We know you can think it’s a bit stupid to do a blogpost on New York City on a blog dedicated to India and the surrounding area.
Actually (beware, it’s the “life-is-hard” moment !), as we live in India, we spend most of our vacation in France (and we have to go to France for business anyway). But we believe that, if we want to be able to last in India (and not to become mad), we have to come back quite often : to keep strong links with our family, our friends and to remember why we are in India (cause, with the time going on, we can feel that our experience is a bit less exciting that 3 years ago).

Well, se we go back to France 2 – 3 times a year, so we only have little time remaining for other big trips and this is quite frustrating for our never ending wanderlust. So we have decided to take advantage of these trips to France and to stop on the way (like we’ve done already with Oman). Ok, that’s here that it can be a bit ridiculous. Yes, we know NYC is not on the way to France from India but, because the international airplane ticketing system is very weird, it’s not that more expensive to do a stop over in New-York (you only have to add 200-300 euros) instead of booking a classic ticket.

We also really wanted to spend time with friends settled there, change the surrounding and feel once again that exciting atmosphere of New York City (we’ve already spent several months there almost 10 years ago) so, hophophop, 2 luggages and 20 hours of travel after, here we were, walking in the NYC streets, almost as damaged as Bangalore ones (well,almost… !).

During 5 days, we’ve ticked all the clichés we had and wanted to experience in NYC: to become a hipster in Brooklyn, to eat some (ramen) burgers, to discover not yet gentrified neighborhoods (Bushwick et Red Hook), to eat enormous pork ribs, to eat again pastrami at Katz’s, to drink ONLY local and carft beers, to attend an NBA play-off basketball game, to walk until being completely exhausted in Manhattan, to cross Obama’s car (with Obama inside) on the 5th avenue, to picnic on the Highline, to go and see the new september 11 memorial, to discover the new Whitney Museum, to rise the head very high to be able to see the sky, to admire the Manhattan skyline from Williamsburg beach…
All this thanks to a perfect schedule organized by our hosts (thank you Mariols !).

Result of the trip : it was great to feel so disconnected and we’ve enjoyed it a lot

So now, we have to find the next stop-over !