nyc experiment: week four

We are four weeks into our NYC experiment and have so much to report. For some reason, I have been keeping a mental count of some of the “things you only see in a city” and here are my tallies: 2 unconscious people lying on the sidewalk (separately), 1 man peeing in the street in the middle of the day, 1 man asking for money while his pants are down to his knees leaving his entire package exposed, 1 live drag show on the sidewalk at our subway stop on 7th Avenue, 10 very good looking inhabitants of our building, 3 fellow tenants that are relatively close to our age and 1 bike accident. Besides counting these tallies, we are also noticing the following truths about life here:

* It is impossible not to have apartment envy. As you walk around the city, you can see that the top floors of many buildings have terraces and/or outdoor space. I also notice buildings that have nicer lobbies, uniformed doormen and are located on quieter blocks away from schools, hospitals, fire and police stations. 

* Last week, we ate at nine different restaurants and I don’t believe we are going to make it to all of the restaurants on our ever growing list. Even though we eat out almost every night and sometimes for lunch as well, there are just too many amazing options with great food, people watching and atmosphere. You could literally eat an amazing Italian meal every night for a month in this city. 

* New York, much like San Francisco, has a pervasive smell of weed. You cannot escape it. What is most interesting though is that no one seems to be able to tell us whether it is legal in New York state but there are some ingenious entrepreneurs who are selling weed out of a converted ice cream truck on 6th Avenue. Also, I never see people smoking or vaping in the subway.

* Our friend CJ arrived last Thursday from SF for a two-week stay with us.  She is piggy-backing on our experiment with a mini-experiment of her own. CJ arrived on Thursday afternoon and since then we went to the Comedy Cellar, saw “Six”, went to several restaurants, walked around Central Park and spent two nights in the Hamptons. We love having her with us and my husband is especially enjoying having a food buddy who is enthusiastically adventurous like he is as my palate often prefers options on a kids menu.

* Our neighborhood has some interesting logistics. It appears that trash gets picked up often but extremely sporadically and all trash is contained in bags. I have not seen any residential trash cans. Amazon trucks arrive daily, park in one spot and sort packages into several carts and then the delivery people fan out to the neighboring buildings. This process appears to take most of the day and likely explains why one-day delivery does not appear to be an option. The school on our block has recess in the street. They place cones in the street, block off the area in front of the school and let the kids play in that limited, concrete space. I know outdoor space is at a premium but I was pretty surprised to see this.

At a really fun dinner on Monday night in Tribeca with friends, my husband had more than two drinks and was feeling a very solid weeknight buzz. On our way home on the subway, he said he had already decided that this experiment was a success and that he was ready to sell our house in California and buy or rent in NY. I had only one drink and was not in the same headspace as him so I let him say whatever he wanted and pretended I had the same level of certainty about our future plans. The next morning on our regular dog walk along the Hudson River, I asked him whether he was still feeling as bullish on moving as he had the previous evening because I was thinking maybe we should not make any decisions until we experience some less than perfect weather. He said, “yeah, that might have been the booze talking…maybe we should also check our credit card bill before we make any big decisions.”