By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
A boy stands on the corner the of the street, pacing, chewing his fingernails and glancing from one skyscraper to another. It is his first time in New York city and he is alone and he is lost. He did not anticipate that so many people could live so close together. He did not plan his walk from the subway to the hostel. He did not consider that his mobile phone would have no connection in the foreign country. That boy is me; Ephraim. My lodging is nowhere to be found. After an hour of learning the deceivingly simple, grid-like layout of the city I am now boiling with anxiety and feel completely useless. Weariness sears in my ankles and my lower back strains beneath the weight of the purple backpack. The locals seem agitated with my being here. When I approach them for help I am either ignored, scoffed at, or given false directions. I know I have a phone charger in my backpack, and there was a Starbucks somewhere around here, the only problem being that my Australian plug won’t fit here. Okay, so I just need an adapter, surely that isn’t too hard to come by. Some kind of convenience store, Reject Shop (if they have that), I’ve heard of Walmart. I’m on the corner of West 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. Let’s try 41st Street. No luck. 40th, 39th. None of the buildings lead anywhere. They’re all just filled with people in suits. Where the heck do people buy their stuff in this country? On 38th Street I find one of those “We Buy Anything!” shops. You know the ones with cheap watches and lamps in the windowsill. A bell rings as I push through the door. The shop is gloomy, and the noise of the street cuts off. Assortments in varying degrees of absurdity line every square centimeter. Wedding plates with little decorative flowers, a suit (wool but much too large for me), lots of those alarms you had before smartphones were invented. Dust collects on my fingers as they trail along the various surfaces. I walk through the dark isles of the shop, scanning, scanning for an adapter. A large, sweaty man limps to the counter. “Can I help you, sir?” He asks in a pleasant, Boston accent. I tell him that I am looking for an Australian-American connection for my phone. He smiles at me with extraordinary, white teeth. “First time in the States, eh?” he asks with sparkling eyes. I walk over as he forages around beneath the counter. Does he smell like the shop, or does the shop smell like him? Either way, the sooner I get out of here and into my hostel the better. The man produces an international adapter, flashing a reassuring grin. “Thirty dollars,” he says. That’s a lot, but I’m desperate. My fingers search for the wallet in my pocket. They brush over the paper banknotes, one of them fresh, another worn thin. I produce a fifty dollar note, the one I withdrew at the airport. He passes back a few papers, the top one being five dollars and I cram them in my pocket. Before I leave, I turn back to ask for directions to the hostel. He knows where it is and points me in the right direction with a big smile. “Enjoy your time in New York!” He says as I walk out the door. “What a nice man!” I think to myself, as I make my way to the hostel. Only in my hostel-bed does it occur to me to check how much change the smiling man gave me. Pulling the bills out my pocket, I realize that I have just paid forty-two US dollars for an adapter. Great. It seems I did not only lose myself while traveling, but also most of my savings.