Reunited (And It Felt So Good)

This past weekend was my first time back in New York after the big move. On the train, in between naps and crocheting I thought about what my attitude would be when I pulled into Penn Station. I figured that there would be two scenarios that could happen and they would set the tone for the whole trip. The first (unlikely) scenario was that I would emerge from the belly of Penn Station and would be overwhelmed with the sights, sounds, and smells of 32^nd Street and be struck with the sudden realization I never even liked New York and that moving was the best thing to happen to me. The other option was upon stepping foot into midtown, I would feel like myself again; picking up where I had left off when I moved in December. Obviously, the second scenario happened. How could it not? I got off of the train and every fiber of my being screamed “YOU ARE HOME.” It felt pretty nice.

 

Throughout the weekend I ate all of my favorite foods, saw most of my friends, walked around my neighborhood, finally ate at Mission Chinese (get the egg egg noodles, they will change your life), and I felt comfortable, for the first time in a long time. The only difference was that I was staying in a hotel rather than my apartment, which tripped me up when I tried to go home to my old apartment and realized halfway through that I didn’t live there anymore. On the plus side, my hotel room was so much bigger and nicer than my old apartment and Joe Jonas was staying there, which would be cooler if it was 2009, but still.

 

On Friday, a friend and I were walking to the Barclays Center (everyone should go it at least once; the foyer is just unbelievable) and passed by a woman who had a small dolly of water bottles. As she was pushing it down the block the front wheels popped off and the entire cart toppled over, ejecting the bottles onto the sidewalk. My friend and I were the first to help the woman pick up her things so she could get going again, and helped her refill her cart. As we were walking away, my friend pointed out that if this same incident had happened when we were still living in the city, we would not have stopped to help her; we would have just kept on walking. She felt that living outside of the city had softened us up and made us kinder than when we lived in Manhattan. I don’t know if I agree with her. Not to say that I am this incredibly generous person who helps everyone all the time, but small things like picking up a woman’s water bottles are common decency, which I felt like I saw all the time in New York. I could not begin to count the number of times I was offered a seat on the subway, or someone asking if I was okay after I had tripped. I feel like most people at their core good people and the only thing I could fault New York for in this realm, is that the city’s large population is taken for granted; when we are busy we assume that one of the other 8 million people living here will help the person we see in need.

 

The one thing I have noticed about myself is that I am so much less stressed out than I used to be. Maybe it’s because I no longer need to be hyper vigilant of the avalanche of cockroaches that could appear out of nowhere at any minute. We don’t have them in Troy (that I have seen, anyway) and for that I am incredibly grateful. But I still jump anytime I see a shadow pass by, because I am incredibly paranoid.

 

On a final note, this weekend I figured out where Mud sources their chai from in their chai lattes and I am so proud of this. The chai they use is David Rio Tiger Spice Chai. I just ordered a 4 pound bag of it. Now I can have a little bit of home with me every morning for less than the Mud priced $3.50.

 

Alone Time

I have this theory that New York is filled with people who were teased in school for being different and then all congregated on in New York to finally be a part of the in crowd and judge the rest of the world. We are a city of misfits. In the interest of full disclosure, I definitely include myself in this category as well. Like everyone else in this city, I take immense pleasure in criticizing everything; food, TV, movies, cities, various train lines, and many more things that no one cares about. I am starting to realize that other people do not act this way. Let’s hope I can make some new friends despite my snobby nature.

I have taken to walking everywhere these days. I miss my unlimited MetroCard and the ability to go anywhere as often as I liked for $104 per month. I never had to be that person fumbling at the MetroCard kiosk trying to refill my pay-per-ride card. Now without my golden transit ticket, I have been walking, trying to save $2.25 any time I can. Truthfully, it has been nice spending quality time with the city that I love; tracing her contours with my steps, getting a good look at what I have been living among for these past five years; the juxtaposition (thanks, Brunnemer) of architecture old and new, the conglomeration of foods, stores and people all on a tiny strip of bedrock.

I love the concentration of stores, schools, restaurants, bars and corporations all on top of one another here. One of my best friends from college said in our freshman year that he used to walk home from work listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Only Living Boy in New York” and felt like he was the only one in the whole city. We still tease him about it, but there is something to be said about wandering through the city with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company. Walking across the blocks and seeing all the different people and places of the world really gives you time to think and be alone by yourself. It’s kind of incredible that even though we are an island of 1.6 million people and a city of 8.2 million, you can feel so peacefully alone.

All of this walking has made me really think about what it means to live in an urban area. I have traveled a fair bit and I have never seen a city like New York. There is something here for everyone, all within walking distance, which is pretty incredible if you think about it. As you make your way from East 86th street to East 9th Street you are able to see how neighborhoods gradually change but all the while keeping that unique New York quality about them. The streets become a bit more narrow, the views change, the demographics change (well, these days it’s older rich white people to slightly less rich white people), and cultural nuances change. I will have the same thing in Troy, but in a different fashion. The city is more spread out and people tend to drive rather than walk. Man, that will be scary. I will miss my independence from driving.

Vagabond Lifestyle

I am halfway through my couch surfing odyssey and honestly cannot wait for it to be over. Why am I crashing on my friends’ couches for the month of December? What I tell other people is that I did not want to leave my students hanging before winter break without a tutor. The real truth is that I was too scared to commit to actually moving, and wanted to continue my New York City life for as long as I possibly could. So here I am, sleeping on my friends’ floors because I am a big baby.

