Welcome to New York!

Well, after three days in the big city, I've finally got wireless internet up and running on the ol' laptop. True, it does only work at really random hours, and to get any reception I need to sit in the middle of the corridor, but it's still something. Anywho, welcome to my blog, which will hopefully be a fairly regular record of my activities out here for anyone who's interested. I'll try and get photos up once my camera starts co-operative, so you'll even get to see me doing moderately interesting stuff - hooked yet?

In any case, everything so far has gone reasonably smoothly. Despite all the extra security and panic with the airports, my flights went perfectly, even had window seats the whole way (and loads of airplane food which bizzarely I always enjoy) and found my luggage no problem. Once at JFK, I decided to economise a little and got the Supershuttle (like a crazy minibus packed with people) which worked out at about 1/2 to 1/3 of what the cab would have been, and luckily I was the first to get dropped off. Driving into the city was incredibly exciting, if somewhat sweaty - the humidity here is something else. Luckily, there was in fact a room waiting for me at the halls, despite threats to the contrary (and they haven't even demanded any money off me yet!) and it's a pretty decent size room, which I am about to hire a big fridge for. The only slightly odd feature is my bed, which is incredibly high for some unknown reason, I literally have to jump onto it.

For my first night in NY I was absolutely exhausted (having been up for a grand total of something like 38 hrs, my own fault) so rather than fart arse around with bedding and the like, I went and shouted at Mehreen from a rubbish payphone, flagged my first ever taxi (but only having to actually ask someone how to go about it) and went downtown to Bleeker Street. Mehreen's duplex is absolutely amazing, and we wandered round town eating pizza, looking for various bars and restaurants while my overwhelmed brain altogether shut down. Poor Mehrs - I slept like a log for 12 hrs, apparently snoring the whole time!

The last two days have been a mental blur of trying to find my way around town - mostly the area around where I live which is far south on the upper east side, and just north of the east village. Union Square and Madison Square Gardens are both just 12 minutes walk away as is Broadway, where I have already been shopping (only for bargain basement essentials of course). On Monday I spent most of the day trying to figure out where to get a phone from and sorting out my American bank account while getting hopelessly lost all over town and completely failing to find anything I actually needed - for some reason, it's really difficult to find clothes hangers here. Mostly my brain was overwhelmed by catching glimpses of the Empire State or Chrysler buildings, or by all the yellow taxis wizzing by, or by the sheer number of American people, they're all over the place! The grid network of the city and the wide streets mean that every time you cross a road, you can see literally across town, sometimes to the horizon, with huge skyscrapers on either side. The constant incredible views and perspective are amazing, but I do have to make sure not to keep stopping in the middle of the street, as I will undoubtedly be mowed down by a cab.

Today I walked to Union square, which is totally surrounded by shops, not least of all a few wholesale food shops - supermarkets here seem to sell absolutely everything apart from food which is pretty annoying. Everything seems to be some kind of snack in a packet, and it was a relief to find somewhere that actually sells fruit and salad at an almost affordable price, as food also seems to be incredibly expensive here. Unlike travel - I paid the equivalent of about £35 for a monthly subway pass, which should be very useful if I ever figure out how the subways work. I also went into college today, which is about an hours walk from the halls, but only about 15 mins on the subway (plus a 10 minute walk at one end), which was pretty daunting - Hunter has over 20,000 students, all of whom seemed to be attempting to get their ID cards at the same time as me. After I escaped the admin monster, I walked the three blocks over the Central Park, which has definitely been the highlight so far. I'm still pretty overwhelmed by the place, it's so huge and such an amazing place to be (despite being packed with insane runners), and this evening I watched the sun go down while a couple of guys were playing jazz on saxophone and double base on one side, and on the other a couple were practicing some amazing freestyle dance moves. There was some free opera on tonight, but by that point I was totally knackered and had to head back, but hopefully I'll catch it later in the week - Mehreen wants to go and watch some Shakespeare there too, which sounds like heaven.

Since then I've been home and had a salad dinner, and made my first potential friend as I sat in the corridor trying to get reception - Emily, who within five minutes had invited me to go and see Martha Wainwright and Joanna Newsom on Thursday night in Brooklyn, so unbelievably cool. I'm very excited - I've finally met someone, and they actually seem to have some damn good taste. We may even be going to the Guggenheim tomorrow to catch an exhibition. Well, for now I need to have a shower - this city makes you very mucky very fast, especially as it hasn't cooled down in some time now, although the humidity is just about bearable - and then get some sleep. Feeling generally rather euphoric and light headed, although it might be the really dodgy tasting pretzel I had in Central Park earlier...