BROOKLYN

My friends came over a couple of weeks ago. It was great having them around. I think that helped so much for me to get acclimated to the city. I have to say, also, that sharing your everyday life with someone else can be very difficult sometimes, even if those are the people you love the most.

When they left, I spent a lot of time on my own. Except for some nights that I met some friends, I had a week almost for myself. I'd go to the swimming pool, to some still unknown areas, ice skating, to visit Andy Warhol's factory -or the gap there's left-. I did loads of things. For most of my visits, I took my bike and the rides have been actually crucial for my understanding of the city.

I drive a scooter in Barcelona, and I know very well a 2-wheels vehicle is the best way to get to know a place. It's much better than a car, cause' it allows you to drive through paths and ways you couldn't get in with a big 4 wheels vehicle. It is also much better than walking, since the speed factor allows you seeing more things in less time, which helps you constructing a mental map of a place. Brooklyn has been the site where I've ridden the most, and I think I am starting to have a light idea of it.

I've been reading quite a lot about the area, which helped me very much in my understanding. At its beginnings, New York -New Amsterdam then- used to be composed by 6 different towns. One of them was 'Breukelen', what today is known as Brooklyn. By the beginning of the 19th Century it became a city, and by the end of the same century it became part of the city of New York. Today Brooklyn is one of the 5 boroughs of New York, and it has more than 2.5 million habitants. If it was an independent city, it would be the 4th most populated in the whole United States, only with that, we can have an idea of its dimensions.

The community in Brooklyn is so, so diverse. Different communities, have settled down around the borough, and that made that now they cohabit in the same space. However, they are not mixed at all. Every few blocks is populated by a different community, and sometimes, the change is perfectly defined from one block to another. That is, actually, one of the most amazing things the area has. I can be walking or riding in through a Caribean American area, crossing the street after a few blocks, and find myself in the middle of an Orthodox Jewish zone. If you have ever had an acid, you could understand how it feels. There's some point where your brain does a 'click' and everythig feels different, without reason. That's exactly the feeling. How amazing is just going down Bedford Avenue from Williamsburg; or just following Eastern Parkway to the East from Prospect Park, and seeing a different community every 7 blocks: Caribean American, Jewish, Indian, African American, Latin American...it is just like doing the world tour, without leaving the same street...just magic.