These streets will make you feel brand new, big lights will inspire you…

I recently had the privilege of being hosted in New York City by the Absolut company.

In my mid-twenties and considering myself reasonably well traveled, – having visited Europe, Asia, studied in Barcelona and lived in Sydney – I still hadn’t been this excited about a destination.  Getting to the greatest city in the world, the last stop on my ‘must do’ list.  In the lead up to my trip, all of my friends who had either lived in or visited the Big Apple, said the same thing: ‘Tom, you will love that city, it’s your kind of place. You won’t ever want to come home’.

Of course I took this with a large rocky grain of salt.  But all the same, I couldn’t help but feel like 5-year-old boy expecting his first bike on Christmas Eve, or a knobbly-kneed, pimply 18-year-old All Black on debut.

Now that it’s over, I honestly don’t really know where to start. However, I think the closest I could describe the feelings I had in New York, were what it must be like to fall in love.  New York City is like a drug.  All I can think of now that I’ve had my first hit is how to get more.  Like a late-night Marlboro cigarette from a yellow cab, objectivity is out the window.  Instead a heart-pounding sense of lust and a mind distorting shift of priorities.

New York in fall. Halloween. The New York Marathon. The Yankees clinching the World Series. When I look back, it feels like I was there at the right time to fully embrace the city. But it wasn’t these events that defined my stay. It was the energy, the opportunity, the inspiration, the optimism that will long outlive the week’s events.

The soundtrack to the city on the first week in November was ‘the people’s New Yorker’ Jay-Z’s newly released anthem and ode to NYC, Empire State of Mind. If you listen to the lyrics, it accurately captures a little of what I am trying to get across on this post.

New York, Concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There’s nothin’ you can’t do
Now you’re in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new, 
Big lights will inspire you 
Let’s hear it for New York, New York, New York

What Jay-Z is saying is another attempt to capture the inspiration you feel in NYC.  There are endless quotes, lyrics and cliches that also grasp the magic that is New York City. One of my favourites is from the late John Lennon. “If I’d lived in Roman times, I’d have lived in Rome. Where else? Today America is the Roman Empire and New York is Rome itself.”

In Manhattan pop culture references surround you. Whether it was Sinatra, Sex and the City, Warhol or Breakfast at Tiffany’s there are so many sights, sounds and experiences that have sculpted my view of this city. What I wasn’t prepared for was what can’t be replicated on film, captured on record or painted on canvas – the feeling of inspiration.

I haven’t yet touched on the amazing, warm people I met in Manhattan, or necking Dom by the bottle on Halloween at Jude Law’s club The Box in the Meatpacking district. I haven’t given any detail about being hosted by Sarah and her team of 4 Swedish Absolut ‘Brand Ambassadors’, or mentioned the Monet exhibition at the MoMA. I could talk about the ‘Speak Easy’ bars and restaurants such as La Esquina we visited, establishments that resemble bunkers, a direct result from the prohibition days.

However all of this seems irrelevant when you look at the big picture: New York is the centre of the universe. It’s not about each place on a map, it’s about the things you can’t touch, the inspiration and opportunity and excitement that flows through your veins. If you want to be inspired like I was, you will be formulating a plan to get your next hit.