I was talking to a friend last week who made me realize that our portrayal of New York (and life in New York) is far from accurate. We normally highlight the fun and exciting parts, but leave out the day-to-day details. To provide a more realistic picture, we took a camera with us today to document an average day. Lest you think it's a good idea to pick up your life and move to this city, consider yourself warned. Here's what it's
really like.
In the morning, Bryan makes us lunch on our stove/counter.
At the same time, we have the TV turned on to Good Morning America on ABC - the one and only network channel that we receive via our high-tech antenna.
Out the door. Time for another glamorous day as a New Yorker!
The morning greets us with a shower of nasty condensation drips from the window air conditioners above.
Next, we view a garbage garden beneath this tree.
Bryan picks up his free newspaper near the gum splattered sidewalk.
Another scenic view on our way to the subway.
We made it to the station. The madness ensues.
We wait for the train in the sweltering station. Bryan saw on the news one morning when it was 80 degrees outside, it was 100 degrees in the subway station. Nice.
Finally.
By all accounts, the train was pretty spacious this morning. Normally you have to squeeze in and hope the doors (or the people) don't crush you. If and when you get on the train, the next big challenge is finding a seat. I feel like I have a pretty good strategy. I can't reveal it publicly, but if you watch the progression of photos, you'll see it worked this morning.
There it is - the coveted open seat!
Yea!
Once we're out of the subway, we take a specific route to work based on the least amount of street garbage. On a scale of 1 to Urban Landfill, we give it a 5. I would even go so far as to say I like some of the blocks we walk past. Here's an example.
Traffic jam!
After all of that, is it any surprise that this is the first thing we do when we walk in the door at work?
Lunch is usually pretty pleasant. There's a nice park across the street from our work building.
Work is over and we're headed back to the subway. We took the garbage-infested route to give you an idea of the norm.
This garbage is nicely contained by the water, but when there's no standing water in the streets and it's windy, it flies up in your face. Honestly, there's nothing more disgusting.
Classic. There was a garbage can no further than 15 steps away.
And we're back on the subway, headed home.
After a long day, we came back to this scene in front of our apartment. Bryan was so tired he laid down on the mattress, took a nap, and then brought the bedbugs into our apartment. Home Sweet Home.
We normally try to get home by 7:00 so that we can watch Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune with dinner. After dinner, our plans typically diverge into one of three paths.
1. Since there's not a Target nearby, we may have to go to CVS for some household items. First things first, the coupon station!
2. We may go grocery shopping. The store we normally walk to is 1 mile away (round trip), but at our neighborhood grocery store, we can get two items for $15.
Almost $7 for Cheerios. Seriously.
And $8 for 1.5 quarts of ice cream.
3. We may do laundry in the dank basement of our building. So sanitary!
This concludes our photo tour of an average day. You're lucky you aren't able to smell the city.
