So, we made it. In the dead of what would become the worst NYC winter in 100 years. But when we first arrived, not even that was able to deter our excitement. Luckily, since we moved so close to Christmas, David was able to have a few days off and we got to go exploring, along with alllllll of the tourists. We just walked around a lot and got a sense of where things were. We practiced our subway skills and honed our knowledge of the City. We sightsaw and learned that when you have to use the bathroom, you just stop into any bar or restaurant and get a drink. They’ll gladly let you use the bathroom if you pay them for something! 🙂

Some of our sight seeing from that first week or three:

Upper West Side brownstones. Soooo pretty. Almost made me want to live up there. Almost.

David modeling his new Barbour jacket and carrying my new Hunter boots that we got at Harry’s Shoes on the UWS.  I thanked God for many times for those boots in the months following this picture. (Harry’s has been an UWS institution since 1931, but we had no idea until much later that it was actually a famous shoe store.)

We were out exploring one day and stopped into Boqueria for some tapas, and thus began my new obsession with shishito peppers and white sangria. Holy yum. We might have gone back 3 times before we moved out of the City. I can’t rightly say. 

Rainy Christmas Eve at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. We had to document with a selfie, of course!

30 Rock! The NBC Studios are right near Rockefeller Center. I was waving to Jimmy Fallon inside the building as we walked past. I LOVE him, so I hope we get to go back here one day to see his show in person! 

On Christmas Day, we went up to Bryant Park to see the ice skating rink and try the famous and super-delicious apple cider there. This was the first Christmas I had ever spent away from my family, and we wanted to do something to get out of the house, but also something that would be a fun memory for us on our first Christmas in NYC.

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

The lions guarding the entrance to the NYC Public Library near Bryant Park. I loved their wreath necklaces. I also loved that we had seen very similar lions at the Boston Public Library when we were there in February 2014. 

View of the festive Empire State Building from the corner of Madison Square Park, where the dog park was that we took Nelly to every day. 

 

Grand Central Station. It’s more enormous and more gorgeous than you can capture in a crappy phone pic. 

We ate lunch downstairs at Grand Central (we were trying to go to the Oyster Bar that’s there, but it was closed. Sad face.) and I was amazed by the architecture that is everywhere in the building. I am sure that the thousands of people that move through here every day overlook it, but it sure is beautiful. It reminded me a lot of The Biltmore in Asheville, which is my most favorite place on earth.

Rapper Jay Z’s night club, The 40/40 Club, (he is only part owner, and may not even be a part of it anymore…) was right by Madison Square Park. 

   

Flatiron selfie! Such a cool feat of architecture. Gotta utilize every inch of available ground you’ve got in this city! Also, that cute hat that I bought when we still lived in Texas was NOT WARM. I think I wore it twice before I upgraded to a better one (that didn’t have holes in it – DUH, Katy.)

 

(Don’t know the lady in the foreground. Just FYI.) Flatiron from the side on a cloudy December day. 

In our neighborhood was Mario Batali’s restaurant and market called Eataly. We were overwhelmed with the beauty of all of the offerings in the market, and mostly underwhelmed with the food in the restaurant. 

 

I love this picture because I think it’s so cool that businesses, even the “big box” stores, will just buy an entire building when they need space in the City, and make it into a store. This is The Home Depot on 23rd Street. 

   

This was taken the night after two NYPD officers were shot and killed. They changed the Empire State colors to red, white and blue to show their support after the loss of the two policemen. 

   

Legit Mexican tacos in Chelsea Market, across the street from David’s office. We have been back twice now, and they really are the best tacos we have found in the City. And you have to have a Mexican Coke with them. It’s a rule.

Because I felt like this post needed one more ESB pic. Hereyagoyourewelcome.

  

Walking Nelly in Madison Square Park. There were literally hundreds of squirrels in this one-square-block park, so she LOVED going over there during the day and stalking them. It’s pretty crazy that this beautiful park is smack dab in the middle of the City. And we were walking our dog there. Still so weird. 

Our anti-social dog at the dog park in MSP. She’s such a brat – she hated going there and would only sometimes play with other dogs. 

