How are you?

Those are the first words heard by a newcomer to the United States of America. You can answer with “fine”, or you ask the counter question (“How are you?”) or the third way of responding is, you ignore it.

Do you think people are really interested in you and “how you are” at this moment? No, I don’t think so...the question is more a friendly way of saying “hey.”  And a question like “How are you?” starts every conversation on a friendly basis. And that is a good feature. Or is it?

I’m Max Kellner, an intern at Wf360.  I come from Berlin, the capital of Germany.  It’s a big City with 3.5 million people and an area a little bit smaller than New York City. But New York is not the same as Berlin. They are two amazingly different cultures. Perhaps it would be best to describe my experience after my first month here with adjectives: fast, busy, cool, chic, crazy…that sounds for me like a typical metropolitan City.  But in what ways does New York distinguish itself from Berlin or even all Europe?

Sometimes when I sit in the train I feel like a European. I’ve got the notion that everyone must see that I’m a foreign person. European clothes, different way of sitting or not enough coolness… I don’t know…something must define me. Or is it just fantasy? The last few days, my roommate confirmed my idea that there are differences between the two of us.

The best way to the see differences is to go to places where all people must go.  For example: the shopping market. In my eyes, the typical New Yorker around my age has an IPod, sneakers and wears baggy pans, most of the time with a baseball cap. That is the cliché, but I think it is accurate. However…the cliché says nothing about the person and if you answer the question “How are you?” in the third way that I mentioned above (by ignoring the question), then you never will learn more about the American culture beyond the stereotype, that is certain.

Furthermore I’ve learned that here you must get comfortable with being very open to others.   That appears to be very normal here. People talk to you in the train, bar, supermarket, elevator and all other places. It’s normal and the people don’t appear annoyed.  At least most of the time.  That is a big difference from Germany, where people are more reserved.

Everyday is a new day for me. Often I’m not sure I’m doing the right things. I want to give you an example. Last weekend, I went to a Bar in SoHo, which had live TV coverage from Yankee Stadium. What I didn’t know is that the Yankees (Blue/white shirts) were playing against the Los Angeles Angels (red shirts). The problem on this evening was that I wore a red shirt, so I looked like a real LA Angels baseball fan. That is the reason I got in trouble with a group of three drunken people after the game:  all because of my red shirt. It was crazy! I don’t know what the people were talking about but I understood from they behavior that something was wrong with me.

Those are the small things you learn over time. You don’t learn these things from a book; if you come into these situations like I have, you will be learning it from experience. Guaranteed!

I’m Daniela, coming from Berne, Switzerland and doing a four-week internship at the Wf360 Company. This is my first time in New York but I have already traveled around California and Florida. I have been in New York City for almost 8 weeks.  I love it!

This whole 24-hour lively atmosphere amazes me.  I live in Chelsea right on 8^th Avenue, at 25^th Street. Even though the apartment is on the 18^th floor I still hear every siren and every other possible noise coming from the streets.  So I live directly “in it”. Sometimes when I watch TV I don’t know whether a noise comes up from the streets or if it’s in the background of the movie. That sometimes makes me feel I am in my own movie.

Once I sat at a table at the window in the Starbucks in Grand Central Station when out of the blue the woman sitting next to me started to talk to me. This is another thing I like about New York and still surprises me every time. In Switzerland it is uncommon to start to talk with somebody you don’t know. If it’s not in a bar or in a club, it’s quite unusual. Here, people start a conversation with strangers anywhere, whether waiting in a line or in a stuck subway or in a store. And when they hear my accent, they are curious as to where I come from. Even if it’s only small talk it might lead to some kind of relationship. It makes the whole adventure here in NYC even more interesting because you don’t know whom you might meet on any given day.   

To get back to this woman in the Starbucks - she asked me “Isn’t watching people here better than TV?!”. Of course I agreed. Both of us were observing all the many different people passing by. There was one man who stood out from the crowd. He was standing close to the wall, while all the people were rushing by, trying to catch their train. Nobody noticed anybody else; they were too busy getting as soon as possible to wherever they were going. This man was very nicely dressed and was holding a bunch of flowers. He had already been waiting for quite a long time and kept checking nervously on his blackberry. So we wondered about him, and were talking about who he was going to meet and guessing about what that person would look like. Who would it be? A good friend, his mother, a first date? Finally there was a happy ending to our “movie.” A pretty woman arrived and they happily walked away, hand in hand.

That is how we started our conversation, and ended up talking for almost 1 hour and half. We agreed on how important it is to always take some time for one’s self, even if it’s short, just to escape from the daily stress and rush.

It is always so interesting to see how other people think and you can always learn a lot. We even made an appointment to meet another day, to continue our chat. For me this was one of the nicest experiences during my stay here. To get to know people to whom you somehow feel connected, and you share similar points of view makes me feel more at home here.

Another example of a lovely encounter: yesterday, sitting the first time on the bus M104, I was looking around to make sure I wouldn’t miss my stop. The elderly lady next to me started to talk with me, in order to help me. It turned out that she also spoke German and has relatives in Switzerland. She told me she has been living for more than 70 years in New York. I was impressed by her lasting delight in the city. It was funny;- she sounded like me when she was saying that she loved the city and that there was always so much to do.

It’s true that there is a wide range of great activities around the city. From the different neighborhoods to explore, to all the shopping stores – which sometimes are open even late at night – to the Broadway shows and Exhibitions, to the wide nightlife and great varieties of restaurants with food from all over the world. Just to mention some…

In New York it’s impossible to get bored, even if you just sit somewhere to relax or rest your legs from all that walking, you have an interesting movie flashing by in front of your eyes. And it’s all free.