Something different...

As a part of my goal of improving my writing I signed up for a Creative Writing course. You will see some changes in this blog as a result of it, but just so you get a taste of my improvement, I'm posting a story that I wrote last week. The assignment was "something true that had happened to you in 200 words". Judge for yourself if I did a good job:

Living in New York with $4.30 a day sounds like the tittle of the next bestselling travel guide at the Airports bookstores. But when a nasty ATM swallowed my only remaining credit card with funds on Christmas day, it became my own adventure. Luckily, I had paid upfront for my stay in a budget hostel alongside the homeless that could gather the $15.50 for the night. 

A ragged doll with only one eye and an armless GI Joe at the bottom of a decrepit Christmas tree along with a tailless black cat with emerging signs of rabies and an intense smell of urine mixed with alcohol created a very Stephen King like scenario. No wonder why my friends decided to take the bus back to safe and sound Canada. But I always dream about walking in the city of smoky sewers and yellow cabs that I’ve seen in the movies, so I decided to stay despite of the shivery picture and my wobbly financial situation. 

The fried onions from the $1.99 street hotdog stand and the chips that came along with the $2.99 Happy meal at MacDonald´s were my one-a-day vegetable. For seven days, searching for free entrance museums, collecting free samples from malls and looking for street performers became my mission.

Picture taken in New York (January 2007)