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 ...

Spring

Spring has finally, finally sprung in the City! I realized it this morning when I woke up to the sounds of the first street fair of the year occupying parts of Broadway, just outside my windows.

It then only seemed natural that we should have our first picnic in Central Park today, along with half of New York's population of course.

Revival?

This winter has been particularly tough on me.

While I didn't entirely go into complete shut down mode (I just can't), every outings required a lot of preparation and willpower in order to face sub-zero celsius temperatures, gail force winds and/or mounds of snow for 5 excruciatingly long months.

I still managed to experience new places around the City.

Most notable amongst them were the amazing food at ABC Kitchen. The cozy atmosphere at Smith & Mills in Tribeca - an old coach-house converted into a diminutive bar. The Ace Hotel bar which is great for pre-dinner drinks and impromptu silly picture-taking sessions in their retro photo booths before grabbing dinner at the Breslin. Oh and of course the live jazz brunch at Fig & Olive in the Meat Packing district.

I also went to a lot of Knicks games and wildly cheered for my beloved boys through the course of them securing a spot in the play-offs for the first time in 7 years. My obsession with the game is now at an all time high and shows no sign of abating. I even paid a lot a money to see them play the Lakers at MSG and even though I was supporting my home team, I literally swooned at how amazing and talented Kobe Bryant is.

I even took a trip out of the island (as I lovingly, yet ironically, call Manhattan) that didn't involve flying when ES, CS, SM and I rented a car and drove up to the Hudson valley for a spot of wine tasting at the Brotherhood Winery, which I highly recommend for the rather eccentric but endearing tour guide, rather than the wine as such.

But regardless of the above, it took no less than 4 trips to sunnier climes in as many months to help me stay somewhat sane - a record, even for me!

I first went to Phoenix AZ for work at the end of January where I was stranded for an extra couple of days because of the crazy snow storms in NYC at the time ... days I of course spent by the pool while working on my laptop.

Followed shortly by a weekend in Miami in February for LJ's annual birthday celebrations where I once again reveled yet laughed at the parallel universe that South Beach is - I still maintain that it is like walking into a "Pimps & Hos" party at any time of the day or night.

In March, the girls and I went to Barbados for 5 days to live it up Caribbean style - it made for an unforgettable trip and tales far too outlandish to publicly share.  I have pretty much been planning my permanent move over there since I got back - something to do with compulsory day time Rum Punch consumption and perhaps also because someone made me appreciate jet skiing more than I ever did before :)

Concluding with my latest escape this past weekend to Treasure Island in Florida to stay with my dear friend FM who lives there. I only booked the flight the week before, on a whim, after spending yet another night at home with my portable heater aimed directly at me in order to stay warm (for context - I have to have an additional heating source because the central heating in my apartment is not enough to keep it above 18C in winter!).

I only spent 48 short hours there but it was worth it. Lying on the beach. Listening to the gentle sounds of waves crashing. Alfresco brunches. Alfresco dinners. Catching up with FM and putting the world to right until the early hours of the morning while sipping wine on her outdoor patio and petting her beautiful Dalmatian dog Bridie.

My next trip, in a week and a half, is not an escape to sunnier climes (although the weather will be pretty nice there by then) but more of an emotional recharge - I am going to my parents for a week to catch up with my family and finally get to meet my adorable niece who was born in January but that I have only seen on Skype. My brother, despite being the youngest one, is the most settled and mature and is now the proud father of a gorgeous baby girl. I thought that I would be fairly blase about the whole thing (as did all my friends and family who know I am not a "baby person") but it turns out that when the brother you utterly adore has an offspring, you fall head over heels in love with his baby too! I really can't wait until the moment I hold her into my arms and see my beloved brother in her, although my entire family tells me that she has my eyes which will no doubt freak me out. And then I want to get 8 hours full sleep for a week. I still have my priorities straight!

The quote that "New York is a great city to live in if you can afford to get out of it" has never felt more true to me until this particularly long and dreary winter, which still feels like it will never end. I know full well how incredibly fortunate I am to be able to travel as much as I do - a luxury that is not available to everyone although my inaptitude for financial planning and desire to live in the present are entirely to blame for it!

But upon my return from France, when the weather should have definitely turned to Spring here too, I should be back to my usual self and hopefully have more to share on this great City than my constant need to escape it!

Hibernation

My recent lack of posts is due to the obligatory phenomenon of hibernation that all mammals in New York City experience at this time of the year.

Quite simply, I have felt too cold, too tired and too damn depressed to do anything worth writing about.

Instead I leave you with a couple of pictures from this past weekend when I was in South Beach Miami - the land of sun, sea and sand. An annual and now ritual escape without which I could not even make it through the winter alive.

