Recovering from my illness, I was able by the end of this past week to venture out into the city. I started my job, took the subway, and saw at least some of the East Side.
Let me preface this by saying that I didn't grow up in a city. Upstate New York, even the suburbs near Albany where I live, does not come close to counting as a city on the scale of New York. And while I did venture down to this island on numerous shopping and sightseeing occasions, I stayed confined mostly to Fifth Avenue and the like. However, I did spend all of last semester in a real city – Washington, D.C., so I don't consider myself a total country bumpkin.
That being said, I find that New York in winter is more attractive from my window than from the street. The subways, the dirty streets, everyone bundled up and rushing to get inside - this doesn't offer a new resident the finer glimpses of Manhattan. From my window when I was sick, all I saw was the view – the glittering lights, the Statue of Liberty, everything from a distance. Up close, however, some of that shine wears off.
The subway was a bit of a shock. In Washington, I loved taking the metro every morning. It was crowded, yet perfectly clean. The stations were clean, well lit, and easily marked. No one yelled, moaned, or complained. It didn't smell, and everyone knew that on the escalators, you stayed to the right if you wanted to stand and to the left if you wanted to walk. The NYC subway, however, is less clean and more complicated. Numbers, letters…who dreamed of this thing? And the escalators – one big traffic jam. In short, it's a mess and an awful way to start and end a day.
On a more positive note, I love my internship. I have interesting work, my own office, voicemail, supplies. I had interesting work last semester, but White House interns don't get such perquisites.
And a final note of caution, if any of you happen to be looking for 466 Lexington, the home of Hill and Knowlton Public Relations, just know that number on the building says 247 Park Avenue. Why? Who knows? This never would have happened in D.C.
