Week 15 - 08.12.23 - Olana & Catskill 

As I don't have a driver's license, I rely on my bike to get to the train station, explore the surrounding area or go shopping on my days off. So far, I've always used the bike of my parents' 13-year-old son, but it's a bit too small for me. I discovered a bike on the grounds that hadn't been ridden for a long time. I asked around and tried to find out who owned the bike. 

It turned out that the bike had been bought by a volunteer who also happened to be from Berlin. However, he left the bike behind in Triform when he left. I was therefore given permission to use the bike. I am very happy with my "new" bike because it is bigger, lighter and also faster. Now it's much easier to climb the steep hills. 

On a day off, I went for a long bike ride. I rode over the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, which was built in 1935 and has had a skywalk since 2018. Here I was able to enjoy a wonderful view over the River Hudson. 

Afterwards, I visited the Thomas Cole Historic Site. I didn't buy any tickets to visit the painter Thomas Cole's house from the inside, but I read the numerous information boards outside with great interest. Cole painted the Kaaterskill Falls, which I had already visited, and captured the beauty of the Hudson Valley in many paintings. Very beautiful paintings that perfectly capture the fascinating landscape. He was also the founder of the Hudson River School of Art, a movement of American landscape painters who dedicated their art to the region. 

I then drove to Dutchmans Landing Park. A beautiful park with a pavilion, a large playground and numerous information boards about nature conservation and the ecological importance of the Hudson River. There is also a memorial here that honors the fallen American soldiers of past wars. As a historian, it is interesting for me to see that every major settlement has a memorial that honors the names of the fallen soldiers who came from that particular town. I have made a note of a few names and will try to find out the story behind them. Not only are the dead soldiers honored, but there are also reserved parking spaces for veterans. 

The town of Catskill is a tranquil settlement with the mountains in the background and lots of small stores. I found a store offering "Dungeons & Dragons" game nights, which is a pen & paper role-playing game, exciting. Talking to my family at home, I found out that my son likes to go there with friends. As in the city of Hudson, gentrification has ensured that many young families, artists and business people are restoring the old small towns and revitalizing them with a modern spirit and fresh ideas. A bridge in the city honors Samuel Wilson, who lived in the city and is said to have been the inspiration for "Uncle Sam". 

I then visited McDonalds and was curious to see if there were many differences to the German McDonalds. There weren't many differences; the Spanish McDonalds, which I tested in the summer during my work as a youth group leader in Playa del Aro, offered much more exciting new products. Interestingly, there was no mayonnaise and many of the burgers had a different name. I remembered the scene from the movie "Pulp Fiction", in which exactly these differences between American and European McDonalds were discussed:

https://youtu.be/uYSt8K8VP6k?si=MubzWvhcBfe1OwVD

After a little refreshment, I drove to the RamsHorn Sanctuary. It is the largest tidal marsh in the north of the Hudson River and, as a nature reserve, is home to many rare birds. I'm not much of a bird expert, but I really enjoyed the tranquil nature and the view from the 10-metre-high observation tower. Visitors are asked to take photos at designated points equipped with cell phone holders to document the regular flooding and water levels, which are analyzed by computer and made available for research. Educational programs for the Boy and Girl Scouts are offered at the site, as there are many animals to observe up close in their natural habitat, including bald eagles, Baltimore orioles, Virginia wrens, yellow warblers, yellow-throats, marsh sparrows, red-shouldered blackbirds, gray herons, woodcock, American shad and beavers. 

Finally, on the way back, I drove to the Olana State Historical Site, which is located on a large hill. The building has a very exciting history and doesn't fit into the area at all. This is because it is a large Persian villa. The magnificent house was built between 1870 and 1891 by the landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church, a student of Thomas Cole. He was inspired by his travels in the Middle East when planning the house, and the villa bears witness to the family's great wealth. Carpets, ceramics and metalwork from the Middle East, oriental furniture and art from Mexico can be admired inside. Church went to great lengths to make the journey to the villa an experience in itself. He planned the carriage drives (for which he imported a donkey from Syria) and the trees and shrubs along the way so that visitors could drive or walk carefully choreographed as if from one picture to the next to enjoy the view of the surrounding landscape. From up there, you have a beautiful view of the Hudson River valley and the Catskill Mountains in the distance. I rested there after the long bike ride and watched the sunset. A lovely end to my tour!

