Well, considering my last entry did not mention New York (save for a brief mention of the Times), I will now speak of it.
As readers may already be aware, this trip was partially mandatory for students in my art program. I say partially because I did the mandatory part but then I did some extra things that my fellows did not do. We attended art museums in New York City, namely the Museum of Modern Art (often called MOMA, of which my primary interest was thev architecture, actually). This had been my first visit to New York, and my thoughts were more on the sheer scale of the city.
We entered through the Lincoln Tunnel into what looked like an old district of the city, around Central Park. Which, honestly, is not so central, I found out - given the size of the city and us entering on the outskirts of it. My first impression was that it looked a lot like Baltimore, just bigger. This impression held with me until I left the rest of my group in SOHO and went on to seek out the diamond district and the location of my possible future, the Gemological Institute of America on 5th Avenue. It took us (my family and I) some time to get there, in no small part due to the amount of walking we had to do just to get back to our vehicle, and then once we did traffic funneled us across the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn, where we had to turn around and go back. It was a much warmer-looking section of the city, all of red brick, and I initially liked it more because of the warm colour - but on closer inspection I found that it looked very akin to certain areas in Baltimore. The good news is I got to see the Statue of Liberty from afar, and I am glad to have done that.
Going through the maze of the city, we passed by the Empire State Building and finally came to Times Square, where we luckily found some parking just off of it. We walked back through Times Square to reach the diamond area, and it was getting late. My initial reaction to Times Square was one of wonder; it was enormous, huge, brilliantly bright, full of lights and colour and people, and buildings tall beyond measure. I felt like the archetypical back-woods fellow who comes to the big city for the first time in his life and is amazed.
I was able to see the Diamond District, and witness the many wondrous things the jewelers there sell. It was dazzingly bright, so many diamons, plenty of gold and silver; it was all very exciting. I visited GIA, and when done, we finally set our sets towards heading home. We browsed Times Square briefly before heading home, and the more we browsed, the more the city's night life came alive. And that is when it all really started to grate on me.
New York City is huge and impressive. It was nice to visit, and I was glad to see many of its important sites, if only from afar. But it felt stark; the city's night life in particularly, rowdy as it may be, was not particularly nice to be around. It is not my kind of place. And it took a long time to get out of; the city is truly massive. And truly, can I really call Baltimore a city after that? Is any city I have been in comparable to New York? It went on for what seemed like miles - even crossing into New Jersey, the city still continued on in another form: Newark, New Jersey. And nary a tree to be seen. So much conrete and metal, and so little green. I was glad to have seen it, and just as glad to have left it. There may be those who love New York City, but from what I have seen, I am not one of those people.
It has been a long weekend, and I am very tired because of it, so now is the time for resting.
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