Crash Course City

I am always honored when approached by an individual or a company asking for my thoughts on relocating to New York.

It has been one of the most life-forming experience of my life and I am always happy to share my perspective - as I did in this interview with Crash Course City.

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Meet Stephanie, a marketing director from France, who relocated from London to New York in 2007.

Why did you move to your new city?
I was working for a major financial services company in London when a promotion opportunity came up in their New York head offices and I jumped at the chance!

I fell head over heels in love with NYC after my first visit in 1999 and it had been a dream of mine ever since to live here one day.

What do you like best about living in New York?

Convenience is the first thing that comes to mind. I realized early on that I could happily live my life without going further than five blocks either way of my apartment, if I chose to do so. Everything is at your finger tips here.

The relentless energy of the City is also a big pull.  There is always something to do – museum exhibits, festivals, fairs, concerts, operas, plays, outdoor movies, courses, sailing, kayaking, cycling… the list is endless.

What was the easiest part of your relocation?

I would say the actual relocation itself – my company organized and paid for my move and professional packers took care of everything. Therefore this was by far the easiest move I have done in my life from a logistics perspective.

What was the hardest part of your relocation?

Realizing upon my arrival that I only knew two people in the city, and not very well. I went from having a large circle of friends in London to having to build new friendships from scratch.

New York is a transient City with many people relocating here from various parts of the country and the world, so making friends is not hard but it definitely takes time of course.

I am happy to say four years on, I now have an extended but close circle of friends that I can honestly call family.

How would you describe your relocation experience?
For the first couple of years, it was definitely a mixture of ups and downs as I adjusted to the crazy pace of the city. I made new friends but also “lost” some who moved away and I faced cultural challenges in my professional and personal life.

But, I also consider these two years to be the most formative of my life and wouldn’t change them for the world.

I see my relocation as a success – I am very happy in New York, more in love with it than ever and still constantly trying to make the most of the amazing opportunity I was given.

Can you share 3 tips for someone making the same move?

1. In order to speed up the “making friends” process, try to find people in your current circle of friends who may have friends already based here.
2. Get to know your way around the city as soon as possible. The grid system makes it easy to navigate and I would suggest that you go exploring with a map at first and eventually you will be able to walk around all the neighbourhoods without it. New York can feel intimidating at first so knowing your way around can make it feel less so.
3. When the city feels too noisy, too fast, too hot, too cold, and it will, – don’t hesitate to go away for a weekend. Explore upstate New York for a bit of countryside relief; catch some rays in Florida in the depth of winter, cool off on one of the many beaches in the summer.

Most New Yorkers have a love/hate relationship with their City. As a newcomer, don’t be surprised if after the heady first month or so, you start to notice the grimier aspects of it, perhaps start to feel homesick and regret your decision to move. A quick escape from New York is the best way to come back and enjoy it even more.

But I definitely recommend sticking with it and developing strategies to deal with some of its more challenging aspects. The reward at the end - which is to live in perhaps the most exciting city in the world - is more than worth it.

Thanksgiving

As I have said every single year since I have been here, Thanksgiving is by far my favorite American holiday.

I love that it is all about good food, good wine and family. Or as in my case, my adopted family of friends.

Each year, the cast of characters changes slightly as some friends have left New York while new ones have arrived. But every time, I can't help but feeling very thankful indeed to be surrounded by amazing friends.

This year was no different. CS & PF hosted dinner at their place, a wonderful apartment on the ground floor of a walkup, in a quiet street in our Upper West Side neighborhood. To say that the food was sublime is an understatement - they made the most delicious turkey with all the trimmings and DF & JW brought homemade green bean casserole and roasted veggies. I made Oreo truffles and brought a selection of cheese.

We spent the entire afternoon eating, drinking and chatting. Heaven.

Sporty Sunday

In keeping with my role as official Social Director to my group of friends, I bought tickets for a kayaking excursion on the Delaware river, followed by a wine tour, a little while ago through one of the many deals site I subscribe to. I figured that one can't really go wrong with kayaking and wine tasting in the same day and managed to rope in the Boy along with my friends CT and PF in to do it with me.


We all turned up at 11am in Hells Kitchen on Sunday, where the pick up point was, ready for action. I had bought 2 separate pairs of tickets but quickly realized that things might not quite go according to plan when the organizers said they only had me down for 1 pair. 


Regardless, the four of us got on the bus, along with around 40 other people. After we were told that the bus journey would take 2.5 hours and that they would probably not get us back into the City until 10pm (at which point I regretted being there in the first place!), the organizers approached us and said that unfortunately they couldn't accommodate the extra two people they hadn't accounted for. As CT & PF left the bus, the Boy and I looked at each other and both realized that we didn't want to be there unless they were ... and followed them out.


A little disappointed that we didn't go on our planned adventure (but secretly pleased that we wouldn't have to suffer through 5 hours of a coach journey in total), we quickly hatched another plan. 


We hired bikes from a spot just beside the Intrepid and set off north, cycling along the wonderfully appointed bike path all the way to the George Washington bridge at the most northern point of the island.


I couldn't recommend this ride more. While it feels very busy until you hit the mid-90s, after that point the bike path is pretty much clear and the scenery is wonderful. As you cycle past 110th street, the surroundings are much more wild and less city-like and we felt like we were truly out of the City. Entire families were out having elaborate and festive barbecues, the heady smell of grilled meat tantalizing our taste buds as we whizzed past them.


We sat for a while in a shaded area once we reached the bridge, admiring the City skyline in the distance on one side and the majestic bridge on the other. 


After cycling back down to our neighborhood, there was no better way to end such a great day than with a couple of drinks at the Boat Basin while watching the final of the Women's Football World Cup.

Welcome

I organized a little Welcome Party for my friend JW last night, who just arrived from London on a 6-month global rotation program that our company facilitates. Needless to say that he is beyond excited at the opportunity to live here and all our mutual friends and I are determined to help him make the most of the experience.

For his first big night out in the City, I wanted him to experience quintessential New York. I wanted us to go a place where he will not be able to take his eyes away from the view and pinch himself that he is here, that it is real. And what is better than cocktails at Ink48 with its sweeping panorama of the Midtown skyscrapers to send a tingle of excitement down your spine.

