[DRAFT] I <3 NY

A man wheeled a bright blue dresser across an intersection while a yellow taxi van squeezed around him. Restaurant workers dragged trash bags into alleyways. An Amazon employee dragged a wheelbarrow full of boxes behind him. A father checked his GPS again and again before turning to wave his family in the right direction. Everyone looked tiny, like ants against the sprawl of the gray and brick buildings rising all around them.

Welcome to New York City.

I landed at LaGuardia just after 4:30 on Friday afternoon, exhausted and sticky from the July heat. It was the Fourth of July weekend (and the United States’ 250th birthday) and the streets were crawling with World Cup fans. I got onto the shuttle for my hotel in Midtown.

I’d seen the New York skyline a thousand times before. In movies, tv shows, postcards – none of that really did the city justice. It was beautiful.

The buildings didn’t just rise into the air; they multiplied. Every time I thought I’d found the edge of the city, another cluster of towers appeared right next to it. I’d made jokes in the past about Columbus being a mini NYC, but I didn’t realize how much of an understatement that had been.

As we entered Manhattan, I pressed my forehead against the window.

I’d arrived only minutes earlier, but already I felt like I was watching the entire world pass in front of me. I felt giddy, and a childlike excitement branched out from my chest and filled my body with anticipation for the next 4 days.

After checking into my hotel in Koreatown, I wandered outside to find dinner.

I weaved through the soccer jerseys that filled the sidewalks like flags in motion. English dissolved into Spanish, then Portuguese, then Italian, then languages I didn’t even recognize before they disappeared into the crowd. Street vendors sold sliced mangoes and watermelon in plastic cups. Faux designer bags were laid out on big white blankets on the sidewalk. Someone was selling umbrellas for $5; water bottles for $1.

I kept forgetting I was hungry.

Eventually I ended back at my hotel, and I glanced into a K-Pot restaurant that had a TV