The Big Apple Through The Eyes Of A Teenager

I grew up with Friends on television, with How I Met Your Mother and Gossip Girl on streaming. I grew up listening to Give Me Everything Tonight, going to New York New York by the amazing Frank Sinatra and blasting Empire State Of Mind. I always loved travelling, even when it was only day trips with my parents and sibilings, but I never felt anything like the attachment I felt (and still feel) for New York, for any other city.

My parents told me that they couldn't get me out of my mother belly and yet I was constantly moving, I couldn't stay still, as if curiosity was controlling my small body, unlike my twin brother who slept all the time and woke up only to eat.

Maybe I have the famous burning flame inside of me, the one everybody talk about, or maybe I have the Wanderlust, call it what you want. I wanted to travel, and so when I was sixteen I got on a plane and went to the United States, all alone. I signed up for an exchange student program and for a year I lived in Colorado, far away and very different from the reality of New York City, so, for this reason, when I had the opportunity I took a plane for New York. If before I couldn't wait, now I felt even worst, because, after months and months in Colorado, I had to fit in the hectic Big Apple, city I knew in theory but not in reality.

Belo Usa's East Coast Trip.

You have to believe me when I say that the night before the leaving I slept more or less two hours and waking up at three A. M. didn't weigh on me at all. My heart was already in New York. The thing that made the trip even more interesting was sharing it with friends and eighty or more other student from all over the world, coming from different exchange programs. There were students from Rotary International, like me and my friends, but also from Intercultura, Flex and so on. I met a lot of teenagers like me that had the "NY fever". When I arrived in Newark, we were allowed only to look at the skyline, because we had to head off to the hotel right away, where we spent the evening. The next morning was a delirium. Students were divided in two groups, there was a bus for each group. I don't know about the other one, but on my bus we run wild. While we were going through the Lincoln Tunnel, we were all singing at the top of our lungs the songs I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Then the New Yorker popped up and it blew my mind. Our bus took us to the Public Library where we met our local tour guide: a small bald guy with suit and tie. He appeared to me like the typical newyorker, and in fact he was. He was young but he said to us he clearly remembered what he and his family felt on September 11th 2001.

Our awesome bus took us everywhere, even if sometimes I hated it. One day we should have spent a couple our in Times Square to eat and shop, but we spent more than a hour and a half in the traffic, we got screwed. I ate a sandwich with runny sauce while walking on the street looking for a gift shop where to buy something. Being in New York in April 2015, the One Observatory was still closed so we went up on the Empire State Building. Just one word: breathtaking. Some say that New York is just a heap of cement and glass. They can say what they want, but being on the eightysixth floor of the Empire gave me a rush of adrenaline hard to describe.

The lights, the cars, the wind through the hair... everything was just like I imagined it. What was different than I thought it would be was Times Square, but also the Statue Of Liberty. The first I thought it was more squared, the second because I imagined it bigger than it is. With this I'm not judging, it's still amazing. Unfortunately we couldn't go inside of it because we should have booked it days before the visit.

In those four days (we spent the rest of the week in Philadeplphia and then in Washington DC), we also managed to go in SoHo, even if the happiest for the choice were the girls, who wanted to shop at all costs. So, while the girls were lost in t-shirts and shoes, I walked to Little Italy. They took us in Chinatown to eat chinese and we saw Little Italy from the bus, I thought it was too bad not going back there so I left the group for a few minutes. I took out my Italian flag and took a photo as a true patriotic.

It was amazing crossing the Brooklyn Bridge and admiring Manhattan from above. We also went to the National September Eleventh Memorial. I learned many things thanks to our guide, like the fact that the names of those who lost their lives are not in alphabetical order, as some may think, but in groups of people that knew each other, like colleagues or close friends. To find the name of someone, they use computers with all the data. The result will be the group where the name is. Also, if there's a candle on someone's name, it means that on that day would be his birthday. Unfortunately our guide told us that sometime classes brought to visit the memorial throw trash inside the fountains, which have to be closed in order to be cleaned. It's such a pity that exist people like this, incapable of comprehend the importance of this place. Even though the new building is really beautiful, the Twin Towers will always be missed, even by people like me who have never seen them.

I could write a book about the thing we did in only four days. I haven't mentioned yet the fact that they brought us to Broadway after a american-italian dinner in Times Square, where we saw The Phantom Of The Opera.

The first time in Times Square wasn't actually the one of the quick lunch, but the one after the dinner at the Hard Rock. Even though it was already nighttime, about midnight, the flow of people was the same as at day time. The Rockefeller Centerwas amazing to see for us, since we were a group of people from all over the world. We also swinged by Columbia University, Imagine Sign, the big lung of the city Central Park and also the Financial District, where we touched the bull's balls because, who knows, we might became rich one day. For good luck I also made a turn on the bull's balls in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, I will let you know if I'll have luck in life.

Going back to the city that never sleeps, some were happy I went there and realized a dream, but in reality New York isn't a dream that vanishes when it becomes reality. The Big Apple overwhelms you and makes you its. There's nothing you can do, my heart stayed there and there will be untill I'll go and get it back.

-Cristian

---

Photo gallery