Shopping in NYC

I am always struck by the uniqueness of everything in NYC. It seems everything in the city is an exception to the norm. One thing that still amuses me is going into a store and seeing the escalators for shopping carts. You will find these curious conveyor belts in grocery stores, the Target store and even Home Depot.

To make the best use of space, stores are often multilevel and it's easy to get people up and down using traditional escalators, but if you want to take your purchases with you you must push your cart onto the adjacent belt and when you get to the bottom, your cart is magically waiting for you.



I don't think many people find this nearly as interesting as I do...I guess I am easily amused...

...and easily annoyed.

I generally don't shop much in the city because it is also hard to browse in such cramped quarters. For example, I found myself in The Container Store on Saturday with no intention of buying anything. I had never been in the store before and just wanted to see what they sold. I ended up walking out about two minutes later after getting trapped in nearly every aisle I walked down.

But the ultimate annoyance here is grocery shopping. It's not much fun in general, but is especially frustrating at Trader Joe's and the store in Union Square in particular. Because Trader Joe's is so much cheaper than any other grocer in the city and because there are only two in NY (this the only Manhattan location) it's often as crazy as a Best Buy the day after Thanksgiving.

There have been days I have waited in line outside the store to even get in and nights I have gone to the store only to find completely bare shelves and nothing that I am looking for. The lines to check out often wrap around the entire store and although they always move fairly quickly it makes it difficult to browse the aisles.

So while I could shop for probably anything I've ever wanted in NYC, I don't. My empty kitchen cupboard can attest to that.

Working Girl!

After not really working full time since last March I am so happy to be a working girl again! The on again, off again job hunt and freelancing bit was getting a bit old and this week I started my new job as a Website Coordinator for Weill Cornell Medical College.



It makes me so happy to get up in the morning and feel like I have something meaningful to do every day. I know I walked to the train stop this morning with a big smile on my face.

Luckily, the 6 train stops at Union Square so my commute each morning is a painless five stops - a far cry from my daily battles with icy hill of death and my 45-90 minute T ride each day in Boston!!

I work in an office of about 12 and everyone there is incredibly nice and made me feel at home immediately.

My job in particular is to assist with the newly redesigned Website. I get to write content, proof, and update the site. This afternoon was my first chance to get in and work with the site. I was able to help create a style sheet and I already have a list of changes I want to make.

I am excited to make the site the best it can be and look forward to everything ahead of me in this new position.

Single in the City

Ever since I moved to the city my friends here have been trying to extol the virtues of Match.com in an effort to get me to join.

I admit it's tempting. I want to meet more people in the city and my friends who have done it are perfectly normal people who have met other perfectly normal people. I would love to have someone to share my days and adventures with and want to have someone who shares my interests to go out and experience the city with.

But I hesitate...and not because I think it's weird to meet someone online.

I don't know if I really believe that I will meet someone perfect for me in doing it and I also don't know if I even believe in love anymore.

Not that I don't believe in the existence of love. I have friends and family that I love dearly and would do absolutely anything for.

I have friends who are in relationships where they are clearly and truly in love with one another. I see them and I think they are perfect examples of what love is meant to be.

It's maybe more that I wonder if everyone is destined to find that sort of love in their lifetime.

Moving around so much has definitely made the whole idea seem even further off for me. I am starting to think that maybe it's just not in my future..and you know what, I think I am also starting to be ok with that.

Mission: To Love NYC

I spent most of yesterday feeling homesick - although not necessarily homesick for home. Just homesick for old lives where I was completely content and spent all my spare time hanging out with really great friends.

Getting people to understand this homesickness is hard. Friends from home always respond by asking why I don't just pack up and head back immediately and friends here don't really get it because they all just love NYC and claim to not imagine living anywhere else.

I don't hate the city, but I also don't love it enough to picture never living elsewhere.

I mentioned this to a friend last night and he has decided it's his job to make me love NYC. He has promised to show me all the best places in the city and the things he's discovered that make this city unique and loveable.

I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Airline aggravation, round 2

My frustration with air travel from my Christmas visit home has barely subsided and I once again find myself frustrated by the airline industry. This morning I started searching for tickets home for my youngest sister's high school graduation. Tickets into Moline are about $185 compared to $389 to fly into Waterloo.

