Thursday, March 01, 2007
The Big Fruit Salad
Good Morning, Europe!
So, here we are back in the old, but always beloved, continent. I guess some of you may be interested in a description of our Manhattan experience. So, here we are. First of all, if you want to follow the story with some pictures, let's go to the usual website: http://picasaweb.google.com/ellyon17 and check it out.
Well, the first impression when you get out from the subway in the heart of Manhattan, just one street after Time Square, it's not the one you had imagined. Or at least I had imagined. I have to say that the picture I had in mind of New York was given by movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany's, You've Got Mail, Sabrina, the last Devil wears Prada and, of course, all the movies of Woody Allen. Well, forget about it. Ok, if you look carefully you can find the shoots of these movies, but you have to dig under meters of dirt and rubbish. Anyway, after a while, when you have realised that things are not bright and shining as in the movies, you can start to appreciate the city for what it really is (although it's impossible for me to deny a bit of general disappointment). Anyway, our hotel was on the 55th, so no more than 10 minutes walking to Time Square. That's why the first night we have hanged around there (I suffered the jet lag for the first few days): we have eaten shrimps at the Bubba Gump Shrimps and we have walked around there. It is always quite dirty, but in the night it's easier to look up instead of down, so you tend to see more the lights and the shining commercials on the skyscrapers.
The following day we walked around the Fifth av. as I had to buy a dress to go to the Metropolitan the next day. The stores are expensive (not incredibly expensive, mostly cheaper than in Europe, but more expensive than in the rest of the city), and a lot of them are quite elegant and chic, like Cartier or Saks, but between a Chanel and a Prada store there is always a H&M, and it doesn't seems they can really recognise the difference. What really cheered up my day was the visit to the Sony store, it was really great!The famous Apple style can disappear in front of the Sony style!
The weather was nice, so we also went to the top of the Rockfeller building, and Manhattan looks much nicer from above (the rubbish is too far away).
The next day we went to visit the Central Park Zoo, and it was nothing like the Madagascar Zoo, although there were the penguins (also the Gentoo Penguin! no Kubuntu, though... ;-) ). The evening has surely been the best in the week, as we have been to the Met. The orchestra, as well as the singers, were exceptional, and I think it will be hard to listen again to something like this. There was La Traviata of Zaffirelli, so finally the scenes were as good as Verdi thought of, and probably much better. The theater was really beautiful and the acustic great, we had a very good place, first row and central. Everything was perfect. What has to be noted is there there were really few americans inside. Most of the people were italian-speaking or japanese/corean. Probably most of them had an american passport (the couple seated next to us were italians, but arrived in NY in the 1954...), but it seemed to me that if an american had 80 euros to spend, prefer to go to the Madison Square Garden...
The third day we have done a trip to the Liberty Statue and to Ellis Island. There was a hell of wind, and it was so cold as I have never experienced before. The entire trip was with a boat in which they stored something like 1000 turists, probably to make us feeling the experience of the ancient immigrants... To enter in this boat we had to stay in queue for like 2 hours, and to pass through a metal detector and to be checked completely... these are the kind of things that make you hope to have a plane to crush on their heads.... anyway, the visit was not the most interesting ever, the statue was a statue (that have already been seen in Paris) and Ellis Island was just a big empty room where they use to store people.
In the evening we went to see the Phantom of the Opera in Broadway, and it was really nice, although in this case there were quite a lot of americans, and you could understand it by the mobiles ringing, the noise and the discouraging dumbness you could feel around. Probably more that what you could feel in the Madison Square Garden, I think this is because here people wanted to look intellectual, while to the match you just want to have fun, and it is more normal to shout and be a bit mad. Indeed the NBA match we went to see the last evening was really fun. People where more polite than the people usually following sports in Italy (maybe it's the football that collect only the beasts around, maybe the football or, for them, the baseball has the same effect in U.S. ...) and the show was good. Between the quarters there were few shows of dancers, acrobats and magicians, and the match itself was really exciting. It was Knicks against Miami, and NY won for few points after a well fighted match. Pretty good. Shaquille O'neil was a bit disappointing because he spent all his time doing faults, but I guess it's more or less his job. Anyway, it's impressive how big he is....
