Northern hospitality?

Sometimes (okay, most of the time) I miss the south. New York is just an entirely different pace. Granted, I am learning to appreciate this entirely different place, but it is not Arkansas — that's for sure. I feel like things were comfortable in Arkansas. Here people get irritated if you hesitate before exiting the subway gates or if you don't walk at a speed that implies you're already 10 minutes late to where you're going (I guess that would be 10 minutes late in Booneville ... because here it's just normal).

Earlier this week, I was trying to climb on a train during "rush hour" for my morning commute, and got pushed into the woman in front of me. I was ready to apologize to her (mind you for something I had no control over) when she turned around with an angry look and said "Could you not??" Sometimes I worry this irritation is could be contagious and will begin to rub off on me.

Then there's the friendliness, or lack thereof here. That's not to say that I haven't met friendly people — because I absolutely have. In fact, I want to say that I am pleasantly surprised with the friendliness of some of the people I've met. But New York lacks the overall friendly charm of the southern part of our country. People don't honk and wave. Smiles as a result of eye contact with a stranger are seldom. In fact, most people do whatever they can to avoid eye contact. This is hard for me, because I'm so used to living in a small town where either I know the person or I just might as well be polite and friendly and smile and say hi.

Reflecting on these facts of life as they seem, I can't help but think the two are related, maybe in a never-ending circle. That is to say, if people were friendlier, maybe they wouldn't be in such a rush or so irritated with the person standing in front of them (or in my case, behind them); and if they weren't in such a rush, perhaps they would have more time to be friendly.

On a lighter, entirely unrelated note, I finally bought a bed Thursday evening and had my first glorious night of sleep on it. And tonight I got some lovely coverings for it that I should be receiving by early next week at the latest. Next? A dresser, I hope.

Just some of the amazing things I've seen

I know I should probably write something about how my actual life here is going, but in the interest of time (and the fact that I don't know if I'm in the mood to write something of any sort of length), I thought I would share some of the unusual things I've seen over my first two weeks of living in New York.

This first is a picture I took in Target in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen: an escalator for carts!


This one is from my ride home on the subway today. I didn't even notice it at first, but after a stop or two I looked over and noticed that a man sitting not too far away from me had the most enormous, what was I'm guessing a, stand-up bass. I just can't imagine lugging it on and off the trains, so I had to take a picture.


And lastly, because I was shocked to see how large the monitor is to my beautiful Mac at work: