Things I notice after living and working for around two weeks in New York:
- On the street and public transportation, English was not the major language. Almost everybody was talking with their own language here; Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Polish, Yiddish, Tagalog, Indonesian, Malay, French and others are just a fraction of multi cultural reality in New York.
- Everybody was jaywalking. I mean EVERYBODY. If you were not jaywalking than you better step aside because New Yorker would push you anyway.
- iPod and/or iPhone was ubiquitous, in the subway, bus and even the street. Most New Yorker were listening to song, watching videos, playing games or even browsing the Internet from their iPod/iPhone.
- The public transportation (Subway and Bus) was superb. As a public transportation lover, I finally found my heaven. It’s not as clean and time-concerned like Germany but still, it’s so reliable and it’s 24 hours. Who could complain about that?
- Most New Yorker are courteous. Maybe you heard differently but from my own experience, they were quite nice to each other.
- Food were abundant. Eating out was not a big deal, you could had from $1 hotdog to $20 pizza or even $100 cuisine. Halal food was not a problem here, they were everywhere.
- New York was very dynamic in every sense. The people were diverse, their movement were just amazing to watch and their behavior were varied.
- New York also full of strange people. Almost every time I was using subway, I encountered strange people. There was a lady who keep on running inside the subway muttered strange thing like she’s being hunted down. Another lady was reading a newspaper and for every 3 minutes look at herself into her reflection in the subway’s window and talking in strange language. Those two were just a small sample of strange people I’d encountered and I bet there would be more.
- All and all, New York was a fun place to live. Yes, it was very busy and very crowded but it also so dynamic and diverse it made me feel very comfortable and falling in love with the city instantly.
Living in New York was an adventure. I did not even seen half of the city, maybe only 20% of it, so I might be wrong about my feeling for this city. But so far, it’s been a very good experience and it made me feel so much alive absorbing the vibe of this great city.
I’ll write more about this city and once I got my paycheck, I would buy a new camera so I could share the visual of New York. So until then, keep on reading because there will be more stories to share.