My AUSome Trip

Happy Summer to you!
I’ve been enjoying my summer with fresh fruit, milkshakes, two summer classes and an incredible AUDIOLOGY internship. Plus, a trip here and there to the city, which brings me to Summer Ramble: The East Village.

Photo: Satish Krishnamurthy

A friend of mine made up for us to meet at a cafe in the east village. I haven’t ever really spent time around there, but the second I got off at Astor Place, I could feel the hipster in the air. People around me were decked out in all kinds of colorful and mismatched fabrics, with hairdos and footwear spanning the last 50 years of fashion.
As I crossed the street, I noticed a group of young people in exercise clothes with  yoga-mats over their shoulders, though you’d think they were high fashion purses, the way some people carried them. After that, I passed by some outdoor cafes and a yogurt bar whose sandwich board goaded, “Get your antioxidants here!” Quickly I realized that the plastic bag I was carrying was earning me some hard stares from the passersby. I was clearly in the East Village.

In the short walk from the subway to the meeting with my friend, I had that distinct feeling one gets while traveling, that sense of fascination followed by the desire to study and understand the micro-verse that is a neighborhood in NYC, as an anthropologist would.  My friend and I had a lovely time together, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had crossed over some invisible line that took me into a world that was clearly different to the one I’d been in at the other end of subway line back in Brooklyn.

Photo: William Ward

So wherever you may be, I encourage you to hop on a train, or bus or bike and go just a few neighborhoods over and you too may find something you didn’t expect.