Meeting at Williamsburg

This middle of the week blog is a reflection to meeting with an old high school class mate at Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We set a day and a time and agreed to meet at N6 street near Driggs street. Its the center of all cool and trendy Williamsburg, dotted with countless, cafes, bars, restaurants, exhibit spaces for art, antiques and anything your heart could desire in terms of hip and cool fashion.

I remember the first time I visited this part of Brooklyn back in 1999. It was like going to the ends of the earth. There were very few bars and clubs and it was mostly hungry artists living in lofts with no electricity or hot water. I went to an amazing night club and art space called Galapagos. I saw my first ever  Burlesque performance while I sipped my Cosmopolitan (yes it was very popular back then). It seemed like we were the early explorers of this still undiscovered land.  Fifteen years on Williamsburg is in my opinion a bit overdone and even too trendy. (Hipsters sighted often!) I find it overwhelming walking in the streets now, and hardly recognize the once uncharted territory of the past.

We grabbed our coffees and started walking down N6 street towards the water front.  We had not seen each other for 18 years even though we kept briefly in touch after our high school graduation. Like with many other people who cross our path for a long or short periods, we lose touch with some, keep in close contact with others,  always knowing of milestones in their lives and some are never to be seen again.  It was a lovely reunion and a pleasant realization that, after sharing our stories of the past and present we almost had parallel lives. We both traveled, lived in New York in the late nineties, returned to the home towns where we grew up, and found ourselves in London at exactly the same time studying abroad, and back again in the early 2000's for graduate school. I then discovered he had come to a wedding to my beloved Mykonos during the summer of '03 but this of course was all pre Facebook so no putting on his wall that he's partying hard at Caprice Bar with his soon to be married best friend. "Damn shame I could not take you around my beloved island. You will have to come back again!" Finally we are both back in New York City, in search of yet more beautiful interesting adventures to feed that hunger and fulfill something different and unique in the tapestries of life.

Many of my dear friends in Greece have also traveled studied outside of Greece, came back and then departed again.  Many because they had too,  some in search of something different,  and still others because their need for adventure and travel was too strong to resist. We are nomads at heart searching, longing, and belonging everywhere and no where. And so it goes that through parallel paths we go. 

We finished our walk along the pier in Williamsburg with a stunning view of Manhattan to the right and the Williamsburg bridge to the left.

It was an end to a beautiful day.











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