After the Thanksgiving break, I joined the Sign Language Choir. Here we learn sign language in a special way that is catchy and understandable for everyone. We rehearsed two songs that we sang together. Once we knew the songs, we learned the meaning of the words in sign language. The aim was to sing the songs and at the same time present them in sign language so that people without hearing could still hear our singing.

The first song is "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkel. It's a nice introduction, as the song is not particularly fast and the central words are repeated. In the phrase "Like a bridge over troubled water", the arm is held in front of the chest, forming a V with the other finger and symbolizing the bridge's stilts in two places. Water is represented with three fingers forming a W in front of the mouth. A wave movement with the arm describes the turbulent state of the water. A nice approach to learning sign language, which also gives the residents easy access to language acquisition. 

The second song is the classic "All I want for Christmas is you", which was much more difficult due to its speed, but put us all in the Christmas spirit. There is also the Bell Choir, which rings different bells at fixed points in addition to singing, which results in a very beautiful sound. The Triform Bell Choir has already performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York and at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, while the Sign Language Choir is still a young project by an academy student. On December 9, we had a joint concert in the library of the neighboring village of Claverack. Afterwards, some of the residents burst into tears of joy, as the audience included not only local residents, but also some of the residents' relatives. I really enjoyed the performance and we received a huge round of applause from the packed hall. 

The performance was recorded and I am happy to share the video privately on request!

As I reported in the week 10 blog post, I am involved in the theater class at Triform. After the Halloween play, we took on a bigger project: the well-known play "Oberufer Shepherds Play" about Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary, who go from door to door to find a place to give birth. They meet with rejection until they finally find a stable where they give birth. Three shepherds hear about the birth and bring gifts to the new parents. I was initially very confused, as I am familiar with this story as "The three holy kings" with the names Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, whereas here it is shepherds with the names Gallus, Stickle and Witok. This is a medieval play from Austria, which was adapted by Rudolf Steiner and has been performed by Camphill communities ever since. I was also unsure at the beginning whether we would be able to put on the play with a total of 12 pages in the time remaining before Christmas, as we had more time to prepare for the shorter Halloween play. To compensate for this, we rehearsed much more frequently, which I really enjoyed. I was given the role of Josef, who has the most lines in the play. That's why I spent a lot of free time in December learning my lines, as there is often very little time for this in our busy everyday lives here. 

The intensive preparations paid off - shortly before the Christmas vacations on December 17 and 18, we put on two performances so that all interested parents, residents and staff had the chance to see the play. It went wonderfully and I was pleasantly surprised that we were able to put on a very successful play despite the short preparation time. I am particularly proud of the residents, who didn't get nervous despite the full hall and the families present and showed everyone what they are made of!

The play was recorded, and I am happy to share the video with friends and family on request.

On the last working day before the Christmas vacations, our work leaders surprised us on the farm. Half an hour before the end of work, our workleaders loaded all the residents and coworkers suddenly into the two vehicles and off we went. We drove to Stewart's Shop, where everyone received a large ice cream as a thank you for their hard work. A great atmosphere in the team and the feeling of having achieved a lot together brought the year 2023 on the farm to a nice end. 

The time before Christmas in our house was dedicated to a big project together with the residents. For the gingerbread competition, each house had to build something beautiful with gingerbread, not just the classic gingerbread houses, but other creative ideas were also given space. The only rule was that only edible ingredients could be used. Our house had the idea of building a large gingerbread world map. We used dots to mark the cities from which the householders and their families, our residents and us coworkers come. For each dot, we chose a landmark of the city, which we also recreated from gingerbread and placed on the world map. At first, I tried to build the Brandenburg Gate out of gingerbread, but unfortunately failed due to the statics. The landmark had to be small enough to fit on the world map, but at the same time the gate pillars had to be wide enough to support the gate with the quadriga and not fall over. The construction was therefore a very shaky affair and the proportions were completely out of kilter due to the statics, so I chose a new landmark. The TV tower was not only easier to build, but interestingly also a little better known among the Americans. After everyone had contributed their city's landmark to the jointly designed world map, we were all very enthusiastic about the result of our house. Of course, we also baked some lovely Christmas cookies in the kitchen. The householders were surprised by me, as when asked which Christmas cookies we would like, the German volunteers usually mentioned countless types of local Christmas cookies that are traditionally baked in their family. My answer was a simple "something with chocolate" and caused great amusement. On December 15, we gathered in the hall, where the employee responsible for traditions and festivities sat and read the Christmas story in a cozy setting. He sat next to a reading lamp, the rest of the hall was shrouded in darkness. Too cozy, because exhausted from the full December, I fell asleep after sitting down and only woke up when the lights came on and the event was over. Due to my busy schedule, strenuous outdoor farm work in sub-zero temperatures and little rest time, this is happening to me more often at the moment, a sign that the upcoming Christmas vacations are urgently needed. 