While much fun was had by our raucous group of ten people, the evening was a little bittersweet as well however. As JW arrives, my close friends ES and KM are gearing up to leave the City later this summer (one back to London, the other to DC) further illustrating the transient nature of this place.

I am used to this, having already "lost" a few friends who after 2, 4 or 10 years felt burnt out and needed a slower pace of life. But for every person that left, someone else arrived. Ah, the great revolving doors of New York City ...

Love & Hate

I really like this post from The Frenemy. I think it really reflects the love/hate relationship that most New Yorkers have with the City.

You can go and read it on her blog here or read below.



When you move to a city, you become meaner. 

You are harder. Less optimistic. Tough. Do not make eye contact with anybody in the subway. Read the book you’re kind of halfway through, listen to the terrible music you hope you’re not playing loud enough to hear. Pretend you’re the kind of person whose feet doesn’t move when the train makes a turn. Don’t look up, just push and shove and move. In the city, you are the most important person you know. Dislike and accept that. Walk that way, walk so fast and eye roll when somebody slow is walking up the stairs as you are trying to switch trains. People will ask you for money on trains, drunk people will piss on themselves, babies will cry and you just have to pretend they are not there. It’s a subway. You don’t know anybody.

Strut down the street briskly when you are only getting a bagel, a slice of pizza, or a gin drink that will take the edge off of being alone all the time.

Dress like an idiot. When you end up in the suburbs or you end up home you think ‘why the fuck am I wearing so much black and where did these accessories come from?’ Take a long shower, eat your first big meal without alcohol in years, and try not to brush anything and everything off your shoulder. Find yourself afraid of trees.

Still, in a city filled with so many people, you must not acknowledge them. This becomes somewhat difficult because there are so many interesting and attractive things, most of them wearing plaid or shorts. Grumble while eating a falafel or some kind of street cart food. When somebody talks to you at a bar, coyly laugh when they are a part of the city you just don’t venture to. Know a lot of people, just barely.

Be afraid of ‘nice guys’ because you are no longer nice. Be afraid of things that last longer than two months. Get nervous whenever you enter some part of the town that ‘that guy you hung out with’ lives. The city is big, but it is small. Never see anybody again, except some kid you went to high school with. They have a new haircut and you kind of brag about your life because you are nervous. Send e-mails to people telling you how excited you are to be in the city. Be terrified of your bank account as you furiously eat money with no utensils. Bury your head in your hands when nobody is looking. Think about how stupid you were in college, abandon those dreams and make new ones. Find fog really romantic. Find employment really romantic. Drink on Tuesday nights. Meet people on those Tuesday nights that you high-five but never get their number. Make friends and never keep them. Take personal days in the tiny kitchen that is filled with jarred spices, condiments, and a bag of chips. Learn about sushi. Have a small circle you already knew before you moved here, the kinds of people you always complain about your love life to. Hold onto and love those people fiercely. Find friends of friends you think are cute, get annoyed that you meet people this way like in high school. Have numbers in your phone that you don’t need. Preface those numbers with ‘that night at (bar).’ Find it impossible to meet anybody until you do.

Roll around with that person in a small room in your overpriced apartment. Feel like this is an accomplishment until you feel restless. Feel like being restless is a thing you should feel. Try to fix it by getting a pet. Dance in a stupid club and tell everybody the next day you can’t believe you danced. Have ‘spots’ you think are ‘the usual’ except the bartenders never remember you. Fall in love with a new kind of ethnic food and fall more in love with brunch than you thought possible. Make connections with dogs on the street. Spend too much time contemplating life on long concrete walks. See the sunrise more than you should. Barely see anybody you like during the day. Get annoyed at couples grocery shopping and miss making out in your basement. Forget to buy paper towels and use napkins to clean the table. Take cabs at 3am. Pretend to clean your apartment, pretend you are going to eventually do laundry.

Meet nice people somewhere you didn’t expect. Have a conversation with somebody you never thought you would meet. Talk to somebody out of the blue. Enjoy these moments of fate immensely. Have more faith in humanity than you did when you lived wherever you came from.

Come home late smelling like smoke. Wonder how that happened, but really you know exactly how that happened. Promise you won’t spend too much money, expect free drinks but really only get shitty weather. Send texts to everybody you miss who is not in town because you are nostalgic for everything. Be single, ‘kind of single’, and ‘sort of single’ for months. Find somebody you like enough to watch movies with. Send bills in late. Revel in the fact that this is what youth is. Barely eat fresh vegetables anymore. Loathe the summer because it is too hot and miss it when it is gone. Get to know yourself and be surprised by it. You’d never bite your nails, you think, until you bite your nails. Forget all the great reasons why you moved here, fall in love with the reasons you didn’t think- cool breezes, car honkings, and knowing how to get places. Revel in being alone, revel in learning a city. Hate every job you have. Hate every bar you go to. Love both of these. Love everything. Have really, really good days. Stare at the city like ‘I got this.’ Swear you will eventually leave.

Then you stare at the skyline. Hate it. Be satisfied.

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My account of my own love/hate relationship with New York back in 2008 still rings true sometimes today ...

Identity

I surprised myself in the past month or so by feeling what I can only guess is the tiniest (but disturbing for me) tinge of national identity.

I first noticed it when I read about the US government blanket advisory against traveling to Europe a couple of weeks ago and was outraged by what I considered to be a fear mongering exercise and overly simplistic view of an entire continent.

But I felt it even more sharply last night, during the weekly Evolutionary Psychology class that I am taking at NYU this fall (my idea of intellectual distraction - I know I’m weird!). Our lecturer, a deeply academic Harvard professor, was explaining how the advent of agriculture and the manipulation of nature as a consequence will probably be seen in years to come as the biggest mistake we ever made as a species. The point (which I agree with) is that we learned to manufacture food that is lower in nutrients but more calorific which drove higher birth rates but disrupted our original metabolism for the worst, creating a more sedentary lifestyle where fast food is king and exercise is shunned - in stark comparison to our athletic, lean and healthy hunter/gatherer ancestors (but who couldn’t reproduce as fast we could and therefore in a true manifest of Darwin’s theory lost the survival reproductive battle). But she used as an illustration a Mac Donald’s ad that apparently ran in “Europe” depicting a baby seemingly suckling on a bun. She made much fuss of the fact that this ad would have never run in the US but that European audiences are different and would not only see the humor in it but also be somehow more enticed to buy MC burgers because of it.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and felt miffed that she would not only come to such a sweeping conclusion, but also that Europe (a continent comprising 50 countries and speaking no less than 230 different languages) was in her eyes, and many other Americans, seen as just one undifferentiated and dumb unit.

