A new friend from Belgium

MY FIRST CONNECTION:
Place: Hudson River park, NYC

It is an awesome, sunny but a windy day in New york city. I walked into the Hudson River park with my SLR camera around my neck, a heavy back pack on my back and my camera bag hanging across my shoulder all the way down to my back. I had never been to this place during my numerous outings to NYC before and so I stood there spellbound by the beauty of this park and the day. I walked the deck to find an interesting spot to take pictures and to indulge in a long photography session. As I walked the boardwalk, I could see, people lying shirtless on the grass sun bathing, people sitting on benches with a book, A college student working on her laptop and whole bunch of people listening to their diverse music collection on their ipods. (Isn't it amazing how easily we just assume that its an ipod and not anything else. )

I arrived to the end of the boardwalk. It seemed like the best place to take pictures. The new york skyline, the park along with people and some portion of the boardwalk were to my right. The statue of liberty and a big cool looking bridge were visible in the distance and a series of navy piers stood adjacent to the other portion of the boardwalk to my left. I took multiple pictures continuously for at least 15 minutes before changing my position. I repeated the same exercise with a telephoto lens and normal lens at different focal lengths. After about 30 mins of photo session, I sat on a porch for another lens change when a young man wearing a bright red T shirt approached me. He seemed 20 something (my age group), had an SLR camera around his neck just like me and seemed very friendly.

He says in a heavy accent: " Excuse me"
As I said hello he requested whether I could take a picture of the statue of liberty for him on his camera card because he had forgotten his telephoto lens. I decided to take one for him. He removed his card and we realized that his card wouldn't work on my camera. I offered to take pictures and email them to him and as a result we started talking and connecting. After taking some pictures, we walked on the boardwalk back on towards our way out of it. I invited him to sit with me on a porch and chat. He agreed as we looked for a good spot.

Over a talk of 45 minutes, I learned a lot about him. He was originally from Belgium and loved traveling. His decision to visit America was a spur in the moment decision. His initial plan was to spend 10 days in Barcelona, Spain but some of his friends scared him from pursuing that trip and then he found a last minute cheap flight deal to the US so he decided to just come here. Professionally he worked for a finance firm in Belgium and was on a 10 day vacation before going back to work. He planned to spend most of his time in NYC and had arrived just the previous night. He was considering going to either Boston or Washington DC for 2-3 days besides being in NYC. He asked me on my recommendations in terms of DC or Boston.

Being a Bostonian for 6 years, I am clearly biased but I did my best to tell him what I liked about Boston / DC and what most people like to do in Boston and DC. I incorrectly told him that Boston was closer than DC from NYC but I learned about this later. Ooops! I offered to hang out with him in Boston if he visited while I am in Boston. We started talking a bit about traveling and what we like to do. He expressed that he usually likes to stay away from touristy places and likes to branch out in to other near by areas of the city. He removed an NYC map and start telling me as to where he started and where he was trying to go. He impressed me about how much he had already learned about the city just within a day. He expressed interest in checking out a Broadway show and told him about how to find good deals at the half ticket booth.

Later on we moved on to discuss our perspectives on America as international visitors from different countries and cultures. It was amazing for me to hear him mention a few things that he observed in a day which I had been observing for 6 years. For example: He mentioned how amazed he was with people around here being big consumers for everything. Be it the big cards, or serving orders at restaurants...everything in this country was about being big. People would commute alone in cars to work every day but would still like bigger and spacious cars. Most people would not finish a meal at a restaurant but yet the meals were served in such big proportions. We both agreed on this and this was something hard for us to see since we both came from countries where people preferred and liked small cars and where everything was preferred in small quantities. I mentioned how I found a lot of things wasteful in this country. Like for example, I could never ever understand as to why the showrooms, shops, restaurants and even offices left their power lights on all through out the night. Maybe they market and attract people going by but it just amazed me how much of power and energy wastage that is. What was amazing to me is that countries in the east were also adopting these things from the western world and that too in the day and age where strong movements are going on for recycling, saving energy and what not. I mean there are villages in poor countries that still do not get power and electricity for the entire duration of the day.

One of the other hot button topics for me is the amount of food that is wasted in this country. The country's food chain is dominated by numerous chains and restaurants that like to market the "We Serve Fresh" philosophy. It amazes me as to how much food they throw away in to the trash at the end of every day. Now, I know some of the good franchises that have realized this - are donating food to the needy and the homeless or to institutions that provide shelter to the homeless but still a majority of restaurants and fast food joints in this country trash the left over food at the end of the day and I can bet the quantity of food that is trashed will be able to easily feed some starving nation in this entirety.

After talking about a few impressions about America we went on to discuss our traveling adventures. He expressed a desire to do what I was doing and wished if he could quit his job to travel the world and to explore and self discover and enjoy this kind of lifestyle. I told him about my blogging and goal to meet new people and make new connections. We spoke about how staying in hostels is fun and he mentioned how he met a German woman at the NYC hostel he was staying and how cheap and fun hostels can be. He also expressed an interest in living in NYC for a few months at some point in his life.

He mentioned his girl friend plans to move to NYC at some point and he is hoping to come here with her as well. I was amazed to learn that his girl friend was actually not in Belgium nor with her here but was in an Asia. I forget the name of the country but he met her while traveling in Asia and they have been together since then. I could be wrong but i think he said for an year. I was amazed about how they make that work and raised my hats off to their dedication to a long distance relationship like that.

In between our conversation at some point we were interrupted by dogs barking and a girl shouting in a funny way. We both turned around to see a young looking girl with two big sized bull dogs. We weren't sure what she was doing with them because she was quite short and petite to manage two big dogs of that size. The dogs were completely bullying her. She was lying flat on a porch and every time she was trying to get up they would jump on her belly and body to push her flat back on the porch. We couldn't help but stop laughing. Eventually I thought of getting up and helping but later a giggle from her assured me that she was having fun with them so we decided to stay out of it and just got entertained by the event. I think I was quite sure that she did not own the dogs and was probably just hanging out with them as a temporary care taker or so. But this was clearly an assumption on my part and by no means a certainty.

Later on she stopped by to interrupt our conversation to ask us whether we knew the exact time. As I told her the time, I pet one of the dogs then she walked away and we continued our conversation. Eventually time caught up to us and he wanted to move to on to his next location. He was not sure as to where he was going to walk next, I on the other hand wasn't yet done with this location and wanted to take some more pictures before walking over to Greenwich village. we exchanged contacts and decided to stay in touch. We said good bye and walked away in opposite directions. This new friend from Belgium left a very strong first connection impression on me. He seemed friendly and cherished new experiences and I wished him all the fun and joy in life. Later on a few days later, I emailed him the pictures and let him know the days I was going to be in Boston, He thanked me for the pictures but was not sure when he would be in Boston. That was the last I conversed with him but he certainly will be remembered for ever in terms of my road trip and adventures.