Rainy days in New York: September 24–29, 2026

I had been to the US once before, in 2017, as a student on an internship at UCLA in Los Angeles. The visa was good for three years and I meant to come back. I kept putting it off, saving up, and then came 2020 and covid. That visa expired, and I only got the next one in November 2025, already living in Spain, at the US consulate in Madrid.

And this time I actually used it! 9 days, 2 states, 2 cities: New York and Chicago.

So, New York:

• When: September 24–29, 2026, 6 days
• Where I stayed: Astoria, Queens — a room on Airbnb
• How I got there: American Airlines from Barcelona to JFK
• How much I spent: see the summary

How to read this. It's a day-by-day diary. Each day opens with the weather, how long I slept, how well my body recovered overnight (🟢 67–100% · 🟡 34–66% · 🔴 0–33%) and how many steps I walked. Each day ends with "📍 Places of the day" linking to the map; the end of the post has the summary, the spending and what didn't go to plan.

Contents:

1. September 24. Arrival
2. September 25. Midtown and baseball
3. September 26. Brooklyn Bridge and the storm
4. September 27. MoMA
5. September 28. Little Tashkent
6. September 29. Flight to Chicago
7. Summary

September 24. Arrival

☀️ +19 °C, clear · 😴 5 h 25 min · 🟡 Recovery 63% · 👣 ~16,000 steps · ✈️ Barcelona → New York (JFK), AA67

JFK, the airport named after John F. Kennedy. Nine hours over the Atlantic behind me. I was even a little proud of it, as if I'd swum across myself instead of sitting under a blanket watching movies. It was also my first time flying an American airline, American Airlines.

A did-you-know fact: it turns out American flight attendants don't care at all whether the window shades are open. Nobody asks you to raise them for takeoff and landing. Passengers' sleep matters more. The first American difference, and far from the last.

At passport control I was a bit nervous: experience has taught me to be. The officer asked where I was going, for how long and what my plans were. A few minutes — and that's it, I'm in the States 🇺🇸!

Right after the checkpoint I took the AirTrain to Jamaica station and switched to the subway there. First money spent: $11.75 (AirTrain $8.75 + subway $3).

What does the New York subway smell like? Piss, shit, weed and garbage. Then again, I'm not a premium passenger either (otherwise I'd have taken a taxi), so fair enough. Another thing I noticed: the ads in the car were entirely in Spanish, not a word of English. Over the next few days I kept noticing how widespread Spanish is in the US (at least in the places I went).

I was heading to Astoria, a neighbourhood of Queens (and Queens is one of New York's boroughs) across the river from Manhattan. Astoria used to be the Greek part of town; these days the Latin American community is more visible.

The apartment was nice: I had a room with a shared bathroom (Airbnb). I dropped my bags and went to Times Square, my first New York check-in.

There I got a strange feeling that I'd been here before, that's how familiar everything was. Lights, neon, crowds, costumed characters, street performers. The sun had already set, but it was very bright: that's how much light the ads give off. On the Times Square screens I saw Sydney Sweeney in some barely-dressed looks. Later I read that it was an ad for Novig, a platform for trading predictions on game outcomes, which Sweeney co-owns. The campaign had launched a couple of weeks before I landed, and I arrived right at the peak of the scandal: female athletes tore into Sweeney for sexualizing women's sport.

On the way to dinner I passed the Lyric Theatre, home of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; this season Draco is played by Tom Felton.

Dinner was at Chick-fil-A, one more American fast-food chain. Nothing special, 3/5.

Then I just walked, and came out, as it turned out, on Fifth Avenue: past St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trump Tower, the Tiffany store, the Apple Store, Uniqlo. A giant Louis Vuitton trunk, which at first I took for the store itself. It turned out to be scaffolding (scaffolding shaped like Louis Vuitton trunks…).

At night I froze: I'm a Barcelona guy, and +11 °C at night only happens to me in January. The air conditioner had no heating mode. The next night I asked the hosts for a second blanket.