I have never felt particularly strongly one way or the other about the fact that I am French - although I readily admit to being appalled about the current government in power and the particularly argumentative yet pointless (i.e strikes) nature of my native country. It just happens to be the place where I was born and spent the first 19 years of my life. I consider some of my most formative years to have been spent abroad and therefore always thought of myself as a bit of a citizen of the world - happily and openly taking bits and pieces of cultural traits and behaviours from wherever I live. When I introduce myself I rarely mention that I am French (or at least not at first), particularly in the US where most people don’t detect the French intonations in my otherwise quite British sounding accent.

But I object to that fact that Europe can be seen and characterized as a seamless entity because in my experience it is anything but. We have hundreds of years of history and countless bloody wars that shaped very distinctive countries, with different languages, cultures and ideologies. I don’t think that any of them are right or wrong - they are just wonderfully different and diverse and that’s what makes the world a more interesting place.

But hearing such generalizations about an entire continent awakens in me a sense of national identity I never really felt before. It makes me want to proclaim that I am French, not in the sense that I am proud of it, but in the sense that we are all different and that the sooner we accept and embrace our differences - while finding common ground (there is plenty!) - the sooner we will all learn to live in this world together happily.

Because what I felt is so uncharacteristic for me (a serial expat and the least French person one might meet) it also made me wonder if “national identity” as a wider, almost philosophical, matter is perhaps also an integral part of the psychological toolkit we unconsciously evolved over millions of years - a sense of belonging that transcends ages/places and somehow grounds us to a certain place, even though we don’t live (and have no intention to ever live) in that place again.

As an expat, no matter how open and embracing you are of your adopted country, can you or should you ever forget where you come from? And what is the right balance between embracing your new country but drawing on your cultural heritage, however patchy it may be?

Ecuador Scare

I have been cursing my previously documented love of adventure a little more than usual in the past few days ...

Together with my lovely friends GP and CS, I have been planning a 10 day trip to Ecuador for the past couple of months. We were set on going somewhere in South America and had originally envisioned going to Peru and climbing Machu Picchu. But upon reading that it had become a bit of a tourist circus, we started reading up about other surrounding countries. Ecuador stood out pretty much immediately - it's the smallest country in SA, which makes it easier to travel around, and yet one of the most diverse in terms of landscape, culture and wild life. It's also meant to be one of the safest and when you are traveling with two other girls, that makes a big difference.

Our itinerary was soon decided. We will fly into the capital - Quito - this Saturday and spend a couple of days there exploring the old town (a UNESCO protected site) as well as go to the Equator line of course. From there, we will board a small plane taking us to the edge of the Amazonian rain forest, followed by a 2 hour canoe ride to our lodge, deep in the jungle. After about 3 days of facing all imaginable killer insects, arachnids and reptiles known to man (and perhaps doing a spot of Piranha fishing), we will make our way back to Quito to catch another flight to the Galapagos Islands where we will embark on a 4 day boat trip with 13 other passengers and a naturalist guiding us through their incredible wild life. Bearing in mind my keen interest in Evolutionary Biology (I have, over the years, read as much Darwin, Dawkings and Pinker as possible for one who actually works in an unrelated field), the Galapagos have been what I thought was an unattainable fantasy for me for many years. Needless to say that because of all the above and the eye-watering cost of it all, I anticipated this to be a trip of a lifetime.

But the dream was almost shattered last Thursday. I got an email from both GP (Italian but based in London) and CS (British who still reads the BBC website religiously) about some trouble happening in Ecuador. It turns out that there was a military coup of some sort and the President was taken hostage. Fights ensued that lead to 5 people being killed and hundreds injured. The airport was closed, many European governments issued a "no travel warning" and the country declared a state of emergency for 7 days.

What troubles me the most about it all is that I would have never heard about it had it not been for them. In fact, when I came in to work the next day and mentioned it to my colleagues and then to my friends later that night, not one of them had heard the news either. It is simply because it was not covered (and still isn't) in the US media.

I realized a while ago but US news outlets are rather selective about what International events they cover. If it is anything controversial/salacious or could directly affect the safety of Americans (on their own soil or in war areas), it will be covered at length (understandably). But everything else seems to be simply ignored. For example, I remember vividly the lack of coverage of the sweeping forest fires that devastated huge parts of Australia last year (a country nearly the size of the USA).

I have been checking the US government travel advisory website for days now and found no mention of any unrest in Ecuador. Instead, I was surprised to read a post advising American citizens not to travel to Europe. They seem to forget that Europe is a continent made up of 50 official countries (or 27 if you chose to count only the ones in the European Union). It is in a way as ludicrous as advising against travel to North America because there's a potential threat in New York, which must sadly happen more times than we'd like to think.

I know this will sound like I am bashing America and that's not really my intention. There are many, many things I love about this wonderful country or I would not live there. But the fact that I have only been able to get updates on the Ecuador situation from British, French and Australian news sites, has been rather frustrating for me and, I have to admit, kind of embarrassing.

Thankfully, things seem to have quieten down there and the President is back in power and looks to have the support of his people - whether that's right or wrong is another issue. Our travel agents and airline's advice today is to go ahead with our trip. Traveling to South America always means a certain amount of political volatility, which I guess we should have anticipated.

We have all managed to alleviate our respective parents fears and now all the travel shots and our preparations do not seem in vain anymore. But it is of course with some remaining nervousness, and clearly a bit of pent-up frustration, that I look forward to finally going on this rather incredible trip!

About me - Part 3

With my baby brother

Here is the third (and final) installment of my interview with Amelie from The Heimweh Safari.

As before, you can read it below here or on her blog.

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Here’s the third and last part of my conversation with Stephanie (read part 1 and 2 and go to her fabulous blog) where she talks about what she likes about NYC in general and— attention, all uptown expats!—in particular. On top of that, she lets us know where she finds good bread and cheese and gives some good advice for the NYC-newbie.

What do you love most about NYC? Name three reasons why living in NYC is better than living in Europe. 