The previous day we went in China Town. Funny place! Little Italy is a depressing street that, as Ermes has probably already told, is almost (luckly) disappeared in advantage of Chinatown.
We had good luck because in the Sunday we were there they were celebrating the Chinese New Year, so we have seen the parade and eaten spring rolls... cool.
In fact we have eaten almost every night in a mexican restourant, where you normally dine drinking Margarita Frozen.... not bad.
So, finally, everything I enjoyed in NY was not American, but European or Chinese or Mexican... I'm very happy not to live there and I'm always more and more proud of being European. The main problem in U.S. is the society, which is really primitive, it is based on hating the others and to be scared by the others. Everywhere they check you, everywhere there are signal of fear for whatever, bombs, attacks, guns, illness... In the metro there was even a poster of a medical insurance that was trying to sell some medicine(probably a kind of aspirine....) and it was written :"Influenza can kill! Save your children!"... Come on, I should have died 100 times!! Or "If you see something (a picture of a bad guy with a gun) say something (a picture of a woman shouting)", "Illegal gun: 3 years of jail", and a lot of other signs about terrorism and so on.... but come on!! Who the hell you think you are? It's incredible how they are afraid you want to stay there forever, in the airport they asked me hundreds of question about where I will stay, adress of the hotel, how long I was planning to stay, why, what I want to do there and bla bla bla.... but when all the american turist come here in Amsterdam to kill themselves with joints we don't bother them so much! And life here is so incredibly better then there, I really cannot imagine why someone should want to leave our beautyful city to go in that crap. Unless, of course, you're a millionaire... in that case you can enjoy the Opera and have a nice clean appartment next to the one of Woody Allen, you go around only in taxi or with a private car with driver and you probably have much to do everyday.... We have lived more or less like millionaire in these days, so we have enjoyed the holiday pretty much, but I don't think I would spend there more then few days....
Enjoy Europe!
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9 comments:
so it seems to me you didn't enjoy new york city.. come on!!!
we did a lot of stupid things!!
and we had to do more and more!
ok, there are some little particulars not so nice but I think you can find them in every city around the world...
i agree the problem of new york is that you think you know it from the movies before going there and of course the image you have is veeeery different from reality (even here in Amsterdam one can think we're smoking joints all the time even if we are always working hard!).
for the society instead I can confirm: I had the same impression that fear rules everything around and in every corner you can see adv for some medicines or warnings of dangers...
and at the end you didn't try the philly cheese steak and this would be reason of joy!
ps: thanks to francesco that suggests us the third pro of Italy: in pubs and restaurants you can find no-smoking rooms (even if someone can disagree about this pro); so, for me, at the moment the stuff in italy is better is:
1. food
2. bidet
3. no-smoking rooms
4)mastella
5)Gigi D'Agostino.
i think mastella is a pro just for 1000 (fucking) people in italy.
unfortunately they live all in the same small town so he has always that (fucking) seat at the parliament.
Anyway, like in the movies and in the books, the number 1 is always better then the numer 2, so it is also true that Amsterdam is better then New Amsterdam....
that's for sure!
and milano is better than milano2
anyway no voices against the third italian pro, so that's (almost) it.
anyway2: it's funny that the only news from The Netherlands in the italian newspapers are some weird news trying to show it as the country of craziness.
Example, Repubblica today: "Amsterdam, the first gym exclusively for nudists opens"
cool
Yes...they could choose whether to tell about all the social right there are in the Netherlands and we will never reach because of the Church and all the people are following it, or tell about stupid news as the nudist gym and the love car....
the americans don't have euros!!! in fact they're not in the european union yet. Also you always forget the godzilla remake ehen talking of famous newyork movies
mz
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