Perhaps the two questions ex-pats ask themselves more than any other are, “Where is home?”  And “What is home?”  I certainly do.  I recently heard a travel commercial today, trying to entice people to come to Denmark on vacation.  They asked this very question, “Where is home?”  For them, the answer was, home is where you feel secure and comfortable, and this is a state of mind.  Therefore, presumably, you could travel to Denmark and be right at home.

I only have one major regret in life – I didn’t buy my apartment in New York City when I had the chance.  My building was going coop, and I could have bought my studio apartment for $50,000.  My father could have easily financed it for me too, but I didn’t want to owe him anything, so I never asked him.  That apartment is now worth over $400,000, and there’s no way I could afford it, even it were available.  If I had bought that apartment, I would have had my own abode in New York, the only place that has ever really felt like home.  Or does it only feel like home when I return to visit, because nowhere else feels like it either?  Because I got so sick of my entire life in New York City – twice, I only wanted to leave, and eventually did.  But did I find home?

I don’t think of New York City as a place where I feel secure or even comfortable.  But I do feel like I fit in.  There’s room for everybody in New York!  And there are eight hundred languages spoken there, making it the most ethnically diverse city on earth, according to the World Population Review.  http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/new-york-city-population/

I have an inquisitive, curious nature, and I like to be involved in interesting discussions.  New York is discussion paradise.  People philosophize about everything, and they’re really interested in what others think.  Here, if you overhear someone talking about something while waiting on line for your coffee (they say “on line” in NYC, not “in line”), you can jump right into the conversation.  People in New York are passionate about life and all its details.   You won’t find passive bystanders here, but active participants engaged in conversation wherever you go.  They make eye contact on the subway and smile at one another when they find something ironic or amusing.  Life is shared in New York.

There is so much to do in this city, I’m never bored.  Home for me is not a place where I have to stay indoors to feel good.   I can go outdoors and join the rest of the world in New York City any time I please.  When I want to feel secure and comfortable, I can stay indoors and watch the same TV shows, cook the same foods, read the same books, or water the same plants I would anywhere else.  But where else could I find such interesting people to invite over for dinner, if that was what I wanted to do?  Where else could I sit in a café and enjoy such an intense discussion?  That is the DNA of New York.  Once New York gets into your blood, it’s like getting the hepatitis virus.  My blood type is irretrievably changed after having lived there twice, for a total of ten years.  I’m infected with the NYC virus.  My blood type is NYC – both positive and negative.

And now here I am, returning to NYC – from Germany, my adopted country, with German friends.  I was here a year ago after my sister’s funeral, where I attended the funeral of my friend’s father, and stayed with my sister. This time I have arranged to spend a week there as a tourist, spending very little time with family and friends.  In fact, we will be staying in a time share apartment, just like many other tourists.  Most Germans I know have never heard of a time share, something most Americans know about, so this is something of my culture I can share with my friends. How will this week be?  How will New York feel to me, experiencing it again, but with Germans?

We – that is Johanna, Patrick, their son Timo and I – arrive at JFK airport on the bitterly cold afternoon of February 1. It is cold in Germany, but this cold is insane! Minus ten degrees Celsius and a huge wind chill factor. We can feel it walking off the plane into the terminal.

It takes an age to get through immigration, even for me, with the luck of going through the US citizen line. This time no one asks me any silly or loaded questions, simply welcoming me to the United States. When I arrived in Seattle, the agent leafed through my passport, noticed all the stamps from previous trips to Egypt and Turkey and asked in a friendly voice if I had family over there. It was only hours later that I realized this agent wasn’t merely making small talk with me. He was feeling me out to see if I was trying to smuggle some people from Muslim countries into the USA. That experience didn’t feel very welcoming. Today feels better, even though I’m separated from my friends, who aren’t allowed to go through the line with me.

I wait for over a half hour for my friends, wondering if they have somehow gotten through before me and are waiting for me somewhere. But no – immigration takes very long these days, especially if you’re not American.

We finally meet again, and leave the airport for the Airtrain, a monorail that circuits between the terminals and the Sutphin Boulevard subway stop on the E line, which is also the Long Island Railroad stop. I don’t know how to work the machines to get a ticket. I am just as much a tourist as my friends. We end up buying a ticket from a salesman at a kiosk, paying him a tip for the privilege of buying from him.

We enter the subway train and are immediately entertained by a performer who does incredible acrobatics on the train. I have seen performances like this many times in New York, so this feels familiar to me, and I know he expects about a dollar from each of us, which we gladly fork out to him. He leaves the car by forcing the door to the next car open, something that is strictly prohibited by the Transit Authority. But perhaps I am the only one who knows that, because everyone smiles, waving him a farewell as he leaves.

I had forgotten how long the ride is from the airport to 53rd Street and Lexington. Almost an hour long! New York is a huge city. We leave the train and I am disoriented and begin walking in the wrong direction until Johanna asks, “Aren’t we going in the wrong direction?” What is wrong with me? I have always been able to get around Manhattan. I just stand somewhere, figure out whether the Hudson River on my right or left is. If it’s on my right, I’m heading south. But this time I can’t figure out which side of me the Hudson is on.

Before we left Germany, I checked online where the nearest supermarket is. Morton Williams on 57th Street. I have never heard of Morton Williams. Another change in New York. There is also Whole Foods at Columbus Circle. I read about how Amazon bought them. When I lived in New York there was no such thing as Whole Foods.

Our suite is really nice! We will be living in more luxury than I have ever enjoyed in NewYork. I have a huge bed all to myself and my own bathroom. We have a microwave to heat food in, and a little drip coffee machine. I inquire and find that they renew the coffee supply each day, as they also do with dishwasher tabs. My time share is again proving itself worthy of the money I pay each year!

After checking into our suite and unpacking we head out for Morton Williams. I recognize Carnegie Hall on the way, and right across the street from there is Calvary Baptist Church, the church I belonged to when I last lived in New York. I scarcely recognize it now, a tiny structure sandwiched between two very high buildings. Normally, my trips to New York don’t take me to 57th Street or midtown Manhattan. No wonder everything seems so strange! But I am familiar with the choices available in a New York supermarket. We find everything we will need for breakfast tomorrow, when Timo will go out again and buy bagels. The bagels look really good. When it is time to pay, I am again overwhelmed. There are many cash registers with numbers. It seems you have to stand on line, like at the bank, and wait for the next available cash register. Some are unattended. Apparently you have to scan your own groceries and pay with a credit card. Can I do this? I can. I manage this as easily as if I had been doing this my entire life. I even ask for cash back, and get it. But only $50. Johanna and Patrick don’t know about cash back. I learned about cash back in Germany, where they even use the English word for this system of getting cash off your debit card when you pay for something with it.

Johanna and Patrick have a comfortable sofa bed they make up each day in the living room. Timo has a rollaway bed in the corner of the living room. We have a comfortable home for the week.