New York For Blondes

By Lisa Krämer

With no concrete plan, and a little naive, Lisa is traveling to New York. Ostensibly, she just wants to improve her English. But, having reached a turning point in her career, she is secretly longing for a time-out.
For nine and a half weeks she will conquer "her city", mostly on foot. Between shopping, culture, and celebrity hunting she will find tons of clichés and experiences, but also some surprises. And, on her way to the various sightseeing spots she will find the opportunity for contemplating her life and her approach towards it.
The appeal of the uncertain and the freedom to do whatever she is in the mood for eventually lead to a liberating motto: "Just be yourself!"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Dec 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9783738666243

Lisa Krämer

Lisa Krämer, born in 1963, lives in Aachen and is a freelance personnel management consultant. Besides writing, she paints and is a passionate sportswoman. In addition she loves good food and excellent wine (preferably Chardonnay). Further information is available on her website: www.newyorkfuerblonde.de

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Epilogue

Chapter 1

Upon Landing – The Arrival, Sounds and No Silence

I'm between two jobs, and I'd like to improve my English communication skills. That was the first English sentence I said to the official at John F. Kennedy Airport, who eyeballed me seriously and sullenly.

Please, let me take your fingerprints. I placed, slowly and carefully, one finger after another on the scanner.

And your thumb, I heard from his lips.

What does thumb mean? I was stumped.

And your thumb, he repeated grumpily. And, I still couldn't understand, even after he repeated his demand a third time. Finally, he took my lifeless hand, and pressed my thumb on the little square box.

To his suspicious question, why I wanted to stay nine and a half weeks, I answered, stammering, Because my English is so bad. Well, whoever doesn't understand thumb needs to learn English. At least that's how I interpreted the indifferent look he adopted, as he dismissed me with a wave of the hand.

So here I am, in the arrival hall at JFK Airport. The first hurdle - the immigration officer - had been overcome. My nervousness had made me stutter. The fear upon entering the country was entirely justified: umpteen visitors have been sent home because the stated purpose of their stay was declared implausible or even just doubtful.

Now, the tension subsides, and I am only excited about what awaits me. Me, the business woman: restless, career-oriented, impatient most of the time, and curious, occasionally a bit clueless and not very profound. Maybe because I'm blonde? Embarrassed that I didn't properly understand Mr. I-decide-whether-you-may-pass, I immediately look up in my dictionary what the rest of the fingers are called in English. Who knows when I might need this knowledge?

What brought me here in the first place?

I live in Bad Kreuznach, an idyllic town on the Nahe River, am a woman in my prime, and very dedicated to my job. I am in fact between two jobs, and want to improve my English. Because of residual leave, excess work, and good financial standing, I'm in the position to fulfill an old dream of mine in those ten weeks: a journey to New York, and a long stay there!

To learn English is the defined goal. I started my weeks-long planning with the idea of taking an internship or some job in New York. Soon, however, it became clear that I was going to be visited by at least three of my beloved fellow humans in New York, and I decided to just start off.

The difficulties one has to face when applying for a work permit for the US was another welcome reason to leave it at taking a holiday. I planned to decide on what exactly I wanted to do only on the spot – everything else would take care of itself.

After all, I deserved a restful time-out. The last few weeks in which, as head of human recources, I had to sack a hundred of my colleagues because the firm in which I had been working for four years skidded into insolvency have left their mark on me. I'm tired, haggard, stressed, and sapped. Even my long-standing relationship has suffered under these strains. Therefore, this time in New York is supposed to be a little get-away from my private, everyday life.

How characteristic, that it had to be my favorite TV series, Sex and the City, that gave me the idea for my destination. It was that serial that made me curious to see this huge metropolis. Everybody wants to go there. And still, most of what I knew about the Big Apple, I learned from that series. But, I wanted to get to know it, this town fraught with cliches and dreams; the city that never sleeps. I asked myself what its charm consisted of: Is it the enticement by the land of the free – the secret dream to be allowed to be one's self, after all? Or is it the thrill of anticipation in the face of the unimagined, whatever it may be? Isn't it true that many came to this city in search of something as yet not found? What did I hope for, personally? An adventure? As of now, I have no idea what I've let myself in for.

My First Long Day

The flight with Singapore Airlines had been relaxing and soothing. I hereby declare it the world's best airline! After bad experiences with low-cost airlines, everything I experienced with Singapore Airlines was pure pleasure. The lovely, delicate stewardesses with their long, colorful skirts and brightly red painted lips apparently enjoy doing their job. They act artlessly and attentively. On board, catering is good; there is fine wine and more than forty movies to choose from (after that, I stopped counting). The blockbuster, Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt, however, is boring – a reason to close my eyes for half an hour in between.

