NEW YORK AGAIN OR 'ARE THOSE FUCKING HALLOWEEN PRANKS OR SOMETHING?'

Back in New York for one day to properly say goodbye to Lotte and pick up my laptop from repair. The Apple store is now officially my most often visited place in NYC and I may or may not have spent 100€ talking to an Apple computer on the phone while trying to reschedule appointments. Oh well, so that's that.

While waiting for my laptop, I tried to check in online for my flight to Buenos Aires but somehow the flight number kept showing up as invalid. At the same time my laptop was handed to me with a note that basically everything was exchanged, including the hard drive which means I have lost everything which was on the laptop before. Ironically enough, 3 weeks ago I just transferred all my data on this new laptop I bought for traveling so I almost fainted when I heard the news.

I have not yet recovered from all that, the next punch in my face was right there: My flight to Buenos Aires was moved from JFK to LaGuardia and it was at 10AM instead of 5PM without me knowing it because the travel agency failed to notify me. It must be a Halloween prank, right? I spent another fortune talking to the travel agency in Germany and went to JFK without any success because no one could help me. I cried in public a few times that day.

"That's it, I'm so going back to Germany, fuck traveling and fuck all this." I have had enough. If there is a higher force out there that is trying to tell me something or trying to punish me for every single bad thing I have done: congrats, you have been very thorough with your work!

Fortunately, I am not superstitious and I do realize that on my journey, there are more wonderful but most probably also more sad moments to come which may make me want to go home; and I know I always have the option to do that. But this was not one of those moments. And I know I would be very happy once I arrive in Buenos Aires. So no, I am not going home yet.

I decided to have another flight to Buenos Aires booked for the next day, which means I'm staying another night in NYC. Lotte was with me all day and I felt bad she had to see me that miserable but at the same time, I was so thankful I did not have to go through this alone and she felt my pains but she also knew all along this was not the time for me to give up.

31.10. - 01.11. 

NEW YORK

I have been going back and forth between the european cities and Mannheim while making baby steps traveling, but this time, I was packing my backpack for real.

The second part of my trip was New York with my lovebird Lotte. Turns out we've got a tradition going on: New York in October after my birthday, just like last year. 

It felt like we both were recovering from the last few months and needed to have a rest. So, just like an old couple, we pretty much went to bed at 10pm almost every day, woke up early, drank coffee and went for walks. All of these things were so well needed! It sounds and feels absurd to say I needed to get out of Germany to hectic and highlife New York to calm down and get some sort of vacation feelings. But I realized I needed the actual geographic distance to be able to think straight and I knew I enjoyed the calm a lot.

All the above being said, we did have a few exciting incidents happening. One day, we took the bus all the way to Queens to eat at this Vietnamese restaurant. The food was absolutely amazing, for a change - we weren't very lucky with the food experiences this time in NYC which was partly due to the fact that we did not want to move further away from Bed-Stuy, where we stayed, to get food. So fair enough.

Fancy Vietnamese dinner done, we realized both of our cards were not working. We were pretty desperate and just sat there debating what to do. Stranded in fucking Queens, not able to pay for dinner and move anywhere. Western Union was not an option because it was midnight in Germany and Saturday. But then I found 100€ in my wallet between all papers and cards. The waiter, Greg Landess, was a very kind man, exchanged the 100€ in $ and then we were saved until Monday when we could get our credit card situations fixed.
Kudos to our priorities: we bought beers with the basically last money we had for the weekend and thought it was an excellent idea! Money well spent :)

13.10. - 22.10.