My next escape from this cold hell is Barbados in less than a month's time. I am counting the days, while struggling to wake up and function as a normal human being every morning.

I don't remember ever being so prone to SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) before - I didn't even know what SAD was before I experienced my first winter in New York! Yet I can't quite decide if it's because London doesn't have such distinctive seasons or if it is due to knowing that, while I am trying to cope with a long period of miserable cold weather, a heavenly beach and warm climates are less 3 hours away from me in Florida - so close, yet so far from every day life.

Regardless of the reason or answer, everyone I know here suffers from this "disorder" to various degrees and I can now understand why Groundhog's day is such a big deal and gets massive TV coverage here. If a cute furry animal is telling us that Spring is coming early this year, we all really want to believe it is true and it gives us hope to function one day at a time until it becomes reality.

Fun Facts

In Treasure Island, FLA

I'm having a crazy busy time at work right now so blogging is taking a backseat. But we have a team building session next week and I've been asked to give some fun facts about myself which I thought were actually quite fun (usually they are not!) and thought I would share them.

Name two things you consider yourself to be very good at:

I am an expert at making the most elaborate, comprehensive lists (anything from routine to-dos, to packing for a trip, New Years resolution, books I want to read, films I want to watch, recipes I want to try, restaurants I've been to and want to go to, lists I have yet to write, etc.) yet I am also a master of procrastination.

Who was your favorite musical performer or group when you were in High School? 

Michael Jackson - I was a huge fan of his between the age of 12 and 16 and credit him for my early grasp of the English language as I learned (and translated) the lyrics of all of his songs.

Which is the best vacation you ever had? 

My last vacation is always the best one.

What crazy activity would you like to try someday? 

A zero gravity simulated space flight. I'm a closeted science geek and have always been fascinated by space travel and astronomy (I'm currently reading 'How I killed Pluto and why it had it coming" by Mike Brown - brilliant!) . As I don't think I will ever be able to afford a space flight (when it becomes available), a ride in an airplane for trainee astronauts/adrenaline junkies simulating zero gravity by dropping abruptly would be the next best thing.

Have you ever met a celebrity?  If so, who and how?

Gordon Ramsay - who winked, smiled and said hello to me in the street in London. I was as shocked as I was charmed.

Name one thing that not many people know about you: 

I want to get a small aircraft pilot license. It's a huge time and money commitment but I wanted to be a pilot when I was a child and love nothing more than being up in the air so it's the one thing I hope to tick off my bucket list one day.

If you could smash one thing and one thing only, what would you smash? 

My TV but only during the last presidential elections political debates. Nothing has ever made me want to be violent more than watching and unfortunately hearing Sarah Palin.

What is the name of the best movie you have ever seen? 

The Dead Poets Society. It affected me so much when I first saw it aged 14 that I then vowed never to watch it again as it will never be as good as the first time or more poignant as it was to me as a young teenager.

Central Park Snow

Winter can be a rather depressing time in New York - while the sun is usually blazing high in the sky, it is also incredibly cold, windy, snowy ... and overwhelmingly slushy.

Streets become impossible to cross as the snow melts and gutter drains block up almost immediately - creating huge, dirty and surprisingly deep puddles.

Navigating your way around the City (even to the next block) involves awkward contortionist moves in order to avoid getting cold and wet feet/calves. Unless you have finally forsaken looking cute to instead be practical, as I have, and got yourself a pair of these amazing lifesavers.

But it is also the time when Central Park is at its most stunning and untouched. When you can walk around it for a couple of hours (as I did today with a friend), clutching a hot Starbucks coffee to keep yourself warm, pausing every so often to admire the dramatically bare trees, the snow covered fields, the iced-over lakes with the ever present backdrop of the City buildings glittering gently in the surreal pink and orange hues of the early sunset light.

It makes the discomforts of winter all worthwhile. A hundred times over.

Farewell 2010!

I always feel a little introspective as one year ends and another begins - as I'm sure we all do.

I can't believe I have been here for nearly 4 years already. It went so quickly yet feels like a lifetime. Not only because I can't imagine living anywhere else but in New York now but also because I have grown up so much in my time here.

It certainly wasn't an easy journey - moving by myself to the most exciting but also intimidating City in the world, falling in love when I least expected it only to have my heart broken almost beyond repair, powering through career and cultural challenges, forging new friendships, becoming fiercely independent, traveling more than ever before. And amidst all of that - countless fun nights out, entertainingly passing flings, girlie get-togethers and sharing my new home with friends and family who visited ... I wouldn't change any of it, not even the really hard parts, but in hindsight 2010 was my best year in New York yet - the one when I finally felt settled, happy, secure and had the energy and the right state of mind to really make the most of this incredible City and enjoy it thoroughly.

So these are some of my favourite memories of 2010 but most importantly - here's to 2011!