BootsnAll Travel Network



Archive for April, 2006

« Home

Pre-trip Jitters

Friday, April 28th, 2006

It hasn’t hit me yet that in two weeks I will be arriving in Paris. I know it’s true, but only superficially. I can only imagine, but can’t grasp that I will be homeless for 4 months (possibly longer if I can’t find a place to live in NYC right away). I have to admit that as this trip approaches, the little piece of me that knows the truth has turned into the whining child not wanting to leave the birthday party just yet. (It’s the best analogy I can come up with at the moment). That part of me feels comfortable here, settled into a routine. It’s something that doesn’t happen too often. But I go to bed at one when I’m tired and wake up at eight without fail to the sunlight streaming through the blinds. It’s comfortable; the child doesn’t want it to change.

One more metaphor, I don’t like it when my feet are cold and wet, and that’s what this child fears, cold, wet feet. Irrational fears are springing up… what if the plane crashes, what if the airline loses my luggage, what if my backpack is stolen? I don’t know Italian, or Turkish or Arabic! I’ve never had these fears before; where have they come from? What happened to that need for travel like it were food? The past few weeks, I’ve managed to feel something I had felt only while traveling, the feeling of living in the present tense, the tomorrow that comes in no more than 24 hours. It’s a wonderful feeling. I suppose I don’t want to disrupt it with change. But then there’s a smaller part of me, just waking up to the smell of adventure. That part says it can only get better. That part is the part that is truly living in the present, and it is wise enough to know that when my flight lands in Paris, I will be jumping in my seat, craning my neck to see out the window. And so it begins, the period of excitement and terror in anticipation. I am about to embark on my third big trip alone. Whew.

Day Time Coney Island

Saturday, April 15th, 2006

Around 2:30 this afternoon, I left my room with the intention of going to the park to sit and read at the fountain.  But it hit me that today, 77 degrees, it was too beautiful even for Washington Square Park.  Central Park, I decided and headed for the subway.  As I turned onto Lafayette, I realized, I had a place I still needed to go, so I went.  Coney Island was beautiful today.  In the April sunshine, it was far more inviting than it was on that cold March evening.

First stop was Nathan’s for a frank with saurkraut, and then on to the beach.  I stopped off at the boardwalk to sit and eat my frankfurter, but no sooner had I sat down than my peaceful independence was assaulted by a tourist.

“It’s a beautiful beach isn’t it?  This is my first time here.”  He crouched next to me.  Dressed in a footballer jersey, he seemed eerily remniscent of a certain Chilean I met last summer, who was impossible go get rid of.  “Are you from New York?”

I nodded,  twisting my hair behind me so it wouldn’t blow in my face.

“Are you from Coney Island?”

“No.”

“Where are you from?” he asked as I took an enormous bite out of the frank that occupied my mouth for several seconds.

He laughed, and I didn’t know what to do, so I did the rudest thing.  I pulled out my book and began to read, blowing him off entirely.

He didn’t say anything else, but hovered for a bit, pacing between the railing and the bench where I was sitting.  He walked away, and I sat feeling guilty, wondering if rejection kharma would come back to bite me later.

A few pages later, I’d finished eating, so I was ready for the beach.  I walked across the powdery sand to the water.  I sat on a rock to remove my shoes and walked on under a pier through the water so cold it seemed to burn my feet.  Children’s pants were soaked to the seat as they ran from the small waves crashing around them.  I sat myself on the damp sand and closed my eyes, letting the wind mess my hair and blow sand at my legs.

At about 5, I walked toward my shadow.  The wind blew the soft sand in ghostly rivers around me.  I found the rocks again where a couple of parents were snapping shots of their daughter with her bucket and shovel.  I put my shoes back on and walked slowly across the sand, back to the boardwalk.

I rode the F train back towards the city, my foot resting on the pole in front of me.  As is usual in New York City, almost no one on the train was speaking English.  The two men who took a seat across from me were no exception.  From Avenue P to Jay Street, I wondered to myself what language they were speaking.  Hebrew, it seemed.  Could they be Israeli?  The one looked almost Indian.

We crossed the river into Manhattan, and one of them, with a beard stood up, holding his camera in front of him.

“Do you mind?  We’re tourists from Israel.  We were wondering if we could take your picture?  We think you’re very beautiful.  It’s alright if you don’t want us to.”

“Um.”  My picture?  I thought he was going to ask me to take their picture.  “S-sure.”

He took my picture, probably of me blushing, and I went back to my fake sleep.  I had been wondering why he’d taken his camera out and turned it on.  I need to learn more languages so I can tell when people are talking about me.

It was all I could do not to laugh when he caught my eye as I stood to get off the train at 2nd Ave.  I love travelling alone.