Thus, on June 8th, 2009, I set foot on American soil. A cab is supposed to take me into the city; I had already made this decision at home. It strikes me as being more comfortable taking my big, silver-colored aluminum suitcase into account that I expressly bought for the trip and I consider these first $45, plus tip, to be my first reasonable investment. Upon seeing the city's towering and seemingly endless silhouette for the first time, no sense of euphoria overtakes me. Instead, I tell myself: Well, my dear, now I'm here and we have to get along with each other. What do we do with that? How do we handle each other? Am I going to experience New York positively? Many questions haunt me. Most of all, however, there is curiosity and equanimity, and a feeling as if this city had been waiting for me. It seems to be thoroughly aware of its beauty, its riches, and its elegance. Yes, I feel that New York is sympathetic and benevolent to me. And it is, after all, the same vice versa.

I got to know my landlady via the internet. Many of those living in New York rent out part of their bedroom apartment since the rents are often not affordable for one person.

I advertised the dates and length of my trip, and Susanna responded with a nice email. She was looking for a roommate for her apartment, which consisted of one bedroom and one living room. Some pictures were attached to her email. The place to sleep is situated in Susanna's sitting room. She, on her part, is sleeping and living in her bedroom. When I saw the floor plan, I declined, for the time being. The room is adjacent to the kitchen (which is only separated from the room by a bar) and to the entrance door. There is a screen which is supposed to provide visual cover and some privacy, but the thought that a stranger had to cross my room whenever she wants to reach her own room was disagreeable to me, at first.

Susanna, however, persisted and sent me more emails. Eventually, she convinced me with her nice manner, and by informing me that she, herself, would be absent, and that I would have the flat all to myself.

After that, everything was easy as pie. For a short holiday trip, I'd probably have preferred a hotel, but for sixty-six days, a homey environment struck me as more comfortable.

I agreed, therefore, and it turned out later that sharing an apartment with a stranger really did work.

Now, I am very happy with my decision, for the apartment is fantastic. It is a modern, beautiful, and simply furnished room on the 30th floor – with a breathtaking view. The panorama window allows a spectacular view of the Empire State Building and Downtown. Opposite my narrow and high bed there is a writing table and a small cabinet with books and lots of pictures of Susanna and her family. Next to them, some prints adore the dark red painted walls. Behind the screen on the end of the bed there's a TV set vis-à-vis an ageing light-colored leather couch that shows that apparently not all roommates have treated the furniture with respect. Susanna even gives me the use of a big, built-in cupboard. Closet, she calls it. Somehow the word sounds strange to me, having learned in school that the German Schrank means cupboard. I don't ask her, however. After the embarrassment at the airport, I wouldn't like risking another. She will be right.

It's not unusual in New York for two or four persons to share apartments of this size, Susanna tells me. The rents for apartments range between $2,500 and 4,500, depending on size, facilities, and situation, so that only people with higher incomes can afford homes of their own. A nice thing is that the apartment buildings are under security surveillance night and day and that they boast a gym, a laundry, and the service of the doormen.

Susanna hands over the keys with a snappy introduction and a handwritten note with everything important on it. Among others, the well-meant hint to wash my hands after entering the apartment. Strange, I think. On the same evening, I'll understand her intention.

My roommate, barely thirty, tall, slender, and with henna red, long hair and dazzling white teeth, has but little time because she is a singer and often in search for engagements. She leaves me for the time being, having to attend a rehearsal.

First of all, I open the huge sliding window, which it is hard to move. Apparently this isn't done too often. Then I take a deep breath and look in all directions. On the right hand side, there is the Hudson River, and on my left the famous Empire State building, close at hand, almost within reaches. I hold my breath. Then I take an uneasy look down, where it is seething as in hell. There's the entrance to a tunnel through which buses run day after night under the waters of the Hudson River to New Jersey. Several roads, wide like freeways and from each of which three other roads are issuing forth, lead in all directions. From above, it looks like a gigantic freeway interchange.

View from the 30th floor of my apartment building

I exhale and hold my breath for a moment. It is noisy – no, it is very noisy! Some minutes later I'm to discover that I can't make a call when the window is open. And, after my first night, I've learned that it is impossible to sleep with the window open, even if you use earplugs.

