I'm on the road again! This year's travels take me around the USA so I decided that warranted another blog. My first stop is New York City!
July 14th
Wednesday was the longest day of my life. And I am not just saying that, it actually was 30 hours long. It feels weird to be in a different time zone, the time difference between New York and The Netherlands is 6 hours and once I arrive in San Francisco in three weeks, the time difference will be 9 hours. This results in me having a lot of conversations with myself on whatsapp since the people I’m messaging are asleep when I am awake. Besides waking up at 4 AM and getting hungry at weird hours I can’t say that the jetlag is bothering me much. I guess it will be worse when I return to the Netherlands. Alas, on to the important stuff. My first thought upon arriving at JFK: I’m gonna melt this summer’. It’s so warm here, between 30-35 degrees Celsius, what a difference with Holland. Especially the metro stations are unbearable, after taking one step outside I wanted to shower again. So I’m taking it slow (as I should since I’m on vacation) and sticking to the shadows (or the A/C). I spent my first day exploring the Metropolitan Museum of Art where I spent the biggest part of my day. The museum is huge! After five hours I had seen only a fraction of the stuff on display (and read hardly any of the texts, you guys should be proud). It was an amazing museum though with wonderful art and sculptures. I even came face to face with a couple of the cypriot figureheads which featured in my bachelor thesis :) And of course I took a picture sitting on the steps of the Met! Eventually I dragged myself out of the museum and went on to stroll around central park. Unfortunately the heavens chose that moment to release a torrential downpour. I waited out the storm (there was lightning and thunder as well) underneath a passageway with another girl who was travelling solo. We got to talking and decided to explore the park together. So I spend the rest of my day lounging in central park with Tara. 
Most of you probably know that I hate shorts, I never ever wear them in public in the Netherlands. You might see me in a dress but never in a pair of shorts (except at the stables, that one time was an exception Heleen!). However, New York has made me abandon my principles. It is so warm here that I wonder how people function properly in this city. I try to go from one airconditioned place to another or sit underneath trees in a park. This morming I spent a fair amount of time just sitting on a parkbench watching brooklyn bridge with a merciful breeze to cool me down. I walked around that park for a bit watching everyone around me. Apparantly it was a popular place for fotoshoots as I saw at least three groups of photographers, models and crew. One seemed like a fashion shoot for childrens clothes but the funniest and strangest one was a couple of ladies laying around dressed as mermaids, with actual tails! Fun fact: apparantly a tail is quite heavy as the models couldn’t even lift it themselves, one of the crew members had to hold it up for the pictures.
I was planning on meeting up with Tara again today but she sent me a message when I didn’t have wifi so we just missed each other. After relaxing in the Brooklyn Bridge park I decided to cross the bridge itself. It’s a very impressive structure and I was amazed by all the work it must have cost to build something like it. It is a really cool experience to witness all the things you see in movies and on tv in real life. In that spirit, I went on to take the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. The boat ride was really nice with beautiful views and I met a nice family on the way who immidiately invited me to their home in Las Vegas! As I love parks I couldn’t not visit the High Line, so that’s where I went next. The High Line is a park on an abandoned railroad track. A couple meters above street level is this green oasis (I’m feeling a little poetic) between the skyscrapers. It’s the coolest venue for a park I’ve ever seen. 
Tomorrow I’m going to move my luggage to the hostel where I’ll meet the group and spend the first night of the bustour so it’s gonna be my last full day in New York, think I might check out some more museums. For those of you who don’t know, starting Sunday I will be travelling from New York to San Francisco by bus. It’s an organised tour, don’t worry I’m not hitch-hiking or anything, with a group and it’ll take us three weeks to get to San Francisco. I’ll try to update as often as I can!
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