📍 Places of the day: JFK · Times Square · Lyric Theatre · Chick-fil-A · St. Patrick's Cathedral · Louis Vuitton, 57th St · Apple Fifth Avenue

September 25. Midtown and baseball

☀️ +12…+22 °C, dry · 😴 5 h 29 min · 🔴 Recovery 31% · 👣 ~23,000 steps

The day started with a bagel. Broad Nosh Bagels makes great New York bagels!

Next stop: Top of the Rock, the observation deck on the roof of the 30 Rockefeller Plaza skyscraper in Midtown (I'd booked the ticket in advance). First I dutifully joined a huge line, assuming it led to the deck. It turned out to be a line for plush flowers, part of an installation by the Australian artist CJ Hendry. Her first Flower Market, on Roosevelt Island in 2024, drew so many people that the police shut it down. I caught day two of four: the line stretched almost a full block. I didn't stay in it, and I still have FOMO.

So, Top of the Rock. First up to the six-seven 67th floor, then higher still, and it's incredible. From here you get the Empire State Building and the whole of Central Park in one frame. The Chrysler Building is close by, the Statue of Liberty hides in the haze a little further off, and the rivers show along the edges of Manhattan: the Hudson and the East River. It's clear why so many people pick Top of the Rock over the Empire State: from the Empire State you can't see the Empire State.

Up top I realised I'd underestimated the cold, so I went to Uniqlo for a long-sleeve to warm up. The store is huge and looks more like an exhibition: collabs, prints and city themes everywhere.

At Uniqlo, for the first time, I paid exactly what I expected to pay: no tax, no tip 😄. In New York, 8.875% sales tax is added at the register, and cafés and restaurants want a tip on top. But clothing under $110 is tax-free.

Then I walked through Central Park. In the park I stumbled on pickleball courts. It's a sort of American cousin of padel: a smaller court, no walls, a solid paddle and a plastic ball with holes. In winter this spot becomes the Wollman Rink ice rink.

In the evening it was Yankee Stadium. That day the Yankees played the Baltimore Orioles, and as a doubleheader: with a storm in the forecast, Saturday's game was moved to Friday, and one ticket got you two games back to back. I got lucky: I was among the first 18,000 fans and got a bobblehead, a figurine with a head on a spring. It was Josh Hart of the Knicks.

Before the first game they honoured CC Sabathia: the club retired his number 52 and put up his plaque in Monument Park, the Yankees' hall of fame behind center field. First came video messages from club legends. Then Sabathia and his family unveiled the plaque, and he rode a golf cart along the field, waving to the stands. Sabathia threw the ceremonial first pitch to his son, who plays baseball too.

Why the honour: Sabathia, a left-handed pitcher (like me), played 11 seasons for the Yankees (unlike me). In the very first of them he helped the club win the World Series and was named MVP of the American League Championship Series. He is one of the best lefties in baseball history: in 2025 he was elected to the Hall of Fame on his first ballot.

I never fully figured out the rules of baseball, but as it turns out you don't need them to enjoy it. Americans know how to sell sport: music, lights, breaks, food, alcohol, that same toy at the gate. I stayed for the whole first game (the Yankees lost) and left during the second.

📍 Places of the day: Broad Nosh Bagels · Top of the Rock · Uniqlo Fifth Avenue · Sip and Co · Central Park · Yankee Stadium

September 26. Brooklyn Bridge and the storm

🌧 Storm, 44 mm of rain, +13…+16 °C · 😴 5 h 01 min · 🔴 Recovery 36% · 👣 ~28,000 steps

A nor'easter is what New Yorkers call an autumn storm blowing in from the northeast. That day one hit the city and I had to change my plans, some of which were literally sky-high. I went for a walk.

The morning went by the coffee tourist's plan: drink coffee and buy coffee. I went to Milkweed Studio ( Instagram) in Little Italy. What's left of the once-big Italian neighbourhood is a few blocks and some pizza places, squeezed by Chinatown on every side. The rain wouldn't stop, and I sat it out inside for an hour and a half. I took beans with me (I bring coffee home from every trip).