First of all I make a call via the internet to my Mr. Big, who is already missing me very much. It wasn't easy for him that I left him alone. It wasn't easy for me, either, to explain to him and my fellow human beings, how important the journey, and my taking a step back from everything, was to me. There are only a few who understood that I preferred to be on my very own in this transitional phase and to take responsibility only for myself for a change, especially after the last months. I want to know how freedom feels like. I have the right to it, and I presume to do it. And, I have no bad conscious about it, either, for I wanted to allow myself this trip. And I intend to enjoy it. And, after all, there is Skype, where one can even see each other, thanks to the web cam. That doesn't make up for the lack of physical proximity, but it is some comfort, for him as well as for me.

I'm tired, but I also feel the urge for physical exercise after the long flight and to finally to get to know my new environment. I take the elevator down to the ground-floor and only then do I realize how beautiful, elegant, and upscale the lobby of this thirty-five-floor apartment building is. It resembles a lobby of a ritzy hotel, and like that, it is rather busy. On the reception desk there's a computer terminal where messages for the residents and other information can be accessed. Mail and other deliveries are being deposited, and visitors have to register with the doormen before they are allowed to take the elevator to the apartments.

I leave the apartment, which is on 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Ave, in the neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, but I'll come back to that later.

Its 1 pm. June guarantees agreeable temperatures, even in New York. The sun is shining and there's a light breeze in the streets. Without a definite aim, I wander towards 9th Ave, just a few meters away. At the crossroads, I pause for a moment. What uproar of traffic there is at noon! Lots of cars, innumerable Yellow Cabs, huge and clanging trucks, and buses emitting black soot, one beside the other, in several lanes – stop and go. And, above all that: the stench of the exhaust fumes and loud roar.

The street scene is dominated by Yellow Cabs, which ruthlessly and incredibly cheekily fight their way through the thick traffic. The sidewalks, too, about eight meters in width, are full of people. I look around in all directions. Behind me there is a house, painted in bright yellow and with flaked-off, weathered commercial murals, only fit for demolition. A pathetic sight.

A passerby barges into me. He doesn't see me! Just a fleeting glance while he's crossing the street, then he drops his gaze again.

Such behavior is alien to me, a person with open eyes. I shouldn't be halting at one spot for so long; probably that isn't done here. Therefore, I retreat a few steps towards the wall of a house to look at the scene at leisure. The 42th, in whose vicinity there's Time Square, seems to be an important traffic hub.

On the other side of the street there's a snack bar – here a pizza baker is selling huge slices for $0.99 only; from afar, it even looks appetizing. A little distance further on stands a narrow and decayed three-story hotel; the windows look as if they hadn't been cleaned for a decade.

Wherever I turn, I discover banal and yet exciting things. I'm impressed most of all by the glass leviathans with mirrored fronts and glittering, looming facades. One of those towering buildings increases in width from bottom to top, which is unusual. I've read that the city planners of New York stipulated that home builders construct buildings terrace-shaped, tapering towards the top so that the sunlight can reach down to the streets. Later, it sufficed to create open spaces in the vicinity. Many of the more recent skyscrapers boast wonderful green areas and backyards, indiscernible from the outside, as I realized later.

On my left, there are red brick houses, which are equally enormous. Surely, one can take lodgings there, too. I am about to get a stiff neck! There is flashing and blinking in the distance. That leads me to assume that Times Square won't be far away. But it has to wait a little longer.

Buses are humming along to get to the seemingly very complicated shuttle system that transports people out of the city to New Jersey. A courier on a skateboard whizzes by. The people appear very busy, in a hurry – they talk into their mobiles, eat or drink something while walking and scarcely raise their eyes; an incredible pace rules the city. For the first time in a long while, I have got time, and I feel like the slowest human being on earth.

Bustling New Yorkers

I discover some telephone booths; open in the front, but it is way too noisy to make a call. I am confused. Everything is so contrasting. First, the fantastic view of the Empire State Building from my window, then the look downwards on the traffic hell, the luxurious lobby, the dingy corner fifty meters farther on, the friendly doorman opening the door to me, the ignorant passer-by barging into me. Wildly wagging policemen, regulating the traffic with their whistles, side by side with those who hasten heedless across the streets with the lights showing red. People with headphones on their ears, hurrying past the telephone booths in which others are roaring into the phone because they can't hear anything themselves and the masses aren't pausing. That is The City; that is life!

In the distance, a venerable small church and old red brick buildings with green patinas on their roofs stand in bizarre contrast to the glass leviathans soaring into the sky. To me, Hell's Kitchen is less the restaurant area described in the guide – rather hell itself. Far back, the peak of the famous Chrysler building, in the east of town, projects from the sea of houses. This famous building makes me conscious of where, exactly, I am – in New York!