• Convenience – I can’t think of any city in Europe that is truly as “open 24/7” as New York is. From supermarkets, to restaurants and bars. This is truly the city that never sleeps. 
• Weather – perhaps this is more in comparison to London/Paris than other more southern European cities, but you can’t beat New York’s weather. The winters may be bitterly cold but they are short – temperatures don’t usually become bone-chilling until early January and by March, a light coat/jacket can be worn again. Summers are hot and long, the heat normally lasting well into October, to leave in its place the most glorious autumn I have ever experienced with its mild temperatures and constant bright sunshine. 
• Energy – I have often tried (and failed) to describe the energy of New York both in my blog and also to people who haven’t been here before. In the end, it can only be understood when experienced firsthand. But what I know for sure is that I have never felt quite this level of raw, almost frantic, restless energy in any other cities I have visited in the world.

Name your three top favorite places in NYC.
It’s so hard to choose just three but if I have to be ruthless, I would go with:

• Grand Central station – my long-standing favourite building in the City, which still sends shivers down my spine whenever I enter the main concourse. 
• Central Park – not very imaginative but I am pretty sure it would make every New Yorker’s top 3 list. It’s just so diverse - from the densely populated southern part with the zoo and Sheep Meadows in particular attracting the largest crowds, to the quieter areas around the Harlem Meer and the botanical gardens, I love it all. My favorite way to explore it is by bicycle and I am lucky enough to live just a few minutes away from the reservoir so I can get my nature fix easily by just walking around.
• The area around the National History Museum – not only do I love the museum itself, but at the weekends there are some cool artisan market stalls lining Columbus, as well as an antique fair on the corner of 77th. The block is also packed with boutiques stocking small designers, my favorite sushi restaurant (Sushi of Gari) is on 78th and there is also a Pinkberry. What’s not to love!?

How do you deal with the city's crazy price level? Where do you find your best bargains?
 Compared to London, I don’t find New York expensive at all to be honest and I am a terribly bad bargain hunter, so not the best person to provide insights on this.

Where do you find decent bread in this city? And affordable cheese?
Great question to ask a French person! Whenever my family visits, we embark on an endless and by now ritual quest to find an authentic baguette. We have deemed the ones from Balthazar bakery, Dean & Deluca and Whole Foods to be poor imitations, and found the ones we picked up in the delis in my Upper West Side neighborhood to be either too soggy or too hard. In the end, we found a decent version at the Food Emporium, so I would recommend that.

Good cheese however is much easier to find and Fairway, Zabars and Dean & Deluca have pretty good selections of French and Italian cheeses although I am not sure they would necessarily count as affordable. I have been told that Murray’s Cheese Shop in the West Village is amazing but have yet to check it out for myself.

Do you have important advice for the NYC-newbie?
Enjoy it! Learn to take the rough with the smooth as there will be plenty of both. New York is not the easiest place to live in at first and making friends as soon as possible is crucial. The first couple of years can feel like a roller-coaster ride, but it is always exhilarating and remember: when you make it here, you really can make it anywhere. ;-)

About me - Part 2

Cycling in France

Here is the second part of the interview that the lovely Amelie from The Heimweh Safari did with me. As before, you can read it here below or over on her blog.

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I introduced you to Stephanie last week. Again, I want to praise her blog Biting the Big Apple and herself. I didn’t attribute points last week. That’s a default. Finding Stephanie in the internet, reading her blog and getting in touch with her has helped me a great deal. 

It gave me the perspective that liking New York might just be a matter of time. That New York might be a city that kicks everybody’s ass at first, in some way or another, (although nobody admits it) and that it’s not just me. Reading Stephanie’s blog is therefore worth more than anything else so far on my Heimweh safari: 8 points.

In the second part of my conversation with her you can read about her first experiences in New York: “American hair”, a broken heart and finally feeling at home.

What was your most mundane and unexpected problem at the beginning (f.ex. laundry, food, etc.). How did you solve it?

Not so much problems as rather interesting discoveries, which were, in no particular order:

• Realizing that there are no washing machines fitted in any Manhattan apartment. Quickly followed by the realization that dry cleaners here can do your laundry for $8 a pound and thereby making me the happiest girl on earth (I hate laundry).

• Making myself understood! NYC being probably one of the most multi-cultural cities on earth, you’d imagine that people would be pretty used to accents. But not so in my experience and I’ve had some funny moments at the salad bar counter of delis, trying to say “tomayto” instead of “tomahto” so they would get my order right! And to this day, nine times out of ten, the staff in Starbucks hears “two” coffees when I ask for a “tall” coffee.

• Getting used to the fact that everything is larger here: paper towels, bags of crisps, chocolate bars … Everything seems to be super-sized! Even hair apparently as whenever I visit my local hairdresser, I always seem leave with what I now call “American hair” – just that bit bouncier and bigger than you would get anywhere else!

• Getting used to the subway was quite a challenge at first as I found it to be really unintuitive. I, of course, got the hang of it eventually and I am now even used to the fact that it is completely unpredictable at the weekends as express trains become locals and sometimes vice-versa!

In one of your posts you write, “Despite our enduring love affair, New York has kicked me pretty hard to the ground a couple of times very early on and taught me tough lessons…” What are you referring to? 
You end the very same sentence by, “… some of which I only very recently finally absorbed and accepted.” How? What helped you—in the beginning and over time? Again, in the same post you write that New York has actually become home for you. 
What gives you that feeling?

I’m afraid that I was referring to a good old-fashioned heartbreak! I alluded at one point on my blog that I was infatuated with a New York man who was as complicated, gorgeous and fast-paced as the City itself. Unfortunately for me, I met said man a mere two weeks after moving to NYC and I came to see my feelings for him as interchangeable with my feelings about living in the City itself, the peaks and (mainly) troths of one directly affecting the other.

I struggled for a very, very long time to come to terms with the fact that while we would never be in a normal relationship together, it didn’t mean that my time in New York had been a failure or should be marred by what was a pretty painful experience for me.

So I guess that the feeling of New York being a happy home for me took longer than it perhaps should have done – it kind of creeped in on me as my heart slowly mended and when I finally managed to completely disassociate the City from the man!

Many expats try to recreate their countries of origin in some way. Do you? If so, how? 

