Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Travel Tuesday: New York City and why I now go there


A few blocks up from my daughter's workplace

When I took a break from writing this blog in 2010, our daughters were both still ensconced in Aveyron. The eldest had started university right in Rodez, and the youngest was in the equivalent of her junior year of high school.

Through a breathtaking chain of events, after just one year of college, that youngest daughter has ended up living and working in Manhattan. She is well into her third year there, and there seems to be no turning back.

She's not in Kansas anymore.

Manhattan. Who would've thunk it? I am a Pacific Northwest gal with no New York-ish connections; I had never even set foot in New York City until a year and a half ago, when I first landed at JFK with something other than a layover in mind. 

A starkly impersonal address with a lot of "5s" in it punched into my cell phone. 

A humid yellow taxi with a grimy TV screen running the same commercials over and over. 

A "turnpike," whatever that is -- I still couldn't give you a precise definition.

I realized, arriving in New York City for the first time,  that I was really more of a foreigner there than in Paris.

Yet it so quickly felt like home.


9 comments:

wcs said...

LOL! A turnpike is a toll road, "turnpike" being an old way of saying turnstile, or toll gate. On the US west coast, land of freeways, the concept is unfamiliar.

Sarah said...

Wow, that's cool. Lucky girl!

Doesn't sound like a story that could happen in Paris where you need diplomas coming out of your years before you can set foot through the door.

Betty Carlson said...

True, but I must give French business schools some credit because in her first year, she was required to do internships. She chose to do them in NYC and got her job offer thanks to the internships. I don't think it would have been even possible without this way of getting her foot in the door.

Multifarious meanderings said...

It's a long way away... I've only just got used to my firstborn having left home, and I get the easy deal because he's only an hour away by car!
I spent one weekend in New York with PF. We walked our little feet off. My daughter, aka "Little My", has made her father promise that he will take her there for her eighteenth birthday - and I think that he will. Another six years to save up.... :-D

Betty Carlson said...

MM -- I figured that one of my daughters would end up in the USA, but I had always imagined it would be on the West Coast, Washington State specifically! I guess NYC represents a compromise distance-wise. The only problem is I can't be in the Northwest and NYC at the same time!

Betty Carlson said...

Thank you for your explanation wcs. I did know it was a road, lol! I could have looked up the precise definition but it's more fun to get it from a native.

Sarah said...

I meant 'ears' not 'years' natch. :)

Betty Carlson said...

Didn't even notice! The power of context...

Sara Louise said...

How wonderful! I think everyone should get to live in NYC at least for a little while, there is so much to do and see with all of the different cultures swirling about. It's my favorite place in the whole world and I would move there in a heartbeat if I could :)