"Tesla died in this hotel"

New York is not the city for me. I don't really think any city is right for me, at least not any big city. There are far too many people.

I do have a new respect for New York drivers though. I had always heard that they are bad, terrible, rude, etc. But what I saw was that people who actually drive constantly in New York really know how to do it. It's the out of state drivers that cause the accidents and mess up the traffic flow. The constant sound of horns blaring is a bit annoying though, but it's the language of the cars.

Speaking of languages I barely heard English the whole time I was up there. It is such a multinational city that to hear 15 languages in the span of half an hour is nothing uncommon. I found that to be both amazing and offputting at the same time. I usually like hearing a lot of languages, but when it hinders my ability to communicate with those around me I like it less.

I did, however, speak with a family of Poles in Ellis Island. We were reading a photograph of a menu from just outside the main entryway to the Island. Most of the menu was written in Polish. I was translating it for my family when I came across "szynka," a word I was not familiar with. I had heard a family speaking Polish on the boat to the Island and waited for them to come up to the photograph before asking "Co jest szynka?" The matriarch of the family thought about answering me in Polish, but then called for her daughter who spoke both English and Polish and she was the one who explained to me that "szynka" is ham. The matriarch then began speaking in Polish to me and I understood what she said to me. That was definitely a highlight of my trip. When I told my Polish teacher about it she laughed and said "That's what happens when a vegetarian teaches Polish."

I don't know why, but I was feeling very sick during my first two days up in the city. This made traveling by boat, plane, and fast elevator very difficult. The trip to the top of the Empire State building almost did me in and afterwards all I wanted to do was go back to our hotel (The New Yorker) and sleep, but we had tickets for the NBC Studio tour, which was also one of the best parts of my trip. I always find it interesting how television studios are so much smaller than what they seem on screen.

There's a lot more to say, but at the same time it's nothing too terribly important. New York is a place where I will probably go back to, but not for a while. I much prefer Virginia. I'm too Southern and offer/expect too much hospitality to/from others.