Saturday. 70th Street and Madison avenue. It’s almost 3pm and the line in front the one and only “La Dureé” store in New York City is growing bigger every minute. It seems to me that the inhabitants of the Concrete Jungle love to enjoy their weekend tasting ethnic French sweets – macaroons. So do my friends and I. So, we take a place in the never-ending line and dive to the process of waiting. The fridge fulfilled with colorful cookie-desserts keeps getting closer. The sound of he cash register… The melodic “au revoir”… The crackle of the paper bag… And we are holding the desired desserts in our hands.
Where else in the world can you feel exactly like in the hometown of the Eiffel Tower if you cannot afford a plane ticket to cross the Atlantic?
Friday. Little Italy. It’s somewhere around 8 pm and we are dying of hunger. All local restaurants are named after the great Italian cities and landmarks. They all look fancy and expensive. The windows show huge menu pages offering a variety of dishes to the potential clients. None of those we passed by could offer an ethnic cuisine and atmosphere, though. We noticed a little place, probably called after it’s owner “Giovanni”. The waiter in front of the restaurant argued with someone on the phone in Italian. “Bingo!” We have found the perfect match to our desires. Unlike every other restaurant on our way this one wasn’t decorated with wooden ornaments and expensive design decisions. On the contrary, it was very simple and provided the feeling of comfort and the smell of homemade food. The owner of the place appeared to be Florentine. The restaurants was held by his family and all employees were siblings. Friendly Italians provided the best service we could ever get and showed us all aspects of their hospitality.
We didn’t want to leave after the dinner was over. We knew that as soon as walk out of the door we will no longer be in Florence.
Sunday. Almost noon. Columbus avenue and 90th street. The sun was shining bright and the sky showed no signs of getting cloudy. Armed with a photo camera, I went to Central Park in hopes to take some shots of the beautiful Autumn. While walking along the passages I noticed hundreds of people enjoying their time away from reality. A couple of musicians was singing Oasis’ songs and playing guitar. A man was sitting in the tree shadow and reading a novel. Some kids were chasing each other on the bikes pretending to take place in a race. Call me a stalker but all I could do was to take pictures of them so the happy moments could be captured and live forever.
Where else could you enjoy the day away from the city while still being in the city? Oxymoron? – No, New York.
This city is a unique place: a mixture of ancient and modern, concrete and plants, ethnic and brought from abroad… Every neighborhood feels like another country, something unexplored and new. How can one possible not fall in love with New York?
