I’ll admit it, before ever setting foot in the greater NYC area, I had this idea in my head of how it would look and feel. As I packed up in my life in TN, my mind was already set of the different foods I would try and the people I would meet. I thought that after a week or two I would have seen all of NYC so that I could I could easily give advice on this bookstore or that pastry shop. A little over a month later I am still trying to figure out who a typical “New-Yorker” is and have made some realizations
- New York City is HUGE
New York City is in-fact a group of boroughs that each in themselves are cities. They have their own government systems and post offices and even the zip codes can differ from place to place. Last Friday I visited a good friend in Brooklyn (I am in Staten Island) and it took me over an hour to get there one-way! It is only 7 miles but I never thought 7 miles could take so long. A fun fact I discovered was if Brooklyn wasn’t considered part of NYC, it would be the third largest city in the United States!
- New York City has an INCREDIBLE amount of people
Besides the millions of people that call NYC home, thousands of tourists visit NYC every day of the year. From the Statue of Liberty to Times Square to Central Park and the Empire State Building, there are so many attractions that even seasoned New Yorkers could spend months if not years exploring and never see the same place twice. Think you have driven in heavy traffic? Try driving across the Verrazano bridge into Brooklyn at 11 in the morning or better yet, experience 10 lanes coming into 2 crossing the George Washington bridge leaving NYC. If you are going to live in NYC, getting used to traffic is a must.
- New York City truly is THE MELTING POT
A fact that amazes me to this day is how many languages are spoken in NYC. Stacey and I were walking through Manhattan last weekend and within the span of an hour we heard at least 20 different languages. As that is amazing, Stacey really shocked me when she informed me that over 100 languages are spoken every day in NYC! Talk about diversity! When you drive through different parts Brooklyn or Queens you see entire communities of many types of people. You can be eating at a Chinese restaurant surrounded by a Chinese school and grocery store then two streets over, schools, stores, even buses are all written in Hebrew. It amazes me how so many different cultures and communities can come together and call one place home. New York City truly is amazing and thus far, I have truly enjoyed seeing and experiencing the city from rural eyes.
What do you like about New York City?
Long time no see, Phil! Glad to see things are going well for you :)
ReplyDeleteMy sister used to work for Zagat, in New York, and apparently New York is the highest rated city in the world for food and restaurants. The reason is because it's an immigrant city. You can get better Thai food in Thailand, better French food in France, better Chinese in China and so on, but no where else can you get top notch food of any cuisine in the world.