Newly arrived in New York

blog 2:

day four.

i can't believe it's day four already and i still feel that i haven't woken up properly yet. i seem to be wandering around in a daze, not quite believing that i'm here. the emotional machinations of moving to another country are too tedious to go into, so i'll spare you that. suffice to say that it feels surreal.

sunday. today my good friend jen and her new hubby josh arrived over to my apartment first thing this morning (after i woke from an enviable dream about brian o'driscoll - ok, i won't bore you..) and we walked a block to the waters edge from where there are spectacular views of lower manhattan. the whole area looks like the set out of 'gangs of new york'; all disused industrial buildings, barren landscape, old empty streets and cobbled roads. most of the buildings are pre-war and the only signs of 'life' were old renovated 3-storey brownstone houses, a café and the odd artists' studio (complete with cobblers' paraphernalia and live kitten in the shop front window) and random items littering the 'side-walk'; a foot-high virgin mary statue among weeds, a large breeze block with a printer perched on it and near a metal-processing factory, rusted metal life-sized horses mascarading as pieces of art. apparently in brooklyn, the more disparate the items are to each other, the more credible your association to 'cool'. i remember a bar in williamsburg a few years ago with neon fairy lights decorating the inside of the shop-front window, along with the torso and head of a plastic baby doll perched upright, wearing a ra-ra skirt and a WWII tin hat. working out what that was trying to say is missing the point, i presume. we walked about a mile to a super-size-me sized supermarket that was like a good food deli of mammoth proportions. the food on offer is just incredible. this has to be one of the reasons many people come here. inside this 4,000 square ft ground floor shop there was a fish market, many deli counters selling salads of all kinds, towers of round blocks of parmesan cheeses the size of car tyres gently sweating in the heat and no end of vegetables and fruit stacked almost vertically in boxes with the open side face front. a box of kiwis had one kiwi missing from near the bottom, taken no doubt to test the jenga effects of the stack. how there aren't more cartoon moments of spilled fruit mushed under trolley wheels, i don't know. fresh thai soup, crabmeat chowder, sea vegetables, sushi, noodle salad, fresh organic undiluted melon juice, you name it.. new york has it. in spades. outside the supermarket there was a cafe overlooking the water and josh, as a city planner, pointed out the old routes for barges and boats coming in and out of the lower three boroughs. the statue of liberty stood in plain view and i promised myself i'd go to staten island soon for a day and walk around the museums and see the horror of how the irish got here in days past. there was also a water taxi that will take you to manhattan for $6, should the notion take you. and all day the sun shone like it was june. after we dropped off the groceries jen and i took the subway to broadway to some 'sample sale' where, i kid you not, gorgeous designer clothes were being sold on the final day of the sale for $5 a piece. we looked like we'd mugged some old ladies from a launderette when we were done. later we met old college friends of jen and josh's for burritos in park slope, brooklyn, where the guacamole man prepared two large fresh bowls of the stuff beside our table from scratch in a large herb grinder.. avacados, green chili, onion, tomato.. one bowl quite hot, the other inedible, and presented them to us with five dried banana slices in each for scooping it onto plates to eat with tortilla chips. clean, fresh food. can't beat it.

mind you, not everything is as clear as it might be; the beer that i bought on the way back home lists the calories, carbohydrates, protein and grams of fat on the can, but no alcohol content. (i presume if it was alcohol-free it would've said.) drinkers of coors light seemingly appear more concerned with their body fat index than with their alcoholism.

for those interested in padraig's welfare, he's settling in great. he doesn't lie around, he luxuriates himself on the dark hard wood floors looking pleased with himself, and every night he has his mad half hour where he flails himself off furniture and runs around like a mad thing, leaping in the air at imaginary flies. then he'll stop dead in his tracks, check left and right and then dart off, looking like he's acting in a bourne identity sequel. he seems to have taken to new york living quite well. and the flat is big enough for him to get lost for hours on end, enjoying, as he does, me wandering around calling his name and having to crawl under furniture to find him. his litter tray is like a small house and i think i've finally cracked why he was reluctant to use such an inferior model back home. four days in and, so far, no little presents hanging around behind the front door, ready to spread their glory when you come in at night. padraig, for the record, is not my "beau" - thanks kieron - but my year old persian cat. he's too cute. pics of him on facebook.

last night sean o'driscoll came over and we drank beer and played old frames albums and felt like students again. he's doing great; career going well, the new owner of an apartment in park slope (15 mins away), great girlfriend.. all good. but i played him the michael marrinan cd (sean's from clare) and he spoke reminiscently of dublin, with all the pangs of a long-term emigrant. but the truth is dublin has changed from being the creative hub it was 10 years ago. the property boom and the subsequent plateau, the ambition for wealth, the expansion of businesses and the current mild economic uneasiness have all left dublin in a loop that's going to take some time before it comes round to being dynamic again. dublin is a fantastic city, no doubt about it, but for now, it seems small to me and there are benefits to going away in what i see as its current creative lull. don't get me wrong, if i'd had the tenacity to face down the al qaeda fear in post-9/11 i would've moved here in october 2001 like i'd planned, but growing up in a war zone (belfast) makes that environment passé. i'm glad i didn't then, and i'm glad i did now.

from where i'm sitting, i can see the lower manhattan skyline in full view (sans twin towers). this flat really is amazing. seriously, anyone wanting to visit - i recommend you arrive in november if you can. although, that's not to deter those who've said that they'll come over for new year.. but this apartment, not only has it got two main sources of light back and front of the building (rare for new york), but the sofa turns into a double bed with a proper mattress and the roof views are lovely. just letting you know. and God knows where i'll be in january.

the light in the morning in my room is the kind of light you'd expect in the tropics; glaring and hot. i took the curtains off the windows to maximise the effect. waking up in the morning, two large windows throw in a glare of deep blue sky, the kind of which you'd see in australia or africa, and it does your heart good. you know you're far from home, but here's the irony; though it's hot and balmy and the environment is very different, it actually feels like home. i felt it when i first arrived, but i put it down to suppressed excitement (when i took the cab from JFK, it felt like i'd been on holidays and had just arrived home). in the intervening days i've not ventured out much, maybe fearing that the thrill of being here might be overwhelming (i was overwhelmed getting everything organised in the last few weeks and that was an endurance test that i'm recovering from), but instead felt content to sit at home, cleaning and tidying, making the place my own, or 'nesting' as mum would put it.

i'm reading 'brendan behan's new york' at the moment and the man has a take on city living that is priceless ("A city is a place where you are least likely to get a bite from a wild sheep"), but he also says: "New York is easily recognizable as the greatest city in the world, view it any way and every way - back, belly and sides. ...We don't come to a city to be alone, and the test of a city is the ease with which you can see and talk to other people...and I'd say that New York is the friendliest city I know. I knew an old Irishman who went there when he was 75 and ill, and like a Lourdes of light, New York cured him and he lived happily for years afterwards, a healthy and happy old man. He painted my wife's grandmother and his name was Jack Yeats, the father of William Butleter Yeats, the great poet of Ireland and the world" (sic).

i hope you're all well and don't take these missives as anything other than an update on what's going on.. they're no replacement for personal emails and i hope to stay in touch properly. as before, don't feel obliged to read these, or read them to the end.. life's short. starting work on tuesday, so i'll be busy with that for the next few days, and a 'welcome to the states' party happening on friday, apparently.. i'll be in touch at some stage.

much love,
suzanne
xxx