I need to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of the friends that have let me crash on their floors, chairs and beds these past weeks. I am eternally indebted to you and your kindness. I do have a confession though: I have used your toiletries and for the most part, not told you. I just can’t help myself; when I see a new shampoo, I have to try it. So, sorry for the unauthorized use of your goods! But how else can I try new products without financially committing to a new product I might hate?

This whole NYC apartment tour has taught me an important fact: my apartment was a total hole. I’m saying that in the nicest way possible. Every apartment I have seen has been better than mine in every possible way. Each apartment has had a bathroom that you can turn around in; fridges that keep food cold instead of ones that leak, stoves where all of the burners work instead of just two, kitchen sinks that do not leak, and counters that do not have peeling particle board that is covered in mold.

I always thought that all apartments were like mine. I thought I was a baller on a budget. I was dead wrong. And you know, my friends never told me. They never said, “Holley your apartment is disgusting, you might want to consider upping your living standards.” So now, I am moving to an apartment that is approximately three times the size of my old apartment where nothing is broken or moldy or disgusting. And I have a yard now. Suck it, NYC.

I do have to say though; for all its faults, I loved that apartment. That apartment is where I finished college, where I got my first serious boyfriend (who I’m now leaving New York for), where I lived next door to a man who claimed to be 104 years old and would call me “beauty, beauty” when we passed on the stairs. It was the apartment I rode out Hurricane Sandy and the resulting black out, where my fellow East Villagers lived like residents of Panem’s District 12. There’s a lot of history in that musty old clap trap and I will miss it.

An ironic end to my apartment saga is that the girl who took on the lease of the place was just informed by the management company that she has to move out by February 1; the management company wants to renovate the apartment and jack up the rent for a new tenant. What is horrible is that they never told her this when she was taking over the lease. What jerks! I will say though, that apartment really needs a serious facelift.

Moral of that story: I would have had to leave my apartment no matter if I moved to Troy or not. At least I left on my own terms. 

Amtrak Hacks

Next Friday will be the end of my weekly NYC to Albany Amtrak commute, and for this I am thankful. As much fun as it sounds, I am pretty tired of losing 2.5 hours of my life every Friday and Sunday to travel. Long distance is hard (and expensive), yo.

I know that my travel hacks are not going to waste, but I want to get them down so you can see what an Amtrak baller I am. Because that is how I roll:

Purchasing tickets:

• Join Amtrak Guest Rewards. You won't be racking up points like crazy since Acela trains do not run on this line, but eventually you will earn a free something just for entering in some extra numbers when purchasing your tickets. I’m cheap, so I’m also all about frequent anything.
• Pro tip: Guest Rewards seems to always be hosting some sort of  promotion, which give you an extra hundred points here and there. All you need to do is sign into your rewards account and click the applicable promotion, then Amtrak does the rest of the rewarding for you. Easy peasy.
• The earlier you buy your tickets the more you save. Almost all tickets are fully refundable so it doesn’t matter if you cancel your ticket later on, as going to get all your money refunded back to your card. If you happen to not cancel your ticket and miss the train, Amtrak sends you a voucher for future travel to be booked with an agent. It is slightly inconvenient, but at least you are not losing money.

Picking up tickets:

• If you have a smart phone you can do one of two things:
• Get the Amtrak app, which will display your ticket for e-collection. With the app, you are also able to check a train's status to see if it is running late which is always handy; why schlep to the train station when you don't have to?
• Pull up your ticket from your confirmation email. This option is useful if you don’t use Amtrak that often and don't want to commit to getting a free app. 

Penn Station:

• Nine times out of ten, the train to Albany will leave from track 5 or 6 E, next to the Dunkin' Donuts. Side story, there is also a Hudson News next to the track and one time I saw a woman pick up a candy bar and there was a mouse hiding behind it! She screamed and ran away and then everyone waiting for the train screamed at her for freaking out. Incredible.
• If you are taking a cab to Penn and want to avoid the LIRR / NJ Transit traffic, ask your cab driver to bring you to the Amtrak entrance on 31^st Street and 8^th Avenue. Boom, time saver.
• If you are taking the NQR to Penn, try to get on the car closest to the 32^nd Street exit, which will drop you off one avenue away from Penn. Stand at the front of the train for the downtown line and at the back of the train if you are taking the uptown line. You’ll probably save 2 minutes maximum, 2 minutes makes all the difference when you're running late.
• You can find more Penn Station hacks here, lots of which are super helpful!

Albany-Rensselaer:

• If you are running late for the train, get dropped off in front of the post office doors (even thought they look like they are locked, they are not!) and save yourself 45 seconds to catch your train on time.

On the train:

• Getting a seat to yourself is pure luck. I like to sit in the 2^nd quarter of the train car and hope that other passengers will walk past me looking for an open seat and give up at the 2/3rds mark of the train so I can keep my own seat. Again, this is not guaranteed, so find your own lucky algorithm for getting your own seat.
• If you are coming from New York and want to sit on the Hudson River side of the train, sit on the left side of the train (if you are facing the front of the train). If you are coming from Albany, sit on the right side of the train.

Good luck and come visit me!