Sights, sounds and smells

There are so many things that seem different when you are in a foreign country. This is even true when you are in an unfamiliar city. Our time in New York has been filled with all sorts of different sights, sounds and smells. Later I will be able to share the too many pictures we have taken in this amazing place. But for today, use your imagination and go with me to these sights, sounds and smells that struck us as remarkable for this stop. 

Sounds

- The shriek and scream of the slithering snake of a subway. 

We have been taking the metro (subway) everywhere. On the platform as the whoosh of the wind of an oncoming train sweeps along the darkened tunnel, or even in the train itself as it bumps around a corner, screeching in seeming pain, the sound never stops. Even when we visit Jill’s or Sean’s workplace, a train thunders and screeches through regularly, halting all conversation until it passes and the normal thrum of the daily traffic returns. 

- Sirens throughout the day, which one would expect in a city, but also the almost genteel “whoop, whoop” of the police car wanting to get through the inevitable traffic stopped up the intersection. Not that the police car is hurrying on to an event, it simply wants to get through. 

- Other cars are constantly honking. The drivers who are obviously familiar with the streets and intersections frustratedly honk at the noobies blocking the way. Cars honk a nanosecond after the light has changed color, telling the car in front of them emphatically to move along. 

- Our hotel is a stacking of rooms around beds in a second floor block of flats. The walls are all very thin, so we hear everything that our neighbors do or say, including their snoring through the night. And we are more than aware that they can all hear anything going on in our room as well. 

Smells

- A sickening sweet smell hangs in pockets throughout the city or as you pass someone on the street, the smell of a common weed. It hangs in the air as you pass someone smoking, or hangs in their clothes and hair. Often you cannot avoid it as the people walking in front of you smoke an exhale into the air, the cloud slowly wafting through the air. In this case it is an upscale group of young professionals on their way to an evening out together. 

- It is a city, and although it is not filthy, your nose gets used to the everyday smell of urine in various places. Trash is also stacked up on every street. 

- Baking bagels, donuts, croissants and various other kinds of bread wafting through the air from street corners. Moving along the streets, trying to keep up with the flow, you pass back and forth through more pleasant into unpleasant and back into normal smells. 

Sights

- As we emerged from the metro station one evening on our way to Sean and Jill’s place, we passed a father with his young son. The boy was throwing a tennis ball to his father who was playing catcher, baseball glove on hand. This occurred rght on the square where many people were beginning to gather for the evening, ready to enjoy their evening of dining. It was a sight seen in many other places, where families took advantage of any spot to be a family. 

- People moving determinedly through the day and the streets - on their way to wherever they are going where they need to be very soon. 

- As we walked down the street (moving at a stiff pace as the rest were doing) we passed a young boy stretched out on a balustrade, looking at his mother and brother and repeatedly recounting what he clearly wanted to eat that evening: “Cotton candy, French fries and chicken fingers. Cotton candy, French fires and chicken fingers. …”. 

- Dog walkers holding the reins of 5 or 6 dogs as they cross a street from one beautiful neighborhood to the next, the dogs smiling in pleasure or sniffing at the last dog’s “signature” along the way. 

- Men tightly curled up in a dark ball on a park bench in the morning as the day is beginning, older Chinese people down the way doing their tai chi. A man sleeping standing against a light pole, the sun warming his face, the familiar smell wafting away in the slight wind of the morning. 

- A young couple getting on the metro and finding a seat together among the throng of people on the train. They sit together, talking into one another’s ear when the screech of the rails rises too loudly, his hand around her shoulders. 

- From almost every corner appears an amazing view. IN Colorado we thrilled t the changing face of the mountains. Here in New York City, the skyscrapers peek through every street view, standing tall above you. Some seem shorter when you walk among them, but always they amaze. One is never lost for something to look at: fire escapes trailing down blocks of apartment buildings, tree-lined avenues full of blinking-lighted cars and trucks and buses, flashing billboards in the sky screaming the newest play or movie or insurance scheme. As you walk, you glance down a street and are met by the towering giants peeking through, ever present.