Traveling to different cities is an opportunity to see how others live their daily lives. Wherever you go, people are busy doing the daily activities that make up most of their lives. They rush to work, pick up the kids from daycare, rush to dance or karate class, and then do the grocery shopping and head home to put dinner on the table. After dinner, baths, and homework, television is a common companion and a welcome relief for those who have been working all day. That’s when it’s time to relax and not have to think, and just enjoy the process of entertaining yourself.
This week, while I was in New York visiting one of my regulars, I was invited to travel to Brooklyn to meet a new associate. He had a few hours and traveling to the city was unlikely to happen to him. I had more free time that day, so I offered to take the train to Brooklyn and visit her.
I had been to Brooklyn once before when my husband took me there to visit his childhood home. But it wasn’t the Brooklyn I visited this week or had heard of for years. He showed me parks and beautiful townhouses and his elementary school. No, this Brooklyn was a whole new experience from the moment I arrived!
The train took about an hour to get to the end of Line B and then I left at Brighten Beach. It was the home of the movie Brighten Beach and the home of Coney Island. When I got off the B train and went down the stairs, I was greeted by tons of new sights and sounds. It was different from Manhattan, although there were clearly similarities because it also had a variety of stores lined the streets. But just above it is the train that rumbles through the city every few minutes. The sound is deafening and you have to yell or stop talking when the train passes overhead.
Both sides of the streets were lined with dozens of stores that had everything you can imagine in them. Jewelry, wallets, clothes, toys and electronics! There were street vendors with homemade Danish products and delicious Russians. Upon entering the store, the first thing you notice is that the prices were surprisingly low. The selections were 100 times more than you would find in suburban stores. The first store I walked into was a combination of a department store and a discount store. I noticed every color of women’s clothing under the wall. I have never seen such a selection with such a variety of colors! There were about 10 shades of different colored bras: pink, green, purple, blue, tan, cream, orange, aqua, yellow, orange, and red in all sizes. The quality wasn’t all bad, but the prices were $ 3 to $ 5 when most stores could sell the same item for 5 times as much. The pajamas were stylish and colorful and the prices beat any Marshals, TJ Max or Target anywhere in the US For $ 6.99 you can buy the pants and top in different colors, designs and patterns.
Everything everywhere was cheap! Bottles of water cost less than a dollar, and street vendors sold all of their items for about $ 1 to $ 2.
I arrived a few minutes before my friend, so I had a few minutes to browse and then went to the assigned corner to wait for her. I informed him that I was wearing a red top and black pants. I noticed that it was sticking out like a sore thumb. Not many people wear those bright colors in New York that I forgot when I was packing my bag early the morning I left the city. While I was there, a myriad of people passed by and were leading their lives as they do every day.
A group of young guys was standing a few feet from me. It was obvious that his favorite hobby was hanging out and watching the girls go by. Every time one that caught their attention passed, the whole group stopped the conversation and followed her with their eyes as she continued down the street. Then one of the guys started clapping to the beat that was apparently only in his head and started dancing to the beat of his hands. He enjoyed his own music for a few minutes while the other boys kept their exchange with each other. Another group of women was consumed by their own conversation and was standing in the middle of the pavement and even blocking traffic. I had been on my feet for the first time, but ended up moving because people had to walk around them and the backpack that hung from the back of one of the girls.
As I was standing on the corner, looking up and down the street trying to find my new friend who was returning from a funeral and was wearing all black, some young men in a car sitting at the stoplight about 8 feet from where me I was standing they yelled. using a megaphone: LOOKS LOST. I looked at them and started laughing at them and said, “I’m looking for my friend and I don’t know what she is like. Can you yell for Marianna?” Then, without missing a beat, suddenly, with a thunderous voice, I hear: “MARIANNA, YOUR FRIEND IS LOOKING FOR YOU, MARIANNA, YOUR FRIEND IS LOOKING FOR YOU.” I laughed and they laughed as they walked away and then came back to all the people around me, lost in their own conversations and enjoying the beautiful day in Brooklyn.
Around the corner was an ice cream truck with soft ice cream cones that can be dipped in delicious chocolate and toppings for an extra 50 cents. When my friend arrived, we treated ourselves to an ice cream cone and began our walk to the boardwalk.
We walked a couple of blocks to the beach and boardwalk, kicked off our shoes, and walked along the sandy beach. We sat on the sand and ended up talking and sharing for the next hour or so. The beach was full of people lazing in the sun with some people swimming in the gentle waves. There were a lot of people with amazing bodies and it was obviously a great place to show off your clothes.
Speaking, we discovered that although she was of Russian descent and I was a purely mixed American, we found many similarities in our personalities and life ambitions. We talked and talked and finally got up to go find the perfect gift for my son.
We walked around and did some window shopping, I saw items I had never seen anywhere. There was a flower shop that had hundreds of beautiful dolls in the windows and the one that caught my eye was the one that was a “fairy” with beautiful shiny wings. I thought of my sister-in-law who collects fairies and I thought that one day it would be the perfect gift for her. I found a gift for my son, a Batman car that has something that goes off, and I felt it was almost perfect. We then accompanied her to the YMCA where she was leading an acting class for a group of teenagers.
Everywhere around me people were speaking Russian. It’s a great Russian community and I met a lot of people who didn’t speak English at all. When I asked for a bath, I had to talk to several people because no one knew that word. Finally, after pointing down, a girl asked, “Bathroom?” I do not know. I found that shocking … with the thousands of people walking up and down that block every day, she didn’t know where a ladies’ restroom was located. I ended up buying her a Danish cheese and found a Walgreens with a ladies’ room and then headed for the train back to New York.
What a fun trip! I was there for about 3 hours, but in that time, I got a glimpse into a whole new world of how these thousands and thousands of people live. It didn’t even look like America because hardly anyone spoke pure English. The food, the merchandise and the culture seemed completely different to me than what I had experienced before. Women even looked different from American women. They were fair-skinned with small faces. They were very feminine and youthful, which also seemed different to me. Clearly, they had a very strong culture attached to this city, and it was a pleasure to experience it and I felt full of gratitude for the opportunity to be able to share a part of their lives for the short time that I did.
Sitting on the plane next to me is a lady of Russian descent who just shrugged when I told her how cool Brooklyn was. She said, “No … it’s okay.” She said, it’s exclusive to you because you haven’t lived there for 27 years and I agreed. She is on her way to Florida to pick up her 10-year-old daughter who stayed with her grandmother for the summer. She is excited with anticipation seeing her daughter, so we both kept the excitement in our attitude when we spoke after sitting down. Me about her hometown and she about going to my home state!
What a bonus to be able to experience other cultures right here in the good old United States of A. I got a taste of a bustling Russian community and really enjoyed it. I find that very often I go about my daily life, visiting the same stores, and traveling the same path to my daily activities day after day. I listen to the same few radio stations, talk to most of the same people, and meet my associates at one of the 3 Starbucks in town. Most of us do the same, and every day that we do that, we live our lives. Days stacked together turn into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, and very rarely do we intentionally go out and drive outside of our comfort zone and experience something new.
It was a wake-up call for me. There are probably new places to visit just a short drive from my house. Maybe this weekend, we’ll go somewhere new for the weekend instead of the usual beach we frequent. We may try a new activity or try a few different foods. Maybe I’ll put on some jazz instead of popular, easy-to-listen music and go to a different grocery store than my usual shopping stop. I want to live and explore the world, keep my mind fresh with ideas and be open to opportunities for new experiences.
Brooklyn My husband’s hometown now takes on a new meaning. Now I have a Brooklyn experience and that memory now lives in me.