nyc experiment: week five and a half

I am a few days behind schedule on writing this blog post because, honestly, I have been really busy. Even though we have been constantly on the move, my husband and I have stayed committed to our daily morning routine of walking the dog for an hour and then going to workout. We arrive back at the apartment with enough time for him to jump in the shower and have coffee before he sits down at his desk to start his work day on California time. I knew there would be several unexpected outcomes of this three month experiment but I didn’t realize how much spending the morning together would make us feel more connected. It is a completely pleasant surprise. Because we only have each other to talk to for at least two hours each morning, we are talking more and somehow that makes it easier to talk. 

Several friends who have read the blog the last few weeks have made comments to me that they are enjoying hearing about the logistics of city life from the perspective of people who have lived in the suburbs for 20 years. Because of their positive feedback, I have several additional thoughts about our apartment, building and neighborhood.

* We are renting this apartment through Blueground.com. From the first day we arrived, there were a few issues that needed to be resolved: a musty smell in one of the three closets that was clearly related to water in the ceiling, cracked window and the dryer requiring 6 hours to dry a small load of laundry. Originally, I reached out to Blueground through their app but after a week I was finally escalated to speaking live with a supervisor. After more than five weeks of talking with her, the Super and the building manager, the dryer was finally repaired and the leak in the apartment above us was resolved. The window glass has been ordered but I am certain that the repair will not happen during our stay. I know that I am the “Karen” in this story but it needed to happen.

Our Blueground Customer Experience Supervisor finally offered me a refund of 15% of our first month’s rent and I took it with the caveat that I will be asking for additional compensation depending when the repairs to the closet are actually complete. I would have preferred to live here problem-free but having to wait for repairs to be done on someone else’s schedule was a good reminder why renting can be frustrating. On the flip side, when the Super comes back next week to patch and paint the closet, I can also get him to snake the kitchen sink.

* I feel compelled to mention that one of the bathrooms in our apartment has a gorgeous view of the Empire State Building at night. Plus, now that I have a better sense of where we are, I figured out that we can see The Standard Hotel, Chelsea Piers and as far as New Jersey from the main room windows. 

* According to the Building Manager, our two bedroom apartment was created by combining a one bedroom and a studio. We had a feeling this was the case because in our primary bedroom we have a door that used to go to the hallway but is painted shut. From this information and judging by the dimensions of our kitchen, we have deduced that space that is currently being used as a home office was formerly a tiny kitchen. What is most interesting about this office space is that my husband prefers working there to the his west coast home office, formerly our dining room, which is four times the size but does has a view of our mailbox rather than midtown Manhattan.

* Right away when we moved in on August 31, I noticed that our apartment did not have a thermostat. We have three window air conditioners that were pumping day and night for a while until last week when it rained for several days in a row and the temperatures started to drop. This is when I first noticed the four radiators in the house. I understood that, at some point, the radiators would turn on for the entire building and that we would not be able to control the heat in our apartment. What I did not know was that when the radiators turn on, there is a lot of “banging, clanking and gurgling.”  Plus, these pre-war units pump out so much heat that we simultaneously run the air conditioning or leave the windows open. If you are someone who is currently struggling with heat flashes or feels hot most of the time, like our friend CJ, these radiators really piss you off.

* We believe that we are starting to acclimate to New York and looking less lost and out of place. This is evidenced by the following facts: 

1. When we are asked for money on the street we no longer apologize, we either do not answer at all or respond with, “Who the f— carries cash anymore?!”
2. We have a favorite bodega in our neighborhood.
3. We are able to execute complicated subway routes that require changing lines while en route from one place to another. Plus, we have hopped from a local to an express on a whim when both trains arrived on the same platform at the same time.
4. While walking home from the gym, four German tourists asked us for directions to Washington Square Park. Once I gave them directions, offered to walk with them and engaged them in conversation, I am sure they were well aware that they were not dealing with a true New Yorker.

We are almost at the halfway point of this experiment and with just over six weeks left, we are starting to focus on making sure we get to everything on our to-do list. A few really outstanding highlights of the past ten days were seeing a live taping of “Late Night with Stephen Colbert,” watching our son play water polo in NY and NJ, spending lots of time with friends from college who we don’t normally get to see and having dinner with a friend who was in our wedding but we have not seen in 25 years. Reconnecting with our long lost friend was something that we did not expect to happen while we were here because and it was amazing to see that we were still the same people and could just pick up where we left off. We are very happily surprised by how moving to NY, away from most of our friends and family, has been more exciting and better than we could have imagined so far.