I wouldn’t say that I have tried to recreate my country in NYC, maybe because while I am French, I feel very close to British culture and therefore I am not sure which of the two countries I would want to try to recreate here.

Top NYC Events

Japanese Street Fair - 5th Avenue

I was asked by Expat Arrivals (a great website dedicated to providing valuable local information to expats) to write a piece about key events in New York City throughout the year.

You can read it on Expat Arrivals or below. The list is nowhere near exhaustive of course but I had to start somewhere!
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New York is known the world over as the city that never sleeps. Though for many, the city’s borderline manic activity can actually be felt as much during the day as it can at night. In the summer season in particular, the energy is almost palpable, seemingly bouncing off gleaming buildings and steaming hot asphalt.

There is simply always something to do here; either an old favourite pastime that you’ve neglected for a while or an entirely new pursuit. As for picking just a few events, certainly a difficult task, but here’s is a list of tried and tested annual events, as well as some still on the to-do list.

New York Restaurant week - February & July
Some of the city’s most famous and most exclusive restaurants participate in New York’s bi-annual Restaurant Week. Eateries featured in this culinary dream period offer a prix-fixe lunch and/or dinner for $24 and $35 respectively. So this is your chance to sample some of the best kitchens in the city at the best of bargain prices, from Daniel Boulud’s modern French cuisine at DBGB to old school New York charm with an Eastern European twist at the Russian Tea Room.

St. Patrick’s Day Parade - March 17th
The Irish heritage in the New York area is omnipresent and St. Patrick’s Day is the event of the year to witness in all its intoxicating glory. On the day itself, there is a parade, complete with costumes and marching bands, that slowly snakes up 5th Avenue and is tons of fun to watch. A lesser known fact however is that Hoboken (just across the Hudson in New Jersey) hosts a veritable Irish extravaganza the weekend before St. Patrick Day. People start pouring into the small town from 9am onwards as pubs open especially early for the occasion and everything pretty much turns green (drinks, people, streets, clothes). Needless to say, most revelers start drinking early in the day, so things do get a little messy!

Street Festivals - April onwards
One of city’s most charming cultural gems is the appearance of random street festivals that pop up all over town on the weekends as soon as the weather starts to perk up, usually from April onwards. While there’s no official, comprehensive guide of when and where they are scheduled to happen, the chances are that if you are visiting NYC during that time, you are highly likely to stumble upon one. Sometimes they have a theme but most often they don’t - what they always have though are food stands (Thai, Japanese, Greek), Tarot cards readers and lots of useless but charming knick knacks.

Rooftop drinking - May onwards
Technically speaking, this is not an event at all of course; though with the start of the outdoor drinking season, it’s certainly a momentous occasion. In a place filled with skyscrapers, it is easy to see why looking out over the sweeping cityscape while sipping on a gorgeous cocktail is a New Yorker’s favourite past time. Some of the best rooftops are the Metropolitan Museum rooftop, 230 & 5th and the lesser known Bookmarks in the Library Hotel and newcomer Ink 48's Press Lounge.

Gay Pride Parade - June
Gay Pride is a huge event in the city and is usually made to last for the entire week with a number of smaller events all leading to the main parade on a Saturday. As Gay Pride originally started in NYC, there is certainly something special about this particular event. The celebration has its roots in 1970, and is an occasion to mark the one year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn incident. The event is incredibly diverse; with every single ethnic origin, gender and age being represented.

Outdoor Movies & Concerts - All Summer long
The list of these is almost endless - from River Flicks on the Hudson, to the Bryant Park Monday night movies and the Rooftop Films Summer series, there is really something for everyone.
Outdoor concerts in the city are also quite ubiquitous with the most notable being the New York Philharmonic concerts in Central Park, the Tompkins Square Park Charlie Parker Jazz Festival and the P.S.I Warm UP series.
Be it a music or cinema event (or ideally both!), one thing is for sure - there is nothing quite as magical as having the glittering city as the backdrop to your evening.

San Genaro Festival - September
San Genaro is a week long festival that takes place in Little Italy every year. It is actually a religious occasion and a statue of San Genaro (the Patron Saint of Naples) is carried through the cobbled streets by burly men, followed by a large procession of people. The atmosphere is electric with music, freak shows (!), street food vendors loudly selling their wares (you must try a sweet, cream-filled, cannelloni) and huge crowds slowly meandering through it all, usually clutching a cocktail in a giant, brightly colored plastic glass!

NBA Basketball Season - October to April
There are many sporting events in New York, the most popular being the baseball season (with the old rivalry between the Yankees and the Mets), as well as the US Open. NBA basketball season is also not to be missed; running from October to April with New York Knicks games being played at Madison Square Garden.
Despite the Knicks’ poor performance of the past few years, they have ardent fans and the atmosphere at the games is amazing - the combination of the venue, the fun musical and dance interludes, the constant chanting of the fans and the fast pace of the match make this a must-do experience in the city.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade - November
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade is a well known event, and even preparations can be captivating to watch. On the night prior to the parade, the famous huge balloons depicting animals or cartoon characters are being inflated somewhere on the Upper West Side, usually near the National History Museum on Central Park West. It’s a great spectacle to see after a dinner out with friends - when hopefully a couple of glasses of wine will have warmed you up enough to brave the chilly temperatures and chance of snow.

About me!

Mum & I in Soho

When I started this blog, soon after moving to New York 3 years ago, it was at the suggestion of a couple of my London friends who thought it would be cool if I documented my adventures in a new country and a new city. I used it as a sort of log of my observations, a personal record of my time here, and at times I must admit as a form of therapy too.

I only shared my blog address with a small selection of friends and never thought that anyone else but them would ever read it. But it turns out that other people do too and the chances are that if you are reading these lines now, you are one of them. A fact that I find surprising, flattering but a little daunting too.

Amelie is one of these readers and contacted me a few months ago. We exchanged a few emails back and forth, finding common grounds in our Expat status. Her blog, The Heimweh Safari, is great. Having moved here from Austria to study and struggling with feelings of homesickness, she started a rating system awarding points to the City for cool experiences or new discoveries, a bit like a treasure hunt.

Amelie’s blog contains a couple of interviews of other expats and their experiences of settling here and making it home. I was honoured when she asked me to take part as well.

