I have only lived in New York City for a couple of months, but already I have some opinions on it. Here are the best and the worst thus far--the list is not comprehensive, but it should give you a general understanding.
The Best:
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People-watching on the subway is nearly as good as people-watching at the airport. Once I saw a man with a haircut straight out of a Japanese samurai movie. The man I saw was not Japanese. Nor was he a samurai. Let's leave these hairstyles for anime, mkay? Thanks. (Although I don't mean to stereotype Japanese people or limit this hairstyle to only Japanese people. Everyone should never have this hair. Exception: those in samurai movies.)
Another time I saw this guy throwing up on the train after what I assume was a night of partying and large consumption of alcohol. His poor roommate had to give him a plastic bag to vomit in. Luckily, she had a plastic grocery bag and facial tissue for the bile-fountain. Oh, wait. This was a people-watching experience for the dude sitting across from my roommate and me at 2 am. Well, at least the lad got his money's worth*.
*Subway fare for a one-way trip is $2.75, unless he has a MetroCard, which then he would have had some sort of discount. I am not going to calculate his money's worth for the purposes of this blog entry.
At anytime, anywhere in the city are awesome, free events! You can just walk around until you come across something. If you're more of a "structured" person, you can go to sites like TheBlackListNYC for free tickets to television show tapings OR find events on Twitter OR event-posting sites like Craigslist--everything on there is legitimate, especially Cuddle Parties. Ok, fine. I found this free event on Meetup.com. I need friends, guys. There's more about that in the "Worst" section of this post.
In the big city, there are different languages spoken everywhere I go--not just the languages you can learn in high school and not only in the places people might expect non-English to be spoken: Chinatown, a bodega, etc. European languages, Asian languages, African languages, among others and different accents, dialects, and slang. Whenever I hear a non-English language spoken by people near me, I don't scrunch my face and raise my shoulders. I love it. People should be able to speak the language they so choose.
I've read and heard some people say that those who cannot speak English should go back to where they came from. Maybe the reason I'm ok with people not speaking English is that I sometimes don't speak English. Trust me, you want those people in the grocery store speaking in a different language. If they were speaking English, you would hear about how they have to take a poop or how your outfit looks like poop. At least that's what my family and I talk about in Japanese at the grocery store.
The Worst:
Speaking of grocery stores, the ones in the big city are awful. The first time I went shopping for groceries in New York, I went on a Monday, which apparently also is the day that everyone in business suits goes shopping. So the next time I tried shopping on a Tuesday. It was slightly better, though, still terrible. The two main grocery stores each have its own issues. Whole Foods only has organic and everything is overpriced. One day I went into Whole Foods, because they had a one-day-only sale for a quart of blueberries, $1.99. I bought two. For funsies, the next day I revisited the store, and the same quart of blueberries cost $5.99. One penny less than six dollars for a quart of blueberries.
On the other hand, you can go to Trader Joes, which is similar to a typical Midwest grocery store, but with more whole grain and less soccer moms. So far, so good. Until you go to check out. The lines for the register--you can go in the left or right--wind through the entire store. An entire store filled with people in two lines blockading the aisles and general areas of the store so that no one is able to move without running into someone else or having a cart smashed against them. All in all, bunches of fun. Sure, Whole Foods has a better check out system, but I'd rather not pay $4 extra for lady bug feces (re: organic).
If you're strolling through the city and need to pop in to the local drugstore for a drink, you'd better have cash. Almost everywhere in New York, you must reach a minimum price in order to use a card to purchase your selected items. This is a problem when dining for one comes up to $10, but the minimum is $12. Oh, just get some cash from the nearest ATM, you say? Why, that would be great advice if I was an adult and did not only have an account at the Fort Wayne credit union. Also, there are never any non-sketchy ATMs when you need them. Ok, fine. I guess this one is on me, and I should just open a checking account at a nationally-located bank. I just want to cling to the innocence of my childhood and get a dollar for every A on my report card at the credit union.
To get from one place to another in the big city, I take the subway. Subways aren't bad. Aforementioned, I enjoy watching those who take this form of transportation. The transfer from one subway train to another is less enjoyable. One might use the word "grotesque" to describe having to transfer trains. I would. If you want to get from point A to point B, you might have to take three trains, which includes two transfers. Not too bad, you might think. Until you get to the platform between train 1 and train 2 to wait for the latter. A train comes, but not the one you're waiting for. "The next one will be mine," you might think. Nope. Two more trains pass, and they are all the F train, but you need the G. You might wait twenty minutes during a transfer. So, the trip that GoogleMaps said would take 35 minutes now takes you an hour and a half. And in the summer, the subways are a sweaty, smelly sauna you don't want to relax in--you'll feel like you just stepped out of the ocean.
Also, the streets smell like urine. Human urine. New York City is a toilet.
From "the best" section's part about awesome events is that the big city is a lonely place. I could say that this allows me the chance to work on my "independence" and "adulthood," but I say screw it, because all I want to do is go to three dollar Thursday with friends and blare Wagon Wheel.
Maybe I should look into that "adulthood" about which my conscience keeps nagging.
Well, if you were counting along, then you would have tallied three things under "the best" and five things under "the worst." I guess you could say I was making a Pros/Cons list. Unfortunately, this means I should move back to Indiana. Fortunately, what I listed in "the best" overpower what I listed in "the worst." I will put up with winding grocery lines, full schedules, train transfers, dollar fees, and solitude so that I can continue to be submersed in culture(s).
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