Spring Break Part II: The Empire State

Spring Break has been an exciting week, or 9 days, as it was in my case. I was so lucky to see two amazing cities during the break; the last four days I spent in beautiful New York City. It wasn't my first time visiting New York, therefore, I had already seen some incredible places of interests as there are in New York. I got to see my sister and my father in town, and we decided to go to some new places we had never been before. However, we started off with a quite classical approach of NYC, by spending our day in Brooklyn, then taking a ferry alongside of Manhattan to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Every time I'm visiting New York I am amazed by the city's energy and seeing all kinds of people walking around town. Living in Ohio, and especially in Athens you get used to your familiar surrounding after a while, which basically is: College students. Certainly, you would expect it to be that way, seeing students all day when you are attending a university, but still it is very different from Leipzig. Everything in town is pretty much owned by the university, is a school building, or is a university bookshop (I'm exaggerating a little, please keep this in mind). Having this, day to day, being in a city like New York is a great change. I have to admit that I don't know whether I want to live in such as city at some point in my life, but it is an amazing adventure.

Queensboro Bridge at night

As always, I got to see many great things; walked through Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, and one of my favorite things to experience this time -  I went to Coney Island! In my history class we talked a lot about the development of Coney Island and what it meant to the American culture and society at the turn of the century, and I very much enjoyed to see such a place myself.
 Unfortunately, even though the picture makes you think that it was warm, it was freezing cold in New York and really windy, which led to a fairly short walk by the beach. However, even though it was a short visit it was incredibly beautiful and I decided for myself that I would come back in summer to see Coney Island reach its full potential.
As mentioned before, the weather was, as in Washington, not very springlike but quite cold. Though, I was trying to be positive about it and not being sad that I was not laying at Miami beach, which meant: it was my first time seeing snow in New York, which was something I always wanted to see and experience.
Actually, the first two days we were really lucky, because it was sunny and on one day almost warm enough to take off my jacket, so me and my sister could fully enjoy a walk through Central Park, watching people strolling along and going ice skating. Overall, I had an amazing time, and to my mind, fully utilized my Spring Break.
One last thing, which I have thought about a lot the past days, is something which I really like about Americans: they are so encouraging! Everyday, there is at least one person who says something nice, uplifting, or supportive to me, which is a great characteristic to my mind. Germans can be a little uptight and uncommunicative from time to time, and at the moment I'm really enjoying this overall friendliness of the American people.