For a few meters, I wriggle through the masses of people urging forward, alongside 9th Ave heading south. From the beginning, I have planned to explore the city walking. Every street, every park, every building, and every detail, no matter how unimportant, I want to appreciate and experience directly, and this is possible only when on foot.

Not to be recognized as a tourist, I abruptly adapt myself to my fellow beings on the street. Jaywalking, crossing the streets when the red light is on, is the rule hereabouts, surely one of the reasons for the traffic snarl and the noisy honking.

Before the lights change, there is a red blinking warning light in the shape of a hand. An experienced jaywalker observes with foresight whether the cars are still standing or about to move. If they are standing, one swiftly crosses the road, by all means. In case they are already moving, one has to be a little faster, that's all. And if the lights are red and the cars have to wait at the crossroads, one threads one's way through.

I've read that children in New York are taught jaywalking as the first rule of survival. In times past, the red lights read Don't walk! Parents told their children that Don't walk! didn't mean Stop! but Run for your life!

But I have to be careful; the New Yorkers' behavior seduces me to disregard the traffic completely and just go. Whether the brakes of the onrushing Yellow Cabs are always in impeccable working order may be doubtful.

Special caution is indicated when it comes to cyclists. They dash every which way across the roads and turn the corner so full of verve that they brush the ground with their knees. With the traffic being as ruthless as it is, riding a bike is a challenge. Still, cyclists don't wear helmets. By way of compensation, they wear their bike locks like enormous necklaces round their necks or hips. Bikes are apt to be stolen, or so it seems.

Already, I find myself hurrying across the street among an army of people. Some of them are all but running roughshod over me or barge into me, saying Sorry.

If I’m nearly smashed to the ground, they say I'm very sorry! Learning easily, and not wishing to be in anybody's way, I now and again pause close to the houses in constant amazement. Now, I look to my left, stretching my neck: There stands the slender, graceful, and completely glazed skyscraper of the New York Times, arguably the city's biggest publishing house, which also gave Times Square its name.

Something else surprises me, however, and that is the dirt. The big, green garbage cans, shaped like baskets, are overflowing with rubbish, and it reeks from every corner. It also smells of foul meat from the supermarket on the right, whose windows are plastered with various offers so nobody can see inside. Curious, I enter the shop and discover a meat counter with displays unworthy of the term fresh meat. I won't be buying anything here, that's for sure.

Some meters further on, there is a smaller store, a grocery. Grocery stores, also called Delis are often tiny shops where almost anything needed for everyday life is available. From vegetables, sausages, and cheese, to paper handkerchiefs, toilet paper, and detergents. In addition, they usually offer a wide variety of fresh salads, sandwiches, and other hot and cold dishes, as well as coffee. And that on every day of the week and at any hour, just with a smaller range of services than a supermarket offers. Grocery stores are usually run by the owner himself. The staff often consists of family members who know their regular customers with their personal habits and stories. This store looks better kept and cleaner than the supermarket. Here I could buy with a good feeling.

On the other side of the street, I spot some very old, three-story houses with their characteristic fire escapes. Located on the ground floor, there is a coffee and tea shop.

Some more meters further on, I see the entrance to the Port Authority bus station, with lots of police cars parked in front of it. Do they want to keep an eye on the people arriving here? That doesn't inspire confidence, I muse, glancing at a waiting room for homeless people, where they can get some coffee and a snack. Some of the homeless are sitting outside on upturned boxes. They have the grime of the streets on their skin like a film, and wait for somebody to drop some dollars into their paper cups. They smile in a friendly way when you look at them. I smile back. I'm still in possession of my teeth, I have a warm and clean place to sleep, and I can afford a meal every day. They just have the air to breathe, nothing else. They deserve a smile. I don't think they often have eye contact.

Now, I'm walking past a Spanish restaurant, then again past a food store and a fishmonger, whose fresh goods on ice look appetizing. The smell, however, is discernible even on the street. I estimate the temperature to be about 30° C – too hot for fresh fish. The buses enter the ramp, while I perceive a new smell coming from a cellar entrance on the sidewalk: chemicals. Small wonder, the cellar door of the cleaners is wide open. The cellar entrances on the sidewalks are shuttered by heavy, hinged iron doors. They take the place of the doors of our cellars that can usually be found indoors or directly on the wall. Sometimes, they are left open, as is the case here. The steps leading down are steep and long. That harbors dangers for a klutz. Here, however, an orange cylinder in front of the heavy open hatch warns in an exemplary manner.

What