You can read Part 1 of our 3-parts interview below here and on The Heimweh Safari.
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How to become a happy New Yorker
A success story, Part 1


Stephanie is my guiding light. Apart from that, she’s French—yet British in her heart—and she moved to New York three and a half years ago. I discovered her blog a while ago (check it out it’s great!) and on that blog I found something that made me want to meet her urgently. In a post she wrote about how New York gave her a hard time at the beginning, yet how much it has become her home by now. Well, I thought, that sounds comforting to a homesick European like me. I need to talk to this girl.


I sent her some questions and got an amazing, very long e-mail back. Too long to be posted in one go. Therefore, we decided to make it a series. In sequel 1, read about Stephanie’s moving to New York.

When did you come to NYC and why?
I landed in freezing cold and snowy New York on March 3rd 2007. I had been working for a major American financial services company in London for a couple of years and got promoted to a great job in our NYC head offices, heading up online marketing in their Digital Group.

Did you come alone? Did you have friends in the city?
I came by myself which was actually a huge deal for me. A year prior to my move, my boyfriend of ten years and I (amicably) split up so while the opportunity to move to New York couldn’t have come at a better time in my life, doing it by myself was also a very new, equally exciting and daunting, experience for me.

I only knew three people in the City but I was so excited at the prospect of living here that I forgot to factor that into the equation … I have to admit that I did question my sanity as a result almost as soon as I landed!

Were you homesick at the beginning? If so, what helped?
As this is the second time in my life that I have uprooted myself and moved to another country (I moved from France to the UK 15 years ago), I’m not sure I really know what being homesick means. I am used to finding excitement in the challenges of learning to live in a new culture and noticing both the mundane and more fundamental differences. Having said that, I missed my friends a lot (and still do), closely followed by Waitrose groceries, Marks & Spencer lingerie (only British girls will understand me on this one), British television, decent Earl Grey tea and roast dinners!

Thankfully NYC is a transient place and the people who live here know it and are therefore very welcoming of newcomers and I made friends quite quickly, not only through work but also through friends of friends who kindly and seamlessly included me in their social group. Being transient also means that the people you get to know come and go too, and friendships can be on one extreme very superficial or, on the other, very intense. I definitely have fewer friends here than I do in London.

The Internet (already a huge part of my life) was crucial in helping me stay in touch with friends. I started some intense e-mail correspondence with my closest ones and Facebook helped fill the remaining gaps with the others.

Read more about how Stephanie became a happy New Yorker in a week!

Heat

When I learned that I would be moving to New York, I remember dreading in advance the bitterly cold winters. I had seen TV News footage of people skiing in Times Square over the years and not being a cold weather person myself, I was not looking forward to that at all.

But what I didn't anticipate was how hot the summers are. In fact, nothing could prepare you for the sweltering heat and humidity apart perhaps from a prolonged acclimatization trip in the Amazonian rain forest! There are some days (like today) when, while the sun is shining invitingly, the 103F temperature and 40% humidity make it impossible to spend more than 15 minutes outside without melting into a pool of sweat.

Subway platforms are the hottest places of all, particularly at the end of the day when the heat has had a chance to accumulate. It is close to unbearable - especially with the addition of the smell of stale air and urine.

As a woman, one pretty much gives up on hair and make up on days like this. My wardrobe has almost completely changed since I moved here and I wear exclusively dresses in the summer as I find that floaty garments in lightweight cotton or silk are most effective against the heat.

Having said all that, I am prepared to deal with the few really hot days that we get every summer because the trade-off is amazing - temperatures start warming up by mid-April and stay that way until late October. As far as I am concerned, this means a summer that spans nearly 6 months and make the July and August heatwaves all worthwhile.

Bittersweet

Bittersweet is what best describes last weekend as we waived goodbye to MT who decided to move back to the UK after 2 years in the Big Apple. After FM's departure just a couple of weeks ago, I feel like I can't really handle any more friends leaving for a while now!

MT and I have been close friends since we met in London 6 years ago. I will miss her more than words can express but will always feel incredibly grateful and lucky that we were able to share our experience of the City together and having her here (she moved a year after I did) shaped it in so many ways. She not only helped me feel more at home but also made it a lot more fun as we have always been partners in crime when it comes to going out and partying!

The farewell events started on Thursday night with a long night of drinks at the very Parisian looking Bar Artisanal for the main party with all of MT's colleagues and friends. Followed the next night by one last evening at MT's apartment where we diffused the rather emotional atmosphere with plenty of jokes and laughter and a few glasses of champagne.

 On Saturday morning, I had planned for MT and I to take a walking and eating tour of Astoria, which was very interesting. I fell in love with Astoria. Unlike Brooklyn (or at least the few parts of BK I know), it still feels very much like Manhattan with a similar energy and buzz, albeit a little more laid back and the visit was also a real sensory experience. While the area is known for its Greek heritage, it's actually incredibly multi-cultural and we sampled everything from freshly made, smooth and creamy mozzarella and spicy pork sausage at Dave & Tony Salumeria, to Lebanese sweets and Colombian pastries. One of my favourite tastings was in fact a Chilean hot dog from San Antonio Coffee Shop which had avocado, sour cream and fresh spicy salsa on top of it.

 On Saturday night, 8 of us gathered on KM's rooftop deck and had a picnic and sipped wine while watching the sunset over Hell's Kitchen on one side and the Hudson River on the other, and talking well into the early hours of the morning.


We somehow found the energy to all meet for brunch the next day at Boqueria and then spent the afternoon walking around Soho and Tribeca.
A few hours later and it seemed like a great idea to go for Blue Crabs at The Hideaway, which they have on specials on Sunday and Monday nights. It reminded us of last year's roadtrip when we shared the same meal in Baltimore : a pile of steaming, spicy (from the Old Bay seasoning) crabs poured straight onto our table and armed with a hammer and other torture instruments to extract (with much difficulty) the delicious flesh. And finally, for "desert", we hopped in a taxi to the new Mermaid Oyster Bar on MacDougal for a dozen Blue Points.

While I am exhausted from the lack of sleep, the excess of alcohol and the sheer range of emotions I have felt in the past couple of weeks alone, I am so happy that we all gave both FM and MT the send-off they deserve.