Why is it so freaking expensive to fly into Iowa?! No wonder I never get to go home.

I could fly to a foreign country for less than it costs me to fly within my own country.

There are limited national carriers that fly into Iowa and none of them offer anything direct. This is where I lose time, money, and most often, my patience. All of my horrible airline stories involve a connection issue of some sort and most often O'Hare. So you can see why I don't love that place.

It literally costs me more to fly the 45 minutes from Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, where ever, to Des Moines than it costs me to fly a leg from Boston or NYC to one of those hubs.

Can someone please get Jet Blue or Southwest to fly into Des Moines? I would be eternally grateful.

Feeling "home" less

Ever since my visit home for the holidays I have been contemplating the meaning of home.

The place where I grew up will always be home, yet I no longer consider it home in the sense that it is where I belong, if that makes any sense.

Flying back into Logan last Christmas I found myself feeling at peace when I saw the Boston skyline. It surprised me to discover that I felt as if I were coming home.

Boston is technically the first city I had lived in without having to be there for some reason. I wasn't living there because I had to be there for school (Although that is why I first moved there. I made a choice to stay there afterward). It had become home to me because I had developed a great circle of friends, my job was there, and in essence, I had created a "home" there.

Flying into LaGuardia this Christmas was weird. I found myself not all that excited to return as I boarded the plane in Illinois and the sight of the city lights below as the plane descended did not give me the same warm feelings the skyline in Boston does when I see it. I know it's probably because I haven't had the time to make NYC a "home" but part of me wonders if it will ever feel like home.

All I know is that I have been gone from my real home long enough that I didn't feel at home in the quite the same way this year and I also didn't feel like I was returning to a "home" in coming back to NYC either.

I just hope that when I decide to return to Boston my "home" there is still there.

Welcoming 2009 NYC style

A long time ago I started a little list of things I wanted to accomplish at some point in my life. I get it out every once in awhile and make additions to it. Now I can cross another thing off of it - seeing the ball drop in Times Square on New Years Eve.

I am not a big fan of New Years. It seems everything is usually over hyped and doesn't live up to expectations. But for some reason I have always wanted to spend a New Year's in Times Square. I can remember watching Dick Clark and the countdown on TV and thinking that it looked like so much fun. I hated watching it being replayed for all of us in the Central time zone and knowing that it was not live.

As a resident of NYC I decided this was my year to do it. If not, I never would. I was lucky enough to have some friends crazy enough to want to do it too and we began researching what spending the evening in Times Square would entail. We learned there were no bathrooms and no food vendors, you couldn't mill about, and that backpacks and other large bags were not allowed.

We knew it was going to be cold and tried to create the warmest possible combination of clothing before heading out. I ended up wearing some long underwear I had from my undergrad tailgating days, three shirts, three pairs of socks, and all the winter gear I could possibly fit on. I was sweating on the way out of my apartment but knew it wouldn't last.

We arrived in Times Square around 5 pm and found ourselves stuck in a very large crowd waiting to pass through a security checkpoint. Once we made it through, we were led into one of the "pens" about eight blocks from the ball. (Apparently the people in front must have arrived midday. But as far as I could tell, the only benefit to being closer was being able to actually hear the entertainers - definitely not worth being there for another 4 or 5 hours more.) Each pen contained a few hundred people which helped a bit in keeping us all a bit warmer.

Then the waiting began. We stood around for a few hours trying to ignore cold noses and toes. Around 8 pm my friends and I started to reconsider our decision but we soon decided we had already waited for so long that we had to stay.

Shortly after, the pen in front of us opened up and the police began moving us forward. This wasted some time and also put us in a spot a bit more shielded from the wind and further from the crazy Spanish speakers who kept jumping up and down and singing what I imagined were rowdy soccer songs. The hours passed and the girls and I amused ourselves by recalling crazy high school stories.

Finally we had reached 11:30 and the crowd began to perk up. At 11:58 the countdown began. The ball dropped, everyone cheered, confetti rained down, and fireworks went off. It seemed to be over so quickly after having endured such a long wait.

After taking it in for a few minutes we wanted to beat the rush to the Subway and head back to my warm apartment where our bottles of wine were waiting.

It was something I was glad to experience, but I am also glad to think that I will never do it again.

Happy New Year everyone!