008 I Love New York

I’d love to live in New York for a while. Preferably Manhattan, but Brooklyn is okay too. The place where I’m staying at is located in south Brooklyn and it takes about 45 minutes to get to Manhattan. Actually, I spent more than an hour getting to Manhattan (walking to metro station, taking two metro trains, walking to where I had to be).. I realised Wevelgem isn’t that bad. It only takes me 20 minutes longer to get to Brussels. However, not for 2 dollars.

Staying in Brooklyn and commuting to Manhattan made me feel a bit like I was in London, where you also have to live far away to get an affordable room. Jayte pays 975 dollars/month for a two room apartment with kitchen, living room and bathroom. He has to spend at least 45 minutes to get to his office, if not more. It’s a nice apartment in a quiet neighbourhood, but a bit far off. Today, I also went to a place in Chelsea, the gay neighbourhood in Midtown Manhattan. A small studio with so little room that they had to cut out a part of the wall to place a refrigerator, costs more than 2000 dollar per month! It wasn’t the nicest area in Chelsea, but it was close to the coolest area. But it was small man! Maybe 30 square meter in total. The small size wouldn’t matter much to me, but the rent! Hello! 2000 dollar!

The place I visited in Chelsea belongs to a pet groomer. For all those who don’t know what that is (I didn’t either): a pet groomer is basically a dog stylist who washes them, cuts their hair and makes them look as pretty as their bosses. This guy isn’t just an ordinary groomer, but a celebrity pet groomer. He ‘does’ the hair of the dogs of P. Diddy for instance. I didn’t meet the guy, I went there to meet my buddy Sean, who flew in from Atlanta for a weekend in NYC. And Sean was there because a friend of him was house sitting the apartment. I had a great time meeting him again. He looked happier, healthier and … heavier than ever before! No offence Sean. You looked good.

Before heading back to Brooklyn I visited two areas in Manhattan that I really like. First Chelsea. I had never been there before, but I definitely recommend walking down 8th avenue from 23 to 14 street. It’s a gay neighbourhood, but there’s a lot of cool restaurants and some nice shops. I especially liked the kitsch selling gift shops. There’s a lot of bars, but I was there around 8 pm so they were empty. I always thought NYC was boring for gay people as I had only been to Greenwich village before and that was a bore. But now I know where the bars are!

I decided to walk around in NYC. It was much less cold today than yesterday and I just love walking around in Manhattan. I didn’t care to see sightseeings as they are, well, like.. boring. But I just love walking around there. I passed the flatiron building, which isn’t illuminated at night. And I walked to the east side where I walked down 3rd avenue to end up at my favourite place of New York: St Marks Place. That’s the name for 8th street and the old hippie neighbourhood of the city. It’s very touristy now, with lots of stands selling souvenirs and – this time of the year – lots of hats and scarves. But you also still have cool second hand record stores (2,99 for ALL single compact discs) and an excellent second hand bookstore, where I bought a book of Bill Bryson, the travel writer a friend of mine and some passengers of mine told me I sound like! I didn’t stay long there as Jayte had made dinner for me and I had to head home, but I might go back there just to buy some funny t-shirts. Cool place!

I had fun today, just by walking around in New York and looking at people and having the feeling I belonged there. I really love New York. There’s something special about the place. I really feel very comfortable here and I can really imagine living here. So much to do! I had a great time with my friends, but I also had a great time looking at the people around me on the street, in the subway, in the shops… I met some models (or wannabe models) on the subway. I wanted to tell them how ugly I thought they were. So anorexic! They were both eating raisins. I guess that was their main course of the day. I so much felt like telling them a new study proved raisins make people fat. I also saw a few extravagant homeless people / beggars. One was this super tall Ru-Paul like dirty drag queen in ragged clothes. I also love the musicians in the subway. One played this open drum. I should have taken a picture of it, because I can’t describe it. But I thought it was amazing what sounds he got out of it. I also love the mixture of people and languages. I sometimes think everyone is an immigrant here.

The roommate of Jayte, Rick, is also cool. He’s an aspiring scriptwriter/actor from Italian descent. Doesn’t have the looks of Joey though, but I just had to think of Joey when I heard his stories. He is now an ‘extra’ on the set of a new Will Smith movie of which some scenes are being shot at the Brooklyn bridge. The movie synopsis sounds stupid: Smith has found a cure for cancer, but when everyone is injected they turn into vampires! As I said: stupid. They need more than 500 extra’s for an evacuation scene. They shoot it in six days! Six nights basically, in this cold. Rick isn’t staying on the set. There’s so many extra’s that they don’t really notice if you’re there or not. He goes in when they start shooting, then leaves the set and goes back to sign out. (he has a friend on the set who lets him know). It would have been cool to have gone to the set though. Apparently Will Smith entertains the crowd while they are waiting outside. And apparently lots of people there are homeless. They get 78 bucks a day! Can you imagine? 78 bucks a day, six days longs! I want to be an extra too. Now I understand how Joey could live in that apartment. (Jayte just spoiled this joke by saying extra’s sometimes only have one shoot per month)

I can imagine living here and meeting all these semi-artistic folk. People aren’t as friendly as in Annapolis though. Nobody is looking in your eyes. They all look straight ahead or down to the ground. Except in Chelsea of course and on 3rd Avenue when I did have some nice eye contact. I was too tired to go out tonight. But I really had a nice day today. Yeah, I really love New York.