One of the benefits of being a TEFL teacher is receiving summer vacation, or at least, it's a benefit for where I'm working. Having the summer off provides an opportunity to travel new places, revisit old favorites and reunite with old friends.
Consequently, this past month has been a bit of a whirlwind as I made my way from Russia to America and back. I'm now back in St. Petersburg where I'll relax for my final month of vacation before work restarts in late August. It’s somewhat hard to believe that it’s already been over half a month since my summer vacation started. Moreover, it's even more unfathomable that I've already lived in Russia for a year. I must be getting old or something, because I remember a time when two months seemed like forever to me. Now, two months seemingly pass in the blink of an eye.
I spent the first couple days of my US trip in New York City. It’s not the first time I’ve been to NYC, but it was probably the best experience I’ve had. My first time was in late August 2001, just before the 9/11 attacks, and my family did the major sites like the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and so on.
Excluding times I simply passed through NYC on my way to and from Hanover, the second time I visited was in 2012, when I was with the Dartmouth College Marching Band and we were traveling to Columbia University for a football game. It was almost a good experience. The evening before the game was fairly nice. The band went to Times Square, a couple other major places in the area and then went back to our sleeping accommodations. However, my group ate at an Asian or Thai restaurant (I forget which) and I had a pineapple shrimp fried rice dish. One other person had shrimp at the restaurant and we would suffer from food poisoning the next day. In some ways, the other person was luckier than I was as she went to a hospital earlier in the morning for some help. I, on the other hand, suffered from it during the football game.
That was fun… (not really).
Anyways, that made this latest NYC experience the third time I’ve been in the city. I met up with a couple of my closest friends and we went on a very fast-paced outing around NYC.
Starting the afternoon of July 3rd to the morning of July 5th, I:
- enjoyed a small picnic of gourmet mac and cheese
- sampled a cronut for the first time (from Dunkin Donuts. It was fairly decent)
- went to Times Square, the big Toys R Us, FAO Scwartz, 9/11 memorial, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Met, Central Park and Rockefeller Park
- dined at a Thai restaurant (this one ended well), the Stardust Diner (I was trying to sing as loud as the waiters), a bagel shop and even had a slice of $1 cheese pizza and a street hot dog
St. Petersburg doesn't have many skyscrapers, if any, so after living there for a year, walking next to a building as tall as Freedom Tower (or the One World Trade Center) is awe-inducing.
I personally came away very impressed by the 9/11 memorial. It's not the flashiest monument I've every seen, but it's probably the most meaningful and communicative that I've visited. The weather on the 4th of July was cloudy and sometimes rainy, which only enhanced the atmosphere of the memorial and gave it a more somber feeling.
It was pretty busy, but it was awesome. :) I only wish I could’ve elongated my stay and hung out with more people. Alas, the time constraints of traveling and working.
After visiting the memorial, I continued on to less-somber locations, such as Rockefeller Park. It felt appropriate to take a picture with my friend in front of the sign because we both worked at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College.
Still, I look forward to the next time I’m able to meet up with friends for a city excursion. :)
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