18 August '07

Tonight, as I sat eating in a taco-ria, the man next to me tapped me on the shoulder, and as I watched, poured the remaining two-thirds of his beer into the shoe he had just taken off his right foot. Impressed with the width of my eyes he raised the heel of the shoe to his mouth and drank before returning the shoe to his bare foot, erupting into cackling laughter and slapping me on the back. No one else raised their eyes from their tacos.

Yesterday, as I stood on the corner of Park Avenue and 45th Street a convertible driven by a topless woman gruffed past. Occupying the back seat, and extending southwards so that it dragged on the road, was a life-size paper-mache model of a giant squid. This was no gimmick, there was no advertising. No one else on the street missed a step in their march.

And thus ends my first week in New York City.

A week dominated by Fulbrighters and seminars on American culture. The Fulbrighters were by-and-large a lackluster group, the product of 18-ish years of competitive education I suppose. They all took notes and listened attentively – it made me sick. That was during the day though, at night the transformation was canine in proportion. The air was thick with hormones and sex, again, I suppose, the production of 18-years of competitive and restrictive education. It was like first-year in a hostel, I suppose. At the very least I am more familiar with Manhattan, having been from Brooklyn Bridge to Ground Zero to Greenwich Village to the Meat Packing district to the Upper East Side. The city is wonderfully exact with its streets. Streets ascend as you walk north, avenues as you walk east. Thus every taxi ride is like a game of battleships – every destination plotted by two coordinates.

Am now back in the hovel after a week of luxury in the hotel. Ambient natural lighting has been replaced by fluorescent, air-conditioning by fans (today 35 degrees and humid), blissful silence by raucous Spanish dance music from the 141 street block party. To assuage my bitterness I stole two towels and contemplated stealing the iron until I realized it was permanently affixed to the wall. At least this time I have a friend staying with me – a Swede here to study journalism who is temporarily without a room.

I will not describe the events of my days as that would tend towards tedium. There are more revelations, they are just not revealed yet. It is not that I have a tense relationship with New York. Rather, the city and I need to get to know each other. We are strangers still talking about the weather. There are questions I want to ask but common ground is needed first. Until that time I shall talk of giant squid and foot-warmed beer.