The beige-brown stone walls zoom past in dizzying whirlwinds of vertigo, a thick clear tint to them as I peer through the glass. I blink hard and try hard not to cry, I miss Spain so much. The 'comfortable' blue fabric seat doesn't 'comfort' me at all. I tear and pick at anything-my drumming fingernails, the green and orange zigzags sewed into the cushioned chair, my hair.

After maybe an hour of anxiousness, boredom and fiddling, the train stops at Grand Central Station, and the sun glinting off glass is so bright I'm surprised that the humans aren't burning to ashes like ants in those mean-bully magnifying glass scenarios. 

So far, New York's impression on me is not positive, and my legs burn from jetlag as we walk something like 200 metres to a huge tower with dark grey rectangular pillars between glass wall-windows, light metallic vertical streaks of gold-beige on the supportive dark columns.

"Murray Hill Towers," Papa announces proudly in English, then he switches to Spanish: "Where we are going to live, paid for the first year by my new work."

We enter the circular spinning entrance with the segments. The revolving of it makes me motion sick for a second, but then I see the lobby and all its elaborateness. 

The floor is tiled with white marble with grey strikes, and scattered around are glowing white rectangular pillars, the edges and corners all dulled by black metal frames. From the entrance, a dark brown velvet rug with light brown and grey fabric one-person sofas on it is on the right, the separator being a black and white marble coffee table in the middle. The lights were built in to the ceiling in gold cases, and the reception desk is black with a matching low ceiling that descends in a square block of black concrete.

A young woman maybe the same age as me with piercing blue eyes is at the table. Fancy wine bottles and other beverages lie on the shelves behind her. She is staring at an account book or something or the other. Then she looks up and smiles. 

"Welcome!" she states as an opening. There's something in her voice that tells me she is one of those people who love life, who take joy in every decision they make and never say an unkind word while meaning to.

One of the domed wheelie gold luggage carriers is taken by this bellhop man up to our room. The five large grey, two black and one aquamarine suitcases are piled on top of each toher and the man grunts as he leans against the gold metal rungs to push it harder. The elevator dings and he's gone.

I understand that simple word she said. Papa speaks some more complicated English, and the girl flips through her book. "Cove?" she asks, and Mamma nods. 

The girl goes through an arched entrance next to the shelves of wines and comes back with an old-fashioned fancy silver key.

"Here you go," she says, and Papa takes the key. "Room 326."

I follow my parents to a double pair of silver doors. I hop in the elevator and yellow spots dance in my eyes as the beaming golden chandelier pours down rays of light. The gleaming mosaic floor doesn't help much, neither does the gleaming golden rails or the mirrored walls or the silver buttons. 

Mamma dials the number and the elevator lurches as it rises. Seconds later, the elevator dings and the doors open to a whitewashed corridor with brown floorboards, chandeliers and paintings and gold-framed photos of skyscrapers and sunsets and beaches. 

Finally we arrive at our room. The number is plated in gold against the white door, and is the tenth on the left. I push open the door and again try to conceal my astonishment.

There is a one-metre hallway, leading to a intricate grey and white coloured kitchen fixed on the back wall, bare of any supplies or cutlery and pots. A dining area in the middle of the room is lit with a hanging chandelier, accompanied with surrounding normal lights over a light brown small wooden table fit for 4 people. The floorboards are dark brown, and the left wall consists of an archway which leads to the living room and the right wall has 3 doors supposedly for my bedroom, the master bedroom and the toilet.

I enter the living room, which has the same floorboards and a three-seater white leather sofa in the middle. There's a matching armchair on the side next to it and in front of the couches there is a grey cushion circle table over a woven hard white rug. In front of all the furniture there's a widescreen TV, but despite the fullness there's definitely a desolate feel to the unfilled painted grey walls, or the floor to ceiling black-framed windows on the left wall from the archway which is connected to a balcony. The right wall is occupied by a large rectangular work desk, but that too is void of nothing on it. There's also the gold metal-domed luggage carrier stacked with our things. 

