It was a struggle to get up, and it was still very dark and cool outside. As I stepped to the street, next to the bins we had thrown out to be collected the night before, I was afraid of running into rats, but luckily the street was empty. (I wish New York would invest in a modern waste collection system where you wouldn’t throw your waste to the streets to attract rats!) Alanmies and I jogged to Bowery and further down to Little Italy and Broadway. It felt as if we owned the city. The streets were empty, we only saw some early birds loading new groceries to their stores or cleaning the pavements. When we reached our meeting point, City Hall Park, the darkness had already started to give way to the morning light. Happily I hugged Norppa, who had arrived to NYC the previous evening and would leave back to Finland the same afternoon. How strange to meet over here!
We ran through the park and joined the other joggers that were heading to Brooklyn Bridge. It was a bit cloudy, but the sun was clearly rising. The sky went red and yellow. The wooden planks on the bridge were a peculiar ground to run on, and I almost slipped, because I was so excited to see the views and admire the bridge. Suddenly we had finished the 1,825 meters and were on the Brooklyn side. That went fast! As we turned around, we got a fantastic Manhattan skyline view ahead of us, dominated by the Liberty Tower that was yet to be finished. ”We were there on Monday and visited the Ground Zero memorial”, I told Norppa. It had been quite touching to see the names of everyone, who lost their lives, engraved in the stone around the pools. We discussed and laughed the way back and I had to agree with Norppa that there is no better way to start a morning in New York. Or what do you think?!
After we separated I was still bursting with energy, so Alanmies and I ran to the shoreline and made our way to the north, to Chinatown, Lower East Side and finally back to East Village. In the end, we had been out for almost 1,5 hours and ran probably around 10 kilometers.
We stepped in to our apartment around 7.30, and everyone was already awake. I could smell the fresh coffee. Mom, Eeva and Tuulikki had made a breakfast for us. Lovely. This day will surely be a good one!
(P.S. It was. We strolled in SoHo and Little Italy, visited Sanctuary T for lunch, and on the way back I popped into Christian Siriano’s boutique and found a -60 % bargain jacket. The afternoon continued with a walk on the High Lane and dinner at Colicchio & Son’s tap room in Meatpacking District. So not bad, not bad at all.)