On December 19, we walked to the Phoenix Center together with the residents and took a look at the buildings of the other houses. All the houses have put so much time and love into the houses and their many creative ideas made for astonished faces. Afterwards, the parents came to pick up the residents. They were very grateful for our work and presented us volunteers with small gifts. The parents' appreciation made me feel like I deserved the upcoming Christmas vacations! After picking up the residents, we volunteers from our house drove to the Mexican restaurant and rewarded ourselves with a delicious meal. The parents of the resident I mainly look after had the same idea, as did the family of a volunteer from Brazil who was visiting triform, so all the restaurant guests knew each other. That's life in the countryside.

In December, we organized "Secret Santa" as a house. We drew lots that put us in teams of 2 and gave us two people to give small gifts to. I was in a team with the Turkish volunteer, we were now faced with the task of sweetening December for one of the householders and one of the residents and giving them presents at the final Christmas party in the house. We thought about putting small gifts (chocolate, skittles, candy canes...) in their shoes and jackets so that both of them would have a surprise when they reached into their pockets at work. For the Christmas party, we gave the resident, who loves funny series and likes to watch DVDs on his mobile DVD player, a Scooby-Doo complete box set and Scooby snacks. I loved the series as a child! It's about the Great Dane Dog Scooby-Doo, who travels around the world with his four friends Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley and Norville "Shaggy" Rogers in a van called the "Mystery Machine" to solve mysterious events. There are usually rational explanations behind the supposed ghosts, werewolves and monsters, which the detectives solve. The Scooby snacks are often used by the detectives to convince Scooby-Doo to take on dangerous challenges. We discovered the snacks in a store and decided to give them away together with the DVD. The resident was delighted, both with the little surprises in December and with our Scooby-Doo package. He watched an episode on the very first evening and seemed very enthusiastic. I hope that we will watch an episode together next year. I would be interested to know whether I still like the series as much as I used to after 20 years. At the end we gave the housholder a Christmas bag from the local cinema in Hudson with a voucher for a movie, snacks and drinks. We wish him and his family a wonderful movie night! 

Of course, my teammate and I also received very nice gifts. I got a nice pair of bright red Christmas pyjama bottoms, a crystal growing dinosaur and an "unbelievable science" experiment collection. It contains 10 experiments with a STEM (Science - Technology - Engineering - Mathematics) focus and promises fun experiment evenings with the residents in the new year! I received a total of 60 dollars and a nice, warm Christmas sweater from the parents of our residents. My family also sent me a nice Christmas package. As I often travel by bike due to the location despite the winter, they gave me two Christmas jackets, gloves, thermal underwear and a high-visibility vest. Plus a nice assortment of German sweets for nice Christmas evenings! 

We volunteers also organized a separate Secret Santa. I was assigned a coworker from Scotland and put together a lovely package for her. She has her own horse in Triform and is therefore planning to stay in Triform over Christmas and ride a lot. So I gave her a big horse-themed thermos flask, a big pub snack box for movie nights and a big bag of treats for her cat. A coworker from Brandenburg gave me a fantastic winter hat covered in fur, which covers both the ears and the neck and is therefore perfect for working on the farm. I was really pleased as it can get very cold on the farm and the beanie hat I have been using doesn't cover my ears and neck. Many thanks to all the lovely people who gave me such a generous gift and made me so happy! 