Islamorada

I've said it before but one of the things I love the most about New York is its close proximity to tropical paradise, particularly in the midst of the bitterly cold winters, and short escapes to South Beach are now a January ritual for me. The Caribbeans are less than 4 hours away and it turns out that the Keys, despite being a couple of hours drive south of Miami are pretty straight forward to get to and equally heavenly.

A couple of weekends ago, a group of about 15 friends and I headed down to Islamorada, a tiny spot about half-way down the Keys to celebrate our friend FM's birthday. She is originally from Florida and wanted to celebrate this significant milestone surrounded by her family, her closest friends and on the beach! Something we all agreed was a rather fine idea.

We only stayed in the resort for three days and most of our time was spent in the lagoon, where we could swim in the sea without worrying about the strong currents of the ocean or the creatures with sharp teeth that inhabit it!

CS, ES and I did get to swim with dolphins which was something I had dreamed about doing for a very long time. They are such amazing creatures - incredibly gentle and graceful in their movements - and I loved every minute of it, even when the dolphin trainer asked me to swim out to meet one of the dolphins, Sebastian, as she had something special in mind for me. As Sebastian had just "kissed" ES and gotten a hug from CS in the previous stunts, I got a little worried about the increasing level of intimacy we were asked to share with him and what mine might entail! Was I going to be used for a hybrid dolphin/human insemination project?! All joke aside, it turns out that when Sebastian emerged from the sea in front of me, all I had to do was shake his fins :-)

Much fun was had by our raucous group throughout our stay and I have to say that our behaviour would have made any prepubescent teenager proud - from jumping fully clothed in the pool at 2am while frankly very inebriated, to involuntary parodying "Dirty Dancing" when the lovely boys we met at Tom's bar one night invited us to a house party which turned out to be staff quarters as they all worked at our hotel!
No-one made us carry watermelons* but I have a feeling that, should I decide to go back to the resort and get tennis lessons, it won't be too much of a problem! Finally, we ended the weekend in style by driving back to Miami airport in a gorgeous, gleaming red convertible Mustang.

The weekend was bittersweet however as two of my closest friends (including the birthday girl herself) are leaving in the next couple of weeks. I've written before about the City's transience and it is again proving to be the case, reminding me that this place is not as easy to live in as we'd all like to believe. MT is leaving after just 2 years, as she missed her family back in the UK far too much and never felt at home here. FM is at a stage of her life where she wants to meet a decent man and settle down to have kids - something that's hard to find in New York unfortunately ...

I feel fortunate that at least we were able to spend an entire weekend together in an ideal setting with the rest of our girlfriends, all feeling connected by a friendship that is stronger than any physical distance that life may put between us.

* For straight male readers - this is a bad reference to a scene in Dirty Dancing!

Restaurant, Inc.?

I have just read a very interesting article on nymag.com about New Yorkers average monthly spend on eating out, based on the neighbourhood they live in.


Topping the list at a whopping $2,350 (not far off my monthly rent!) is Chelsea, with my own zipcode coming in not too far behind at a choke inducing $1,895. Step outside of Manhattan however and the spend goes down quite dramatically to $710 in Park Slope and $233 in Astoria to pick just a couple.

While this is clearly a reflection on the differing affluence levels (and restaurant pricing) across each of the boroughs, I also believe it is a unique Manhattan trait for other reasons.

Apartments in Manhattan are small and cooking in some of the kitchens I have seen here would be the equivalent of performing a circus contortionist act. A friend of mine saw the most unbelievably small kitchen once when apartment hunting - so tiny in fact, that the shower cubicle was literally next to the fridge. No joke.

Grocery shopping can be a hit and miss experience. Delis and small supermarkets, while convenient as most of them are open 24 hours a day, usually only carry a small and sometimes quite odd selection of food products while larger places such as Trader Joe's and Wholefoods are expensive. I have often walked out with enough ingredients to cook just one meal that costed me nearly as much as if I had eaten out at my local restaurant.

And lastly restaurants are just amazing here. There are so many of them, spanning all the types of cuisines one would desire and all price ranges. I've had the tastiest eggs & bagels at Barney Greengrass for $10 and the most exquisite and elaborate food at Per Se for $250 per person. Overall the food and service in New York restaurants is overwhelmingly high compared to many other cities.

I must admit that I very much embraced New Yorkers' restaurant habit as soon as I arrived here and I eat out at least 4 times a week. And while I am not storing Manolos in my oven quite yet, my empty fridge always gives my visiting European friends a bit of a chuckle when they come and see me ...

* Screenshot taken on bundle.com

Transient City

As I attended not one but two farewell parties this weekend, I was reminded of the transient nature of New York City. Both friends felt their time was up - one is moving back to London while the other has decided to try his luck in Thailand and enjoy a more sedate lifestyle for a while.

I believe that transience is quite unique to New York and an intrinsic part of the social dynamics in the sense that it changes the way friendships are formed (and perhaps one could argue also the volatile nature of romantic relationships). I met most of my friends here through shared UK connections - it is very natural for people to meet up with friends of friends if they have just moved to the City and quickly include them in their own social group. There is a common acknowledgment that the City can be a big and daunting place if you don't know anyone. It makes building new friendships in the City a much faster process but it also creates a fairly tight knit expat community as I am finding now that a lot of my friends here are British.

It is with a little sadness that I am facing this first wave of departures but I also have long been preparing myself for it. As with any expatriate community, a lot of people have no real sense of how long they will be staying in their new adopted City. But I also know first hand that true friendships can withstand geographical distances.

At least, goodbye parties make for memorable evenings. K's party on Saturday night was a pretty wild affair - we started with drinks at Madame X, a small and dark Soho bar modeled after a bordello with crimson walls and odd paintings on the walls, before hopping in a taxi to Fat Baby. We danced relentlessly until four o'clock in the morning and although I paid the price for it dearly the next day, I still have the awesome beats of DJ Kool's "Let me clear my throat" running through my head and putting a smile on my face two days later!

On the other hand, S had opted for a relaxed dinner gathering on Sunday night to bide her farewell to New York. A group of about ten of us went to Public, which may well become one of my new staple restaurants in Noho. We opted for the amazing Sunday tasting menu and were in for a little surprise ... The restaurant was primarily filled with the head chef's friends (who happen to include the actress Julia Stiles who was sitting at the table next to us) for a special screening of his appearance on Iron Chef America, where he won the challenge ... with the exact menu we had just sampled!

