i'm cultured

   My sister and mom went to New York City for some school-related trip probably five or six years ago while I stayed at home with my dad and pitied my life. Yes I was invited to join but at the time of the invitation, it wasn’t “cool” to do fundraisers with kids three years younger than me along with their mothers. I regretted my decision because, as a rule of sibling order, the older sibling is always supposed to do things before the younger. Duh. So I was mainly upset that my sister would come back with these tales of the city and how cool it was and how cultured she was and I’d tell her about how I drove to the gas station and bought a corn dog while she was off traveling the world.

   Well five years down the road, I finally got the chance to travel to the Big Apple! This post explains the best part of the trip as well as the reason for the trip, but this post is simply an overall look at my big city experience.

   The first thing I noticed was what everyone said would be the first thing I’d notice: the smell. The heat of the day mixed with God knows what on the sidewalk created the oddest stench. To me it was sweet, kind of like when fruit rots and sits in your garbage can for a little too long. The second smell I recognized reminded me of the days of working at a gas station back home in high school. One of the chores was to empty the two cans next to the front door and they always were filled to the brim with empty soda cups containing a few inches worth of chew spit. Not familiar with that smell? Then you’re obviously not from a small town in Montana. I could identify that one anywhere. So the sweetness mixed with some old, warm chew spit – that’s what we’ve got so far. The last “flavor” I picked out was poop. Just hints of it here or there, when the breeze would shift or you’d walk by a particularly grungy alleyway…you’d smell it. Makes you just want to move to a big city, eh?

   Next thing I noticed was the amount of garbage. The first night, Garrett and I were walking back to our hotel when we turned down a street with sidewalks that were literally lined with full black trash bags. It felt like we were walking down a hallway because the bags went at least up to my hips. Now that smelled bad. We determined it must be garbage night or something and since there are so many people that live in each building, there would be hundreds of garbage cans and that would just be ridiculous. But the next day we happened to walk down that street again and it was the same thing! Just a wall of garbage lining the entire side of the block. I was appalled! How could one side of one block create that much waste?! Sickening. It was the same thing every night. I was thisclose to getting some poster board and a stick to start picketing the street and the wasters that inhabited it.

   Then there were the homeless people. Not as many as I had anticipated but enough to make me a little uneasy. The first day we were there, we walked to a pizza joint and snatched a window seat so we could see Times Square and people watch. Well less than five minutes later, an older man in a wheelchair (obviously homeless) wheeled by. He was dirty and seemed to be having a hard time staying in his chair while juggling his iced coffee. As he was attempting to cross the street, he completely slipped out of the wheelchair and fell face forward onto the sidewalk with the chair still strapped to him and on top of him. He somehow managed to not spill his coffee, though. Some guy stopped (I was amazed) and helped the man partially back into his chair and wheeled him back onto the sidewalk. The man seemed to refuse to stay in the chair and basically slid out of his strapping and onto the cement in an extremely awkward position. Needless to say, I could not stop watching. A little crowd gathered and tried to heave him back into his wheelchair but the man started to yell and flail his arms. He must have smelled pretty gross because the people weren’t willing to get more than a foot close to him and I saw a couple people gag and walk away. But the original helper guy stayed until the end, coaxing the man back into the chair. The homeless man apparently wanted nothing to do with anyone so he just laid there, taking sips of his drink now and then. Then (shield your eyes) the man seemed to have peed himself due to the puddle that began to surround him, reached behind himself to pull down his pants, did a “number two” on the sidewalk, rolled away a few inches, then resumed sipping his iced drink. Most people left, some running, at that point. The cops came and some guy with a big water jug and sprayer showed up shortly after. Basically I didn’t finish my pizza. And I was kind of scared.

   The number of sirens you would hear every day was simply amazing. Probably an ambulance every hour of the day tried to navigate the busy one-way streets without any help from the fellow drivers or pedestrians. Seriously, no one would move! Taxis didn’t even scoot over. People crossed the street right in front of the ambulances or fire trucks as if they weren’t anything special. It blew my mind! An ambulance would be stuck in one spot for minutes at a time just because no one would get out of their way! I feel bad for the dying person they were trying to reach.

   As for my overall experience in NYC, it was everything I’d hoped. I got to see all of the traditional tourist traps and visited places I’d only ever seen in movies. It was awesome! And I still didn’t get to do everything, that would take weeks! There’s definitely no where like New York.

   What have I discovered about myself from this trip? I’m not meant to live in the city. Country girl, represent.