After that I just walked in the rain. Through Chinatown, which is full of character: signs only in Chinese characters, fish stalls right on the sidewalk, and all of it a couple of blocks from the Italian pizza. I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge: even in a downpour it was packed. Then DUMBO, photos, the waterfront. And that's where it hit me: the famous DUMBO shot doesn't show the Brooklyn Bridge at all, it's the Manhattan Bridge.

Then I just wandered around Manhattan and ran into the Flatiron, the "iron" building. Broadway cuts diagonally across Fifth Avenue here, the lot came out triangular, and the building copied its shape: at its narrowest it's about two metres wide. Very impressive in person.

I was soaked through all day. In the evening I went back to Astoria, grabbed something to eat and went home. That's the day I started getting sick.

📍 Places of the day: Milkweed Studio · Little Italy · Chinatown · Brooklyn Bridge · DUMBO, Washington St · Granite Prospect · Time Out Market · Flatiron Building · SVL Souvlaki Bar

September 27. MoMA

🌦 +14…+18 °C, rain and wind · 😴 6 h 29 min · 🔴 Recovery 30% · 👣 ~18,000 steps · 🤧 day two of a cold

After breakfast I went to MoMA for some modern art. I stood in line in the rain for about fifteen minutes. I came in a Keith Haring T-shirt I'd bought in Vienna this summer. I thought I'd find his work and take a photo next to it, but I never found any Haring in the galleries. So the only "Haring" at MoMA that day was me.

MoMA is all about modern art, which I take great pleasure in not understanding at all. A performance was on in the atrium: young people moving as if dancing and saying something. Later I read that it was nowhere by the choreographer Sarah Michelson: she and her company dance right during museum hours, among the visitors.

In one gallery there was a pile of candies in silver wrappers on the floor. A sign said you could take some, so I did. It's Félix González-Torres's Untitled (Placebo) from 1991: everyone takes as much as they want, the pile shrinks, and the museum tops it up. After that I looked and looked and got tired of counting: Warhol's soup cans, Pollock, Kusama, Mondrian, Magritte…

What got me most, my top 3:

• Mark Rothko, No. 10. The canvas is almost 2.3 m tall. Lightness, floating, his yellow and blue clouds. He asked people to view his canvases up close, so the colour fills the whole field of view. Now I know his style.
• Jasper Johns, Flag. The American flag. In 1954 Johns dreamed he was painting the US flag, and the next morning he painted it. It's done in hot wax over newspaper clippings: step closer and you can see letters and bits of articles under the wax. This is where the road to pop art begins.
• Yoko Ono, Sky Machine. A vending machine: drop in a coin, get a card with the word "sky". You can't buy the sky, but here you can.

And the classics I finally saw in person:

• Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night. He painted it in 1889 at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, from the view out of his room's window. In person the strokes are so thick that the sky really does seem to swirl.
• Claude Monet, Agapanthus. Not water lilies but agapanthus, African lilies he planted along the banks of the pond at Giverny. The canvas is almost 2 by 2 metres, painted in the same years as the water lilies.
• Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory. The melting clocks. Pure madness. The canvas is small, 24 by 33 centimetres, and many people are surprised by that in person. Dalí claimed he came up with the soft watches while looking at a melting camembert.

After the museum, still in the rain, I walked to Grand Central, which is no less recognisable than Times Square. A red heart-shaped balloon was hanging under the ceiling. It had floated up there back on Valentine's Day and got stuck by the mural. They took it down a few days later.

By Bryant Park I ate at Chipotle for the first time in my life. My expectations were higher (and that, as we know, is the expecter's problem): 3/5 for the burrito I ate.

I went home. I was already sick: nose, general malaise, plus jet lag: I'd wake up early and couldn't get back to sleep.

📍 Places of the day: Le Pain Quotidien · MoMA · Grand Central · Chipotle by Bryant Park

September 28. Little Tashkent

🌦 +15…+18 °C, drizzle · 😴 6 h 19 min · 🔴 Recovery 36% · 👣 ~38,000 steps, the trip record · 🤧 day three of a cold

In the morning I went to Penn Station to meet friends. They came up from Washington just to see me! And all this time I'd been sure they lived in Seattle. I'd mixed up Washington State with the capital.