Memento

At the end of my first year of blogging, I came across a website called blurb.com which enables you to turn blogs into customized, high quality hardcover books relatively easily.

Despite a slight guilty feeling of self-indulgence, I couldn't resist and have since got two books printed from the posts I published in 2007 and 2008. It's a little treat for myself - I really enjoy leafing through them from time to time, looking at the pictures and reminiscing about the experiences I have been through and the events I have been lucky enough to witness since moving to New York, such as Obama's historical victory.

But above all, if I do eventually leave this wonderful City, the books will be original mementos of my time here ... tangible traces of my adventures and fluctuating state of mind.

So go on, treat yourself as well - I highly recommend it.

The Gym

I have always found the gym to be an absolutely fascinating place for people watching - it is unnatural to put human beings of all ages, shapes and sizes in a small space, make them frantically exercise and watch them turn all shades of red while they carefully avoid looking at each other.

As my "February Fitness" burst is still going strong, I have had plenty of opportunities to observe some of the differences between gyms in New York and the ones in London and so far have identified three of them.

1. An unsettling amount of public nudity in the Ladies locker room
I am no prude but I consider it normal that, after having a shower at the gym, one should try to remain covered under towels while discreetly changing back into clothes. It does involve some amount of contortion and dexterity but it is feasible. However, training in the art of not unecessarily exposing one's private parts is not evident here at all.

I have not seen so many naked women since I went to the famous Gellert Baths in Budapest - an experience I found so traumatic at the time that I only lasted 20 minutes in there ... There was only a limited number of times I could deal with rather mature ladies insisting on bending over to pick up seemingly invisible objects from the floor!?!

I am getting slowly used to NYC women's lack of self-consciousness and their general disposition for doing as much as they can completely stark naked - be it leisurely walking around the locker room, chatting to each other for ages or even drying their hair and applying make-up! In fact, I applaud them for that ... but won't be joining them anytime soon!

2. Male bonding
I hate going to the gym when it is packed so I have taken to exercising early Friday evenings, which has lead me to another observation. This particular time slot seems to be the primary setting to the new phenomenon of "man dates". Throngs of men invade the gym at that time and it is endearing, albeit highly amusing, to see them exercising on the weight machines in pairs, coaching and encouraging each other while slyly comparing muscle size. My personal theory though is that they are merely "pumping up" before going out on the pull ...

3. Halfhearted exercising
And finally, I have also been shocked at the number of people who exercise with a Starbucks coffee in one hand and a cell phone in the other. As usual, New Yorkers are uniquely masterful at multi-tasking.

New Yorker v1.1

It seems that you notice even more how much of a New Yorker you have become after spending a week in London when ...

Your friends are concerned that you are mildly obsessed with Barack Obama because you have read both his books and are recommending them to everyone you talk to, you brought the Time Magazine Special Election Commemorative Issue with you and you explain that you ended a recent casual fling on grounds of "irreconciliable political differences".

You keep calling London "the City" causing many confused looks - while in New York the City refers to Manhattan, in London it is the nickname for the Financial district.

You find an English accent utterly endearing and charming, realising you had somehow become immune to it over the years.

You almost choke when having to pay $120 for a taxi ride from Central London to Essex where you were staying for a night - in New York, this could almost get you to the Hamptons!

You make twice a day pitstops at the Starbucks around the corner from the office for a Tall Black Americano - not because you like their coffee but because it "feels like home".

Your resolution to take the Tube everywhere lasts for less than 24 hours! After that, most of your time is spent desperately looking for a black cab, loudly cursing their elusiveness outside of the city center.

Your face drops when, after spending the night at a friend's in South West London, he suggests that the best way for you to get back to Central London is to take a bus ... a bus! And then you of course spend half an hour looking for a taxi instead.

You think that hanging out with a 6'8 transvestite that you randomly met in a nightclub and talking about the merits of push-up bras is completely normal.

You take an hour train ride from London to Kingston and back and wonder how you managed to do that commute every weekday for nearly 7 years without losing the will to live - it gives a new meaning to the rat race which I don't think I could ever go back to.

When having said that, you find London trains to be very clean but ever so narrow and Londoners to be extremely polite and reserved compared to some of the more colourful characters you have encountered in the New York subway.

You feel that London is too big or at least too spread out compared to Manhattan. I am never more than 20 minutes away from where I want to be, whereas in London going back to wherever I was staying after going out seemed like a mini-adventure, without the reassuring part of knowing I would actually find a way to get home.

Thanksgiving

The significance and meaning of Thanksgiving only really dawned on me this year. For us Europeans, Thanksgiving may seem like a rather mysterious holiday, another excuse for consuming enornous amounts of food and wine (not that there is anything wrong with that) and the beginning of the Sales season. But it is in fact a much more inclusive celebration than Christmas is, independent as it is of religious convictions and therefore even larger in scale. It does however share the same themes of family, joy and love. And immediately after, the full madness of the Holiday spirit unleashes with lights and trees going up in every corner of the City. This year, I was incredibly lucky to have my "chosen family" with me for the celebration - my closest friends Marie and Giorgia (visiting from London) but minus Larry as he had escaped to sunny Florida. I therefore decided to put my rusty "domestric goddess" skills in action and host Thanksgiving dinner.
Groceries from Zabar's, the UWS Foodie mecca.	Not a common sight in my kitchen I must admit ...
	I had no intention of cooking the traditional American TG dinner of giant Turkey with a side of caramelized sweet potatoes... craving Jamie Oliver's perfect roast chicken instead.
	I may look completely in control (note the glass of white wine by my side however) but this was minutes after I dropped the chicken in the sink, screaming when some "things" fell out of its bottom as I was washing it. Not quite a domestic goddess after all ...
	The chicken was accompanied by roasted potatoes and a green salad with my famous French dressing. Marie made a delicious fruit tart and we also feasted on farm cheeses and baguette. Come to think of it, there was nothing American about our Thanksgiving dinner at all!
Lifting of the "huge beast"	Marie & Giorgia
I can't share any more pictures as a few too many bottles of wine were consummed throughout the evening while we chatted away, listened to music, stalked people on facebook and made travel plans for next year. The morning after had to be spent at Barney Greengrass in an attempt to cure the hangover of course.
"Dirty brunch"	There is nothing this cannot cure!