Family time

Brownstone buildings in the Brooklyn residential streets

If we have been more silent than usual during the last two weeks, it is for the most part due to a very pleasant special occasion which we could enjoy until Thursday: my family's visit to New York.

Downtown from Dumbo

Having the family closely around (very concretely in the case of my brother and his girlfriend, who slept in our living room for one week, and slightly more commonly in the case of my parents, who stayed at a nearby hotel) had at least two very appreciable effects. On the one hand, Basilio and I had a wonderful excuse to escape the daily work routine and plunge into the city's history and cultural offer at an unprecedented pace and depth; and on the other, we finally left the relative social isolation in which we had spent the first part of our stay to enjoy intense contact and exchange with the people we (or I) feel closest to. (A great aftereffect I should not miss to mention is the fact that we are now living from a kitchen full of exquisite cheese and fruit, as both my parents and Silvan and Fabienne gifted us with delicious and somewhat unaffordable gourmet products when they left.)

Midtown from the Top of the Rock

In terms of activities, these two family weeks have been a pure delight. To mention but a few: Together with fabulous tour guide Norman Oder we discovered Brownstone Brooklyn in a five hours walk through Park Slope, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo, where we learned about the tight links between city growth and transportation systems, Brooklyn's past as an independent city, remainders of both the independence and the civil war, and the many positive and negative effects of gentrification (positive especially where it is well done as in Dumbo); American Promise, which we saw at the Lincoln Film Society, taught us about the challenging American school system and the difficulties (and chances) it brings about for children belonging to minorities (in whatever possible sense); From the 'Top of the Rock' we got a better grasp of the city's geography and its dimensions - which, although more manageable from a vantage point such as the top of Rockefeller Center, still go beyond our actual imagination; At the MET we saw 'Two Boys' and thus a dizzying masterpiece of a new music opera, which delves deeply into the realms and possibilities of the world wide web to tell a story about identity, masquerade and the danger of unfulfilled longing and loneliness.

The Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts

Together with our friends Virginia and Fred we went out of town to Dia:Beacon - a first class contemporary art museum in a former factory building close to Hudson River in Upstate new York which is dedicated to American Minimalism (a current in the new art that deeply satisfies our need for content-less and pure aesthetics); And finally we enjoyed a Harlem Heritage tour (with a somewhat peculiar Gospel mass at Abyssinian Baptist Church) and dinner at the scenic and way too loud (but NZZ recommended) Red Rooster Harlem.

The first exhibition hall at Dia:Beacon

As Basilio and I also had to work at least sometimes, we also missed out on some activities (such as a huge history lesson in the shape of an afternoon long stroll through the Metropolitan Museum) and have therefore put together a list of things we shall try not to miss before going back home.

The (in)famous Red Rooster in Harlem

Despite all the memorable and fulfilling activities, most important has been the presence of my family and the mutual exchange, discussions and common experiences it made possible. Their presence was a balm for the feeling of Heimweh (for which none of the languages we're familiar with provides a satisfactory counterpart) that we had been becoming victims of after two months on our own.

Indeed, these past two weeks of emotional refuelling have made us ready for the official second half of our stay.

Shoes and a teddy bear in Williamsburg, Brooklyn