I was also able to use the hat straight away as I was on farm duty from 20.12 - 23.12. Even though we are on vacation, the ponies, horses, pigs, goats, dairy and beef cows still need to be looked after. The coworkers who work on the farm therefore have slightly shorter vacations than the other coworkers. To ensure that everyone can still travel, we have divided up the vacations so that everyone stays on the farm for 4 days at the beginning, middle or end of the vacation. The two coworkers assigned to the farm meet at 9 a.m. to discuss what needs to be done. One coworker goes to the Stewardship Farm (beef cows, pigs, ponies, horses), one coworker stays at the Dairy Farm (dairy cows, goats). The animals need water, feed and new bedding in their barn. This usually took me until 11:00 a.m., after which I was free until 3:30 p.m. After work, I usually went to the sauna in the Phoenix Center. In Germany I can count my sauna visits with one hand, but here in Triform it's nice to go into the sauna and enjoy the warmth after temperatures of up to -5 degrees Celsius outside. In the afternoon, we just fill up the animals' water troughs, check that everything is okay, drain the water from the hoses and roll them up under the heater to prevent them from freezing. I loved petting the goats, who come running up like dogs and nudge me when I walk past them. Otherwise, it was very quiet at Triform, as most of the householders and their families, the coworkers and our residents have all gone on vacation. I enjoyed the silence, but at the same time it was also a sharp break from the vibrant life and hustle and bustle that normally prevails in Triform. I used the four days to organize my numerous photos and notes and to fill the blog, as I didn't get much time to write down my experiences during the busy December. 

If you want to give me a little gift for Christmas, write me a message when you read this. By email to damonruhlaender (at) gmx (dot) de or via social media (Instagram and Facebook: DamonPhilipp).  Apart from pure photoblogs on Instagram, I am the only volunteer in Triform who maintains a classic blog in text form. Understandably, writing long blog posts every week takes a lot of extra work, which has to be done during the few available breaks. I would therefore be very motivated to hear from you whether you are reading the blog and how you like it so far. I would also be delighted to receive feedback on what you would like to know more about and what I could improve. 

At Christmas, an Indian volunteer drove me to Hudson station, saving me a bike ride in thick fog and sub-zero temperatures - thanks again! In New York, I met up with two colleagues with whom I spent Christmas in New York. After a nice breakfast in Brooklyn, where they had been staying in a hotel since December 20th, we took the train to Manhattan and went shopping. I'm not a big shopping fan, but I really enjoyed the conversations we had together. Due to the different weekly schedules and the composition of my off-day group, it was the first time I had traveled together with a group in New York. We had lunch in Koreatown, where we shared a fantastically spiced fried chicken. We drank boba tea with it. The balls were not easily burstable like in Germany, but were slightly thicker and chewed. I like this consistency much better and it also brings out the taste of the balls more. While they were in the nail salon, I took a look at the Christmas lights and beautifully designed shop windows to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere in New York. On the way, I happened to pass the fire station that served as the headquarters in the movie "Ghostbusters". As a reminder of Christmas, but also out of interest in the things that currently move New Yorkers, I bought the latest edition of the "New York Times" newspaper. After the short break, I continued through Manhattan, where, surprisingly, the sidewalks were rolled up at 19:00. The Christmas market stalls were hastily dismantled, stores closed and the streets became surprisingly empty as everyone went home to their families. In America, children don't get their presents on 24.12, but on 25.12. Finally, we treated ourselves to a delicious pizza in a pizzeria in Brooklyn and said goodbye, as the two of them were heading back to Triform. I also stayed in New York on December 25th, as New York shines in a special glow at Christmas. It was my first time staying overnight in New York and I chose the Bowery Grand Hotel. At 60 dollars a night, it was the cheapest accommodation I could find in New York at Christmas. Contrary to my expectations, I didn't live in a shared room here, but was given a single room with shared washrooms. The rooms are separated by walls but connected upstairs, but my neighbors were very quiet. I was very happy with the simple decor as I wasn't expecting full service but was just looking for a place to stay. The location is fantastic, the hotel is on "Bowery Street" in Lower Manhattan, a 3 minute walk from Little Italy. A great recommendation if you're looking for a cheap place to stay in the center of Manhattan!

