New York culture shock

It's taken me longer to re-acclimate to New York than I expected. I hadn't been gone that long. When I arrived at the airport, I splurged and took a taxi home, avoiding the subway. For the next week I walked when I left the apartment. The city looked different. Restaurants had closed and opened. In Astor Place they had opened a Beard Papa and a Cold Stone Creamery. A building with a footprint reminiscent of a jelly bean had been erected in the old parking lot. Canteen had become a fish restaurant. I had only been gone three and a half weeks.

It wasn't until I took my first subway ride that I began to feel myself return to the city. It was as if the people around me suddenly became real. To that point I felt I had returned to a city alien to me, as if the people who had been living here had left and been replaced by others who lived in the fictionalized New York of T.V. and movies.

I had been back for a week. Posted by eku at September 28, 2004 1:27 AM