I had messed up the dates a bit, so on board the plane to New York I realized that I didn’t have a hotel for the first night in the city. I arrived late in the evening, and I wouldn’t reach Manhattan before 2am, so I didn’t want to book anything fancy, I just needed a place to crash.
I purchased a data sim card in the airport and went online to see what was available. I decided on a private room/shared bathroom at a hostel in Lower East Side, which seemed nice. I didn’t get much sleep though, as it was quite noisy, and some rather sketchy characters were hanging out in the lobby area. One of them was selling weed to one of the others, and they were loudly discussing the price. I later found out that they were tenants of the building, so I was happy, I only booked that place for one night.
At 5:30am I got up and decided to go for a walk. Watching New York City wake up is a fascinating experience. The streets go from empty to busy and the dormant night sounds are slowly replaced by the daytime buzz of big city noise. Kids go to school and people go to work, while I’m walking around with my camera, feeling very lucky to be back in my favorite city once again. Good morning NYC!
