I really do love living in New York City. Even if it’s so expensive it’s painful, even if Bryan and I will have to move out of Manhattan by next summer (we desperately want more room; this studio is painfully small and there are 1- and 2-bedrooms in other boroughs for the same price). But it’s been worth it. Part of it is the glamour of having a New York, NY address, part is simply the experience of walking a few blocks to Central Park or riding a few stops to anywhere in Manhattan. I’ve even become a bus expert. So long as I can figure out which bus to use, I can use them just as easily as the subway.

It’s also been strangely educational in some unexpected ways. One of which has been seeing Au Pairs / babysitters / nannies with their charges in baby carriages and the way they deal with and treat those children. Some of what I’ve seen has completely turned me off entirely from ever, ever, ever hiring a random nanny. I saw a child sucking on an antibacterial wet wipe (she was about 18 months) while her nanny was on her cell phone; I’ve seen kids dragged into retail stores, running around (at about 3 years old) while their nannies shop and chat (in Payless Shoe Source, for instance); I’ve seen kids in baby carriages squinting in the pain of direct sunlight while their sun shade sits propped up and unused; I’ve seen kids improperly strapped in; too many children hanging on one stroller; it’s both bothersome and worrying. A lot of it comes from the simple situation of the nanny is on her cell phone and is simply not paying attention to the child, even in a half-distracted way. (To support nannies everywhere, I’ve seen mothers doing this, too; it’s always the 30-something mothers, though, not the 20-something mothers. The 20-somethings tend to have Baby Bjorns strapped on and they look energetic while the 30-somethings tend to have a few kids and look either harried, defeated, or simply too busy to be bothered to care.)

I’ve taken some interesting day-trips, too, alone, with friends, and with Bryan. I’ve seen and done a lot in the last sixteen months. I’ve seen an off-off Broadway show, an off-Broadway show and of course Broadway shows and walked around Times Square often enough to both know it well enough to no longer get lost in it but also be exhaustedly tired of having to deal with all the tourists. You speak to people who have to work around Times Square or move through it for their commute and you hear the same thing. It’s plainly exhausting to press through the stalled and staring tourists. I’ve also been through Central Park often enough to know it reasonably well. I have by no means scoured the park as well as I should like, but that’s still a happy to-do to accomplish. I’ve gone to all the major museums, though the Whitney is a big one I still need to check off my list. Bryan and I were even invited to go to an evening at the MoMA (which happened to be sponsored by UBS, and Bryan had been working there at the time).

I’ve gone to the IKEA in Brooklyn in three different ways: by subway and IKEA’s shuttle, by Zipcar with Bryan, and by the NYC Water Taxi service that goes right to IKEA’s door. The last was facinating. IKEA is located in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which is sort of around the bend from New York Harbor. In going from Pier 11 by Wall Street to Red Hook I was able to see much of the touristy things, even a nice shot of the Statue of Liberty. It’s always a pleasant thing to see when I’m downtown, seeing the statue. It’s a simple reminder of where I live and how lucky I am to live here.

One thing I do miss about the suburbs are the stores. Living cheaply is so important to us because of our rent, but finding cheap things to buy require trekking to Brooklyn or Queens, or stocking up when we’re not in the city. (But stocking up, naturally, leads to yet another Catch-22; we live in a studio apartment so where would we put that stuff?) Living in Pittsburgh we were only a drive away from pretty much any store (except H&M, heh), enabling us to buy cheap things at Walmart, Target, Sam’s Club, and of course the malls. New York City doesn’t really have malls. There are a few pretend malls but as a suburban girl at heart (New York City’s suburbs, thank you), I know a mall when I see one and they don’t exist here. Also because I have to take public transportation everywhere, I have to carry all of my purchases everywhere. I though I’d had it bad in Pittsburgh when we’d have to carry our groceries up a steep hill and a few flights of stairs to get to the elevator to our fifth floor apartment. Here I have to walk blocks and blocks with heavy bags if I’m so enterprising as to go to Target, IKEA, or Trader Joe’s, all of which require a few hours’ venture of a trip. It makes things interesting, I suppose, hehe.

I also really love the New York Public Library system (especially compared to Pittsburgh’s!) — that, and I love being able to take walks. In Pittsburgh you could walk some places but it was relatively restricted to stretches here and there, with long roads in between. Sometimes the traffic was prohibitive; sometimes there weren’t sidewalks. It’s not, of course, anything like that here. I can walk pretty much anywhere assuming I want to be walking all over the place. And it’s relatively hard to get lost. I promise you. Once you know the rule of thumb of the numbered streets, it’s simple. It’s even easier once you get the hang of which streets go north and which south and which do both, and where they split, etc. The village is still a bit confusing but I know its main streets and I understand its layout much better now than I had before moving here last year so I don’t really fear getting lost down there any more.

Speaking of walks, I think I’m going to go walk right now.

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