More park walking. 

The first snow we had after we got there. This view is looking down on 6th Avenue from our apartment window. We were so excited for it at this point. If you asked me in February what I thought of snow, I would have given you many choice words.

So, we learned how to live in the City. We learned that it wasn’t so bad. That people weren’t as mean or rude or scary as we thought, and that you learn very quickly to identify people that might be any of these things, and how to avoid them. That it’s kind of nice to go grocery shopping a couple of times a week, and to only be able to buy as much as you can carry home. That walking everywhere is JUST WHAT YOU DO. And that it’s not bad, actually. That you don’t really need all of those kitchen utensils that you have in your drawers. You can survive with a serving spoon, a ladle, a whisk, a spatula and measuring spoons. (It was like camping, almost. Except in a 30+ floor high rise apartment building with heat and running water.) We learned that sirens echo REALLY LOUDLY in the City – even 17 stories up, it was like they were right outside out window, and that 90% of the emergency vehicles in NYC have broken sirens. We discovered that our little dog was going to be ok, after all. She learned to potty on the concrete and kind of even enjoyed looking for “treasures” on the ground when she went out (aka ANYTHING that might be just a little bit edible.). I learned that Gilmore Girls is one of the best-written shows ever to be on TV, as I binge watched all of the episodes from all 7 seasons all day every day. (I also discovered how AWFUL daytime TV is.) We learned how important having in-building laundry is, after a late night out and coming home to a pee-soaked bed. (Nelly was not happy with us for leaving her. And deservedly so.) We learned that the City has a zillion sights and sounds and smells to offer and that while they are all awesome, we learned that we just weren’t cut out for it.

We only had 60 days in our corporate apartment, so we knew we needed to get busy finding a place to live. Google matched us with a Broker to help us look, but due to his schedule and a family emergency of his, he was really not available to go look with us when we had time to go. I didn’t feel comfortable going out with the Broker while David was at work, because I wanted him to have a say in where we ended up, AND I knew that places go fast when they are good, so I didn’t want to waste time having to go back a 2nd time for him to see a place I liked. So, David began looking at listings online and found a couple of places on the Upper West Side and in Brooklyn for us to go see. In the end, we just decided to ditch the Broker, because we hated to pay him (all Broker’s fees are astronomical – like 10-15% of your total yearly rent, which could be over $5,000!) for work he didn’t really do. We visited a neighborhood in Brooklyn one afternoon when we began our searching that we had heard would probably be a good fit for us.  It was definitely different than what we were used to in Texas, but we both immediately noticed how much slower the pace was on this side of the river. People weren’t in quite as big of a hurry to get places. They stopped the “rush” of the City as soon as they hit Brooklyn. There were lots of dogs and lots of strollers (we even saw one restaurant that had a bar out front where you could lock up your stroller instead of your bike.). There were parks and trees and very few sirens. It felt safe, which was really important to both of us. We ended up going to an Open House at a mid-rise condo building and really loved the apartment we saw. It was “large” by NYC standards at 762 sq ft, had lots of light, a great view of a park and a school, and a great layout (meaning that the bathroom was not right next to the kitchen or living room). After talking about it for .6 seconds, we decided that we needed to go ahead and try to get it locked down. Not knowing how many other people had come to the Open House made us a bit nervous, but we didn’t want to lose out on this great place in this great neighborhood. We immediately called the Broker who was showing the apartment and got the paperwork going.  SUCH RELIEF when she called and told us the place was ours! What a weight off our shoulders that was. It was honestly one of my biggest stressors about moving up here, but I should have known it would all turn out ok (because it always does!). We moved to Brooklyn on January 17th and have done a lot of exploring since then, and we feel like this is our “home” more every day. Everything we need (Whole Foods, a super nice veterinarian, doctor’s offices, a zillion restaurants, bars and coffee shops, parks, dry cleaners, pharmacy) is within a few block’s walk from us. I couldn’t have thought up a more ideal neighborhood for us (God thing #468), but I should have known we would find our “perfect” place in this big city.

The view from our balcony on the day we moved in. Ahhhhh! Room to breathe! Trees and grass! Perfection.