight away, so we followed them there –
spending the next few hours lay down on a blanket, gazing between the
stars and the projection.We sipped on slurpees, kids ran around the
park and street vendors tried to peddle their flashing glow sticks.
As the
movie concluded, the magnetism of Manhattan grew. Desperate to be
there, we ended up further away; jumping on the wrong subway all the
way to it's last stop. A cute couple of train system colleagues
helped guide us back in the right direction, waving us off as they
embraced each other and exchanged 'I love you's. Finally, Bekky and I
stepped out onto Union Square, complex arrangements of steel and
glass towered over us. The structures stretched so high that it
pained our necks to spy the tops. I was exhausted, but the flux of
New York City just about kept me going, my hands reached for my
camera once again. The lights of Times Square seemed to filter down
every street, drawing our almost-mindless bodies towards the
ever-brighter source. We rounded a corner and felt like we had just
woken up, we rubbed our eyes in an attempt to adjust to the blinding
light. I am usually critical of tourist hotspots, especially ones so
heavily based on consumerism, but there was something about Times
Square that is mesmerising. Maybe it's how lively it is even at
midnight, maybe it's the daylight that it creates, maybe it's the
excitement on everyone's face as they wait for the camera to show
them on the big screen. Maybe it was the zombie-state that our minds
had entered, attracted like a moth to a flame. Either way, it was
much more impressive than London's Piccadilly Circus. I allowed
myself to be lost in the light, ignoring the mass waste of energy and
falseness of it all. I was dazed, and it felt great.
We only
arrived home at around three in the morning, so we slept in on the
Monday. The car had to be moved to allow the streets to be cleaned –
this sounds like a pretty boring detail now, but it becomes pretty
significant later. Monday then took us for a very-warm-indeed walk
along the Brooklyn Bridge. It's an impressive feat of human
engineering as well as artistry, the symmetry of all the crossing
wires is mind-blowing. They contort and shift as you walk down the
central platform, made even more impressive by it's background of
Manhattan's skyscrapers. Setting foot on the island, we headed for
the Statue of Liberty – such an iconic emblem of America that I
have respected all of my life. It was unfortunate that it was so far
in the distance, we were expecting it to be more visible from the
southern edge. Tickets were $28 and it would take too much time away
from my photographing so we headed for Central Park. This was our
tourist day, using the route between each landmark as a route for me
to explore the city photographically. Each landmark also has such
significance to the story as each has been so ingrained into me
through western media and my romanticism of the states. We found a
beautiful restaurant in the park that overlooked one of the lakes.
Watching the sun go down, we spoke about the importance of being here
and evaluated our experience so far. The sun fell behind the trees
and left us sat in the cool blue light of the evening.