On 25.12 I took the train to Coney Island. Coney Island is a peninsula and the southernmost district of the New York borough of Brooklyn. The area is famous for its many amusement parks (which are closed in winter) and the large New York beach on the Atlantic coast. I bought a baguette and a delicious spread and had a picnic on the pier overlooking the Atlantic. Afterwards, I went for a walk along the beach, where I came across some families with children, and reflected on the year for myself. On the beach is the large New York Aquarium, the oldest still active aquarium in the USA, which houses over 8000 specimens of 266 different marine animal species on an area of 5.5 hectares. These include crabs, penguins, piranhas, sea lions, seals, rays, eels, harbor seals and - my big highlight - sand tiger sharks. Most sharks of this species are 2 meters long, but can grow up to 3.3 meters. Seeing these huge sharks up close was very impressive! Like the Bronx Zoo, which I have already visited, the aquarium belongs to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which means that a large part of the exhibitions are dedicated to the endangered marine habitat and nature conservation. I haven't visited an aquarium for a long time, so I really enjoyed my visit to the museum. 

After the museum visit, I took the bus to Dyker Heights in Brooklyn. The district, which is not far from Cony Island, is characterized by sprawling single-family homes where many wealthy New Yorkers live. Every year at Christmas time, countless tourists and New York families flock to the area to take a stroll through the streets of the residential neighborhood. Since the 1980s, homeowners have been trying to outdo their neighbors in decorating their houses. Gradually, the Christmas decorations became more and more elaborate until the homeowners finally resorted to the help of decoration companies to outdo their neighbors. Residents' wealth sets no limits to the ideas, with householders spending around 20,000 dollars on Christmas decorations. Not just one house or block, but the whole neighborhood takes part, so there's no better place to walk around New York at Christmas. I really got into the Christmas spirit here and marveled at how much work, ideas and money people put into this competition. Large crowds of people form in front of the most beautiful houses, all wanting to take a selfie in front of the house. The residents also use this attention to spread messages ("In memory of my deceased father ..."). If you visit New York at Christmas, you have to stop by here, even if you have to plan about half an hour's drive from Battery Park. 

On my return to Manhattan, I walked along 5th Avenue, New York's shopping boulevard, where the stores try to outdo each other in decorating their windows and facades for Christmas. Judging by the selfie stick-wielding crowds, this year's visitor favorite was the Dior store, which projected a beautiful animation of the signs of the zodiac on its facade. I also visited the Rockefeller Center with its ice skating rink in front, which is known from numerous Christmas movies in NYC. Here stands the largest and most famous Christmas tree in New York City, which is 24 meters high and is chosen from many thousands of applications in a long selection process. In addition to the bidding process, there are scouts from Rockefeller Center who visit numerous nurseries in the US and Canada looking for the perfect tree. As someone who, when Christmas tree shopping with the family, also doesn't make a commitment to a tree until he has walked down every aisle, I can well understand this effort. The tree is crowned by a Swarovski crystal star, designed by architect Daniel Liebeskind with 3 million crystals and 70 glass spikes with a brightness of 106,000 lumens - Rockefeller Plaza is bathed in daylight here. At the end of the day, I visited the Christmas market in Bryant Park. Here, too, there was an ice skating rink and numerous stalls selling Christmas food and drinks. I treated myself to roasted almonds and then made my way to the train station. I spent the next two days enjoying the peace in Triform and recharging my batteries for my upcoming trip to Washington DC.

Many thanks for the feedback received so far! I have revised the website a little and looked at the statistics from last year. 

The blog subpage previously contained bilingual blog posts, with the English texts in black and the German texts in red. This made the subpage feel very confusing, now I have a German-language and an English-language subpage. It should now be much easier to navigate the site. The "Gap Year" subpage, which contained a lot of introductory information about IFD, EOS and Triform, was rarely accessed according to my statistics. However, the information is necessary to understand my blog posts, so I included the most important information from the subpage in my blog and removed the subpage. I did the same with the "Support" subpage. Unfortunately, only about 20% of the donation target agreed with the sending organization has been reached, so I am still asking for donations for my support group. I have also included this information in my blog to make it more visible to visitors to my blog. If you have any questions about the support group, please contact me! Every donation, regardless of the amount, brings some benefits and enables the sending organization to continue sending volunteers to the Triform Camphill community. I have also started to gradually upload blog posts to Instagram (@DamonPhilipp) to make more of my friends and followers of Triform aware of my blog:

https://www.instagram.com/damonphilipp/

Since the number of characters and pictures on Instagram is very limited, you only get a small glimpse of my daily life on Instagram, while here on my own blog I have complete freedom to share as much as I want.

