New York subway

amplify image

A curious-looking subway passenger. Photo: Sarai Campo

One gets in the subway with the hope to find the correct letter and colour to reach the destination, but that's not the only thing that comes to your mind as you get closer to the station.

Jews wearing long coats and hairpieces on their faces, big hip-hopper blacks, a young Japanese woman gobbling up sushi with sticks (that's not eating), a lady that didn't have the time to cut her nails at home and does so in her way to work… At least, curious.

Travelling by subway is the most similar thing to getting to know the city in depth. You have two options: listen to your music with your headphones, or hold tight the bar and enjoy. No show in Broadway so deserves. It's truly enriching, and cheap, very cheap. It's true that the first days the feeling of drowning and being tiny you can feel as you arrive in New York grows in the subway, but with the passage of time, it becomes even lovely.

I said yesterday it's like an everlasting worm. It's like one of those worms you find in an apple and you never know how long it was because, as far you see it, you throw it away as if it were a bomb about to explode.

People beg, sing, cry, laugh and even dance in the subway. The old man hiding a prodigious voice under his slovenly appearance, that lady weaving carefully for the grandson to be born, and that man playing the flute as if he were alone in the world, taken out from a fairy tale… All of them liven up the trip and make you feel you are one more for a while.

The New York subway is a big show, and very often, even if you have nowhere to go, getting in and looking around is somehow instinctive. Simply travelling by subway is a real experience.

You will always have the chance to see yellow cabs from time to time, and you will be able to take some picture, but you must travel by subway. Of course, with a map.

Once again, this is New York.