I'm extremely fortunate in that I get to live less than ten hours away from New York City, an artistic and social center that never ceases to excite. This past weekend, my family and I visited my sister who currently works and lives her dream in the city. Here are some observations.
At the Museum of Modern Art, I was greeted by works by artists with Hispanic roots: Picasso, Cezanne, Kahlo, Dalí, Rivera, y más. Having never visited the MoMA, to experience the museum (even in such a small amount of time) was fascinating. Sometimes, after seeing reproductions of "The Persistence of Memory" over and over again, you don't realize that it's actually closer to the size of a laptop monitor. All in all, it was a beautiful gallery filled with beautiful people speaking one thousand languages. I even was able to practice some elevator banter en español.
In fact, that last statement goes for all of Nueva York. There's an intense variety of people from every walk of life, and my ears rang from deciphering the German from the French, English, Spanish, etc. Coming from an isolated town not particularly known for its sweeping range of culture, I felt slightly starry eyed but also right at home.
Another amazing benefit of cities is the availability of bilingual resources...a.k.a, books translated into Spanish. At a small bookstore in Greenwich I scored "Las ventajas de ser invisible", better known as "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", and "The Motorcycle Diaries", a compilation of the journal entries written by Che Guevara during his road trip through Sudamérica during the early 1950's that was published during the height of popular indie film (and a definite favorite of mine) "Los diarios de moticicletas".
New York was a fabulous, dirty, overwhelming place with expensive food, expensive stores, but an amazing sense of self and pride. It's a refreshing experience for literally everyone, and gives each of us a fresh start on any social, economic, political, emotional, mental, and physical level. Disfruta Nueva York.
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