Here are some statistics from my blog that I collected with "Google Analytics" and would like to share with you. 

In the year 2023...

• my blog was viewed 3673 times

• 299 different users visited my blog, on average 12 times per user for an average of four minutes per visit

• most users visit the site directly via the URL (381), followed by Google searches for my blog or name (201), Instagram (145), Facebook (60) and LinkedIn (23)

• things on the website were clicked on 9125 times, an average of 31 times per user

• most users come from Germany (183), followed by the USA (99), Spain (5), Ireland (4), Bulgaria, Finland and Luxembourg (2 each), Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina and France (1 each)

• the homepage was the most popular page (1224 views), followed by the subpages "Blog" (635), "Gap year" (491), "About me" (402), "Support" (367), "Impress" (219), "Data protection" (100) and "Contact" (90)

• Thanks to the S25 charity run, letter-writing campaign, flea market stand and generous donations from "attac² GmbH" and "Dussmann Stiftung & Co. KGaA", my donation circle raised a total of over 603,50 euros for a good cause 

I was very pleased with the comparatively high numbers for a personal blog! It's not so much the numbers that mean something to me, but the knowledge that behind every number is a person who takes the time to visit my blog every week and read about my experiences. That means a lot to me and gives me a lot of strength for the time ahead! But what makes me most happy are the messages from you that bring the numbers to life!

After my break, I traveled to Washington DC together with the Turkish volunteer on 28.12, where we spent two days. First by train to New York City, from there by Flixbus 4 1/2 hours to Washington.  Due to the high travel and hotel costs, we decided to sleep on the bus and not book a hotel for the time, which at the time were asking unaffordable prices for us volunteers. We saw so much in such a short time: Arlington National Cemetery, Eisenhower Memorial, Exorcist Steps, FBI Headquarter, Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, Georgetown, Georgetown University, Jefferson Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Library of Congress, Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, National Mall, National World War 2 Memorial, Naval Observatory, Pentagon Memorial, Supreme Court, Tidal Basin, Vietnam War Memorial, Vietnam Women Memorial, Washington Monument, Watergate Hotel and the White House. We walked more than 50km and  participated in two guided tours, a night tour of the major sites and a combination tour of the Library of Congress and the Capitol. In future blog posts, I will share our highlights one by one. The trip was definitely worthwhile, as a historian I was particularly impressed by the city, as the history of the United States was written or at least honored on almost every corner. As a fan of the series "House of Cards", I was also able to recognize many places, and the series also helped me to gain a little understanding of Washington's political system, which differs significantly from the German system in some respects. The intro gives you a nice feeling for the atmosphere in Washington, take a look at it:

https://youtu.be/9w-O60x1bYk?si=GRByhPGNwLBjHIB6

After returning to New York by bus, I took part in a tour of Central Park. Although I had already visited the park extensively, it was nice to learn more about the history and background of the most important places in the park. There was a Spanish tourist couple in my group with whom I chatted a lot between stops. We sat down at the Hummus Place restaurant in the Upper Westside after the tour. They were both fascinated by my work in a facility for people with disabilities, the woman works in IT, the man is a musician and has been to Berlin many times with his orchestra. We shared our impressions of New York City and ended up talking a lot about politics in Europe, the rise of nationalism and problems shared by Germany and Catalonia. They were interested in my perspective as a history teacher and I talked about how history lessons are changing noticeably and taking on more perspectives. When I was at school, the crimes of the Germans in their colonies were not covered, but at my internship school I saw that this topic has now found its way into the Berlin framework curriculum. I was interested in how Franco is seen in Spain today and how it is dealt with in history lessons. It was a fascinating conversation about topics for which there no room in the Camphill community. I am very grateful for the openness of the Spanish couple and their invitation to lunch! 