I drag away my suitcase and wheel it to the second bedroom with the single bed. It's simple, and small. The walls and floor are made of dark wood, and the head of the bed faces the door. I turn around the corner to the longer bit of the L shape and find that a window is at the end. Below it, a desk with drawers on the side and an empty space for the chair to go through has a view of shimmering skyscrapers, and there's a cupboard on the right of it. The bedside table at the foot of the resting furniture holds a wireless white lamp with pale orange light pouring over the room. 

I dump the suitcase on the floor. It scrapes against the table as I flip it open, and some of my things fall out of the tightly packed sequence. I stack my clothes in the cubbies of the mirrored sliding doors of the closet-long sleeves, leggings, trackpants, jumpers, T-shirts, jeans, skirts, all neatly folded. I hang my two dresses on a clothe hanger and put my suitcase in the space underneath. Then I walk to the bed, swing off my backpack and take my fountain pens, watercolour paints, pencils and double-ended texter-fine liners out and separate them into drawers of the desk. 

I place my leather-bound sketchbook onto the table and shove my novels into the drawers, then store some fiddle toys and a handbag inside the last compartment. Done and dusted, except for my toiletries and toys, which I either heap into my bedside table's cabinet or put in the cupboard in the bathroom. Once I'm done, I take out my laptop and start making a new animation. I'm great with those, and this app allows me to design my own drawings and covers and videos. 

Until Papa yells at me to stop going on screens and go shopping with Mamma, I have a great time and can almost forget that we're not in Spain. I blink and run to the living room, where Mamma tells me that we need to get some more clothes. 

I ask, "Why?" before realising that we're short on clothes because of moving, and angry bubbles rise in my chest. Breathing until they cool down, I look down at what I'm wearing and rush to get changed as I'm still in my day-old airport pajamas. 

The door of my new room slams as I put on some jeans, and a blue T-shirt with mesh tailing out from under my brown jacket with lots of pockets. At the hallway I slip some white sneakers on and follow Mamma out of the lobby and across the road, 'round the corner and through the street to a large mall with white concrete swirl-sculpted storeys. 

The marble floors bathe in the natural-provided light from the high clear glass ceiling. Lots of shops are on either side of the path, and Mamma drags me away unwillingly into racks of colourful clothes. 

In a big plastic bag, she asks me to choose clothes I want, so I roam the store picking up a dark blue knee-length pinafore jean dress with metallic bronze specks interwoven between it. I take a white summer dress with a ankle-length billowy silk skirt, a pair of jeans, a white jumper with turquoise insides. 

After an hour, we pay for the things we get and I have at least 4 new pairs of outfits to add to my wardrobe. I carry my plastic bag by myself and stop to look at something in the sky outside the lobby.

"You can go, I remember the room number," I assure her in Spanish. I look in a window of a different lobby and cross the road myself, my feet pattering against the dark grey tarmac. My clumsiness nearly gets me crushed by the revolving circle entrance.

The girl who gave us our key and checked our booking and whatnot is still there, flipping through some accountant book and staring at her phone. I want to think that she is doing important stuff and calling and texting people, but I'm pretty sure she is playing Wordle.

Before I can escape the searing light and the risk of speaking to the girl, she looks up and smiles, then introduces, "Hi, I'm Summer!"

I can barely understand since I'm used to Spanish, but I manage to say, "I cannot speak English very well," the phrase that I know people respond to, so they don't speak as fast or complicated. "My name is Haven." 

"That is okay," she smiles, "I work here because my dad-Papa?-is the boss of the hotel." 

I'm getting nervous talking to her. I sweep my black hair out out of my eyes and look at her properly. She has brown hair, pale skin and a sprinkle of freckles splashing across her nose. Her eyes are clear blue, the colour of the sky except more harsh like icy wind and lighter. To make them stand out even more, Summer has eyelinered around the full perimeter of her eyes with black.

"I am 14," she goes on. "I go to Leman Manhattan Prepatory School, what about you?"

"I am 14 as well... Leman School, too," I say. It's not as nerve-racking talking to people who start the conversation. That way, I don't feel like I'm the one desperate for friends.

"Tomorrow at school I'll see you?" Summer asks brightly. I consider what she's saying, and not understanding I just reply the standard 'yes'.

Then I skip off to the elevator, bag of clothes in hand and enjoying the feeling of rising hope in my chest. There's no turning back now.