I find it hard to believe that it has been three months already since I moved to Manhattan. Three whole months in the City. I am so used already to living here. It simply feels natural. Already I hardly ever go anywhere else than Midtown. I know the nice cafes close by, the best pizza place. I can estimate distances and am usually somewhere between on time and (only) 10 minutes late. So far I have only missed my train to work once in the morning.

By now I have gotten used to having 24 hour doormen. We have joined a gym around the corner. On Tuesday evenings we can usually be found at the juggling club in Bryant Park. I have figured out the closest supermarkets and best donut stores. I have found an app to order delivery from liquor stores. I know several lovely weekend brunch restaurants and, more importantly, even a few people besides my boyfriend who I can go and have brunch with.

I never get tired of looking at the Chrysler Building when I leave our house or at the Empire State Building when I walk around the block. I have started to defend living in Midtown, which seems to be a nightmare for many other people. I am good at blocking out street noise and I don’t think that it is dirtier or more crowded where we live. Saying this, I usually avoid the tourist areas. I love going to see a show, but else I stay away from Times Square and Broadway.

3 months in Manhattan and my highlights were:

• seeing Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge live on Broadway in “Sea Wall/A Life”;
• getting two pairs of shoes repaired within a day, for $20 and including a pair that a repair repair shop in Boston had deemed un-repairable;
• seeing a very different and also beautiful side of NYC on the way to and at Rockaway Beach in Queens;
• feeling just like in “Sex and the City” when four female friends come from four different parts of the city and meet for brunch;
• watching the sunset from our friend’s balcony in the Village;
• sitting in Bryant Park and watching everyone else;
• going to the USWNT parade after the US soccer women team won the world championship this summer;
• having dinner in the diner on the next block where a glass of wine is only $5;
• going twice to an affordable and delicious Japanese lunch buffet;
• seeing the musical “Beetle Juice” – so dark, so funny, so entertaining; and “Tootsie” – also incredibly funny;
• taking the East River ferry to Williamsburg, exploring that part and its many secondhand shops, trying unusual foods at Smorgasburg – and eventually going home to Midtown;
• Manhattan motivates me much more to improve my blogging because there are so many great events and meetings – I already went to a few and enjoyed meeting other bloggers;
• meeting friends from Boston and knowing a little more and a few more places;
• having time every week to read three New York Times editions and the Time Magazine;
• watching Canavar look out of the bathroom window onto a little roof where a few birds sometimes sit;
• the Rent the Runway sample sale – OMG, how else could I buy a Draper James dress for next to nothing?;
• going to our rooftop terrace in the dark and admiring all the big city lights around us;
• waking up next to my boyfriend and Canavar almost every morning.

Are there any downsides you ask? Yes, for example I get easily annoyed by the many tourists who stop in the middle of the pavement. I get that every Manhattan building is amazing and ought to be photographed – but please just stop on the side and not right in front of me, please. Besides, on some days Manhattan is just a little smelly, esp. when it’s humid. It is not even that the city is extremely dirty (I have seen far less rats here than in Cambridge and Boston), but the different smells accumulate and then it stinks. Relatedly, everything is quite dusty. We like to open our living room windows that face Lexington Avenue and I regularly have to properly clean my desk from sticky dust. Neither is this good for my allergies/sinuses. We just ordered an air purifier to improve the situation.

All in all, I absofuckinglutely love living in the middle of Manhattan and hope to spend much more time here.

© janavar

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