Unfortunately, I couldn't get a room in the hotel in the Bowery. For this reason, I moved into a room at Hostelling International New York in the Upper Westside. The location is fantastic and is only half a kilometer west of Central Park. Many of the guests are in their 20s, there is a small movie theater, common areas, a kitchen, lockers and a large garden for the residents. Accommodation is in 8 bed rooms in double beds, for which I paid 90 dollars for the night. I only spent a short time in the hotel, however, as colleagues from Triform were organizing a house party in Yonkers (a city just north of NYC). We played a lot of games and enjoyed the time together, so I didn't get back to the hotel until 4:00. Unfortunately, the checkout couldn't be postponed, so I had to get up again after 6 hours.

I had breakfast with my Turkish colleague in Central Park, after which we had our luggage locked in the train station and then took a one-hour round trip on the Staten Island Ferry, which offers free rides between Battery Park and Staten Island. Here we were able to see New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty up close and take some great photos of the New York skyline. Afterwards, we met up with our colleagues in the Hoboken district of Jersey City and visited a lovely Italian restaurant. "Leo's Grandevous" is expensive (25 euros for a meal), but in view of the New Year, it's an appropriate place to end the year on a festive note. I ate some delicious pasta and had a nice cocktail. At 18:00 we all started calling and texting, as this was the time of year when New Year was celebrated in Germany. I wished my family a Happy New Year over the phone and texted New Year's greetings to my friends, who were six hours ahead of us. After the restaurant, we went to Pier C Park, which has a fantastic view of Manhattan. Here we wanted to toast each other and watch the fireworks. We had a picnic and had great fun on the playground, climbing, sliding and spinning on a disk. Unfortunately, at 22:00 a park employee came and kicked us out as the park was closed for safety reasons. We had to reschedule and met up with another group in Central Park who wanted to watch the fireworks from a hill in the center. The group consisted of volunteers and au pairs from other organizations and I was very happy to meet people from outside Camphill. Central Park was full of tourists and residents, but we were able to find a nice spot and watch the fireworks from a hill. There were 20 minutes of fireworks, which you can see in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDMYSZKRGhs&pp=ygUWY2VudHJhbCBwYXIga2ZldWVyd2Vyaw%3D%3D

Some people might wonder why I didn't attend the most famous New Year's Eve party in New York, the ball drop in Time Square. The party starts at 18:00, the auditoriums open at 15:00. Attendance is free and there are no tickets, so people head to Time Square from 6:00 in the morning to get the best seats. In talking to New Yorkers, I've been told that people stop drinking early and go to the event in diapers, otherwise there's no way to get your place back with a view of the ball drop. From 18:00 there is a live program with Paul Anka, Flo Rida, Megan Thee Stallion, Jelly Roll, Sabrina Carpenter, Tyla, Yng Lvcas, Maria Becerra and Triad Brass. But standing in the cold for hours without the possibility of using a toilet (there are no public toilets) didn't sound very attractive to me. The restaurants close their doors and sell up to $12,500 seats from which to watch the ball drop. Even the less glamorous barbecue restaurant chain Applebee's charges 799 dollars for a seat and an escort outside to watch the ball drop. So I decided to watch the ball drop from the comfort of my armchair in the New Year and spend New Year's Eve with friends instead.

After the fireworks, we drove to Yonkers, where we celebrated together. The bus was no longer running, so after a train ride we ordered two Uber drivers to take our group to the rented AirBNB apartment. There we continued partying until 7:00 in the morning. Wisely, my Turkish colleague and I didn't book a hotel for the night, as we were expecting to stay out all night. When the group of friends had to check out of the AirBNB, we drove back to New York and had to wait for our train to Hudson to arrive at 15:00. We made the most of the time by having breakfast on Little Island and then I showed my Turkish colleague the High Line. On my return, I was so exhausted from the journey, the little sleep and the 50km walk in Washington, according to my cell phone, that my Turkish colleague and my seatmate had difficulty waking me up. Fortunately, a volunteer in Hudson picked us up by car so we didn't have to ride our bikes. 

Back home, I fell straight into bed, very satisfied with Christmas in New York, the trip to Washington DC and New Year's Eve in Central Park and Yonkers. A wonderful end to a fantastic year 2023, in which I finished my studies after six years with a Master of Education, had a lovely farewell party with my friends and long-time companions and gained many new experiences in the United States.

I uploaded a compilation of my best moments on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1wslMZrq82/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Many thanks to my family and friends for the year 2023 together! 

I am looking forward to 2024, the next eight months in New York and the time that follows.