The Idiot’s Guide To NYC
So titled not because the target audience is clueless about the subject matter, but because the author is. Because so far I have been here for a little over a week, but it is in my nature to have an opinion regardless. So please find below my observations so far, though they may vary vastly in terms of accuracy and relevance.
New York is different to anywhere in Europe. Ok, duh, of course it is. But this sort of fact still doesn’t really hit home at first, people still speak English, they have a culture we at least recognise and understand if not share. We’ve been seeing it on television our whole lives for a start. Nonetheless, things are distinctly different.
First off, men are polite to the point of inefficiency. I was standing in the back of a lift yesterday, and there were 5 guys in said conveyance, all of whom were closer to the door than I was. When the door opened, instead of exiting, they practically formed a tunnel so that I could leave before them. I was slightly taken aback by this, and then realised that even in the little time I have been here men have been allowing me to pass first on the street, opening doors for me, and even on one occasion which shocked me, offering me a seat on the subway.
The significance of the subway gesture may be lost on anyone who has not lived in London. On the tube, no-one gives up a seat. A hale and hearty young man will retain his seat, even if an 8-month gone pregnant woman is struggling to stay on her feet right beside him. In the entire time I was in London, someone offered me a seat once. I was horrified, because I assumed they thought I looked pregnant.
Of course there are the traditional American oddities, like tipping everyone for everything, saying sidewalk and trashcan instead of footpath and bin, remembering that nothing includes sales tax, and receiving a metric ton of food when you think you have ordered a snack. There are also specific New York oddities, like making sure you walk down the right entrance to the subway, not pointing and laughing at all the small dogs wearing coats, and the wonderful phenomenon of people yelling vaguely well-intentioned observations at you in the street. (the other day when it rained someone shouted “Hey lady, you getting’ wet there, you need a umbrella! That’s right girl, you get yo’self a umbrella”. Apparently he thought I wouldn’t have known how to deal with the situation if he had not informed me).
I have seen pizza for a dollar, and food sold by weight at $10/lb. I have had to fill in a form to buy a bagel with cream cheese across the street from our office. Despite my intention of brevity this entry is becoming ridiculously long-winded, so I will attempt to summarise what I learned this week:
- Subway entrances are frequently direction dependant. If you walk down the wrong one, you may find yourself on a train to Queens instead of Brooklyn
- New York real estate agents will carve out a hole in a building wall, call it a junior studio, and charge you a thousand dollars a month to sleep in it.
- Estate agents do not charge landlords a finders fee for tenants, they charge the tenant, so for a $2000 a month apartment, the fee to move in is usually in the region of $3500.
- While rent is through the roof, everything else is extremely cheap, even if you are earning dollars.
- The standard NYC pavement is about 15 feet wide, and so ideal for skateboarding
- The fact that the sign says you are allowed to cross the street does not mean that cars will not drive out in front of you if they are making a right turn.
- Times Square is quite frankly hideous
- Contrary to my previously held belief, it is in fact possible to be lost in Manhattan
- If anything comes with cheese, it is “American cheese”, ie. processed slices of orange goo.
- You can open a bank account with id, and a letter from your employer, but you cannot immediately get paid into that account, presumably in case you for some reason decided to invent an account and send your money into limbo. They need to prove it exists by having you cash a cheque into it first. Or something. Not entirely clear on this yet.
- You need a social security number for _everything_ and it takes up to 12 weeks to obtain one.
- Approximately 80% of US online booking/payment systems do not accept foreign credit cards.
- You even tip barmen here. Yes, just for opening a bottle.
I think I will have to stop now, as this has already become ludicrously long. I have decided to distil my apartment related rant into a separate entry, lest this one become so lengthy it spontaneously combusts.
At the risk of sounding self-contradictory, I do in fact love it here. It’s different, it’s fascinating, and I am looking forward to getting settled in and enjoying the hell out of it. It does make the title of this blog somewhat inappropriate, but then I have never really been a stickler for appropriate titles.
Odd as it might sound, so far New York has been pretty relaxing.