I suggested Luckin Coffee. I'd wanted to try the "Starbucks killer" for a long time. It's a Chinese chain: back home it has overtaken Starbucks in number of stores, and in summer 2025 it opened its first US locations, straight in New York. 5/5 for that coffee.

Next was the Vessel, a 46-metre honeycomb of staircases and the symbol of Hudson Yards. After the tragedies it was closed for several years and reopened in 2024, now behind netting. The view is limited, of course, but it was interesting.

For lunch we went to Tashkent, a chain of Uzbek supermarkets from Brooklyn. I had beef plov and herring under a fur coat. Plov is a kind of paella I'd happily eat every day.

Then we walked a lot and hopped from one kind of transport to another: subway, the aerial tram over the East River, the ferry on the river. My friends showed me everything they could.

My favourite spot was Gantry Plaza. Old gantries stand over the water: from this pier, railcars used to be loaded onto barges. Across the river is all of Midtown, and next to you the red Pepsi-Cola sign. It has stood here since 1936: the plant was torn down long ago, and in 2016 the sign was made a city landmark. I love cola, and now I love Gantry Plaza too.

My friends headed back the same day, and I went to Little Island, a park on tulip-shaped piles right over the Hudson, and sat there for about an hour. Like the Vessel, it was designed by Thomas Heatherwick's studio.

📍 Places of the day: Penn Station · Luckin Coffee · tm:rw · Vessel · Tashkent Supermarket · Washington Square Park · Roosevelt Island Tramway · Chrysler Building · Gantry Plaza State Park · Little Island

September 29. Flight to Chicago

☁️ dry · 😴 5 h 04 min · 🔴 Recovery 32% · 👣 ~20,000 steps · ✈️ New York (LGA) → Chicago (MDW), WN2414

My flight was from LaGuardia. It turned out to be right next to Astoria: 15 minutes by bus. I got there early to sit in a lounge on my Tinkoff Premium (a Russian bank's plan), but LaGuardia wasn't in their programme. Noted.

So the time before the flight went to art: Laura Owens's two-storey mosaic "I 🍕 NY" and paintings by Michael Saviello, a former barbershop manager who paints a textured, almost three-dimensional New York. A nice airport, but on average I like European ones better.

Before boarding, a TSA machine (the US Transportation Security Administration) photographs every passenger and matches the face to the passport. It's like airport security in Russia, only with a photo. Europe doesn't have that :)

📍 Places of the day: LaGuardia, Terminal B

Summary

My New York turned out exactly like Woody Allen's A Rainy Day in New York. Then again, I haven't seen the film and probably never will: I played the lead myself, no stunt double and no umbrella.

Jokes aside — I'm hooked. I'll be back, more than once: I didn't get nearly enough walking in. New York is a legend.

Spending

Excluding flights and accommodation.

Day	What	Amount
24.09	AirTrain, subway, Chick-fil-A	$27.53
25.09	Top of the Rock, baseball ticket, bagel, Uniqlo, tea, Yankees pin	$190.42
26.09	Milkweed (coffee, matcha, beans), Okiboru, souvlaki	$97.73
27.09	MoMA, Le Pain Quotidien, Chipotle	$84.65
28.09	Luckin, Vessel, Tashkent, ferry	$49.83
29.09	Dunkin	$14.24
Total		$464.40

That's about $77 a day on average.

Plan vs reality

How it was all meant to go is in the plan. What didn't happen but I really wanted: the helicopter over Manhattan, the 9/11 memorial, Brighton Beach, the High Line. I didn't make it to the Statue of Liberty either; she'll wait for next time.

What I'd do differently

• Check the forecast and keep a rain plan. Museums, covered markets, anything you can move indoors.
• Pack a rain jacket and an umbrella. In the storm on the 26th I got soaked through, and I was sick from that day on.
• Bring cold medicine instead of hoping you won't need it.
• Don't underestimate jet lag. After the very first night in New York my WHOOP went into the red and didn't get out of it until I left.

Next up: Chicago.