Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
If you are in Manhattan and need some green fields, trees and a place for a picnic, a short boat trip is helpful. Close to the southern tip of Manhattan Island there is Governors Island, a place that was used by the U.S. forces until 1997. From 2003 on the island is open to the public and you can visit Fort Jay and Castle Williams.
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The Highline is a pretty new but already well known sight in New York. It is an old railway track converted into a park above the ground. It opened up in 2009, was extended later on and is now 2.3 km long. It is running throughout the Meatpacking District of New York and is always a good cause for a promenade.
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To me the best viewing platform in New York City. The Rockefeller Center is a building complex consisting of 21 skyscrapers with lots of bars, restaurants and shopping opportunities. It also has a nice square where you can sit outside and the media industry uses Rockefeller Center as a main location. The GE Building with 70 floors is the highest building within this venue.
Continue reading “Top of the Rocks”
I already did a lot of stupid things while travelling. But what about standing in line for hours in New York City just to get pastries from a bakery? Well, it is not any bakery, it is the Dominique Ansel Bakery selling very good products. And one day, Dominique Ansel invented a combination of a croissant and a donut – the Cronut.
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Beer and the United States? That doesn’t fit too well together for a German, continously experiencing the advantages of the German purity requirements (“Reinheitsgebot“). But in fact, there is a pretty good brewery in New York City. One with splendid bottle designs and various kinds of beer to taste.
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If people think about Japanese food, they always have sushi in mind. Or maybe kobe beef. But the best of all – and I’ve been twice to Japan – is Japanese curry. It is rice with chunks of meat of your choice with an extremely delicious gravy. I would walk one hundred miles for that.
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What I really found odd about New York is that people always seem to live at a neighborhood according to their origin. At first it is nice to have Little Italy where you can walk from pizzaria to pizzaria (and of course also from ice cream parlor to ice cream parlor) or to have China Town which you would visit to get some good Chinese food.
I guess everybody still knowns where he or she was when terrorists transformed a part of Manhattan into Ground Zero on 11th of September, 2001 (I myself was doing my civilian service in Göttingen, Germany). This date has eternalized in the memories of people around the world. You can now visit the memorial and a very impressive museum at the original location.
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During my stay in New York the quarter and semi finals of the FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil where held. That is why I was looking for a bar showing the games of the German soccer team (“Die Mannschaft“, as it is called in the States). Easily I found the “Zum Schneider“, a Bavarian beergarden and restaurant in the East Village of New York.
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Tired of the big city? Take the A train to Rockaway beach! You can enjoy a long metro ride through Queens and afterwards walk along the sandy beach. There are no typical beach facilities (as one would expect back home) and I was quite irritated by the standardized homes along the way but there is nothing like a cool summer breeze close to the ocean.
Continue reading “A visit to the shore”