“I love the city in an emotional, irrational way, like loving your mother or your father even though they’re a drunk or a thief” – Woody Allen

I know, I haven’t written a blog post in two months… buuuut here I am! I’ve just been living my best life – I had Rosski come to visit and we went to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for Christmas. I would recommend that everyone goes to Lanc – it’s a crazy town, it’s so so so much fun. My mum and my sister, Hannah were here to visit me too! So I’ve been tour guiding around New York – always a pleasure! And catching up with some of my favourite people. But mostly, I’ve been working like my life depends on it. However, with all of the visitors, I’ve just been falling harder and faster for this city.

So with that in mind, on to the blog! Today marks my 5 month anniversary in this deliriously, demented city. I have never felt so happy. I love my friends, my apartment, West Harlem, my job(s) and everything that I came here wishing for feels like it’s come true.

Last night, I had a major New York City moment when on a Tuesday, my housemate turned around to me and asked me if I’d like to go to a party with her that evening – I’m not going to lie, I was wrecked  and I really did not feel up for it, but I thought to myself – say yes! It’s New York! Why else are you here?

So, I came home from work, got ready (when all I wanted to do was put on my pajamas!) and headed out with her. We arrived at this venue and it was a rooftop bar called Mr. Purple in Hotel Indigo (definitely somewhere I’ll be going back during the summer – the views are incredible and there’s a pool!) and it was a New York Fashion Week kick off party – the cocktails were free and flowing and the crowd was like something you’d see in Sex in the City. I felt wildly out of place but we made the most of it and loved every minute! Afterwards, we went to King in the West Village for cocktails and hung out! It was so fun and I am so glad that even though I wanted to say no, that I did say yes and had the most fun I’ve ever had on a Tuesday evening after work!

I bought two books in The MET Gift Shop when I went last month. One of them is Poems of New York and the other is New York in Quotations (obsessive, I know) but last night made me think of one quote in particular:

“It seemed almost intolerably shining, secure and well-dressed, as though it was continually going to gay parties while London had to stay home and do the housework.” – Noel Coward

The other quote I wanted to share in this post – with the state of the Federal Government at the moment and all of the uncertainty that is in this country is this:

“New York is a different country. Maybe it ought to have a separate government. Everybody thinks differently, acts differently. They just don’t know what the hell the rest of the United States is.” – Henry Ford (1863 – 1947)

Can you imagine that this quote was said some time before 1947 and it very genuinely could not be more relevant than it is today. I couldn’t agree more – the news of the new President is everywhere and it’s inescapable, which is annoying because I’d love to ignore that it’s happening every now and again! But I (and Henry Ford!) propose a NYC government with it’s very own President and I would like to suggest a potential nomination – Michelle Obama!

Anyway, to sum this catch-up-blog-post up, I’ve learnt so many lessons in the last 5 months – one of which is to always say yes to going new places and trying new things, who knows, you might end up an exclusive NYFW party!

There are too many other lessons to list but the most important one I’ve learnt (and I knew it already but it’s incredible how much it pays off in this city) is to smile at people and be kind.

Rosski and I wanted to go to Ellen’s Stardust Diner in Times Square while she was here. There was a 45 minute queue to get in, but we didn’t complain, we bought some M&M’s to keep us going and joined the end of the queue. When the hostess came along to ask us how many people were in our party, we told her two with big smiles and told her not to worry – we’d be grand waiting because we had our M&M’s. She laughed at our two smiley heads and carried on. Bear in mind, we were the second to last people in the queue. Lo and behold, 5 minutes later, she walked down to the end of the line and picked us out and told us she had a seat for the two of us! I asked her if she’d like the M&M’s and she happily took them and we walked past the entire queue to take our seats in basically heaven on earth – if you ever come to NY, make sure you don’t miss Ellen’s Stardust. It’s incredibly fun. The servers all sing Broadway musical songs while serving. Worth a 45 minute queue any day! You may have seen it on my snap story (IFtravels) considering I went three times in one month – I love it so much!

But yeah, that’s only one example of how people appreciate a smile and a kind face so much and it can brighten up someone’s day who has only been greeted with sour faces all day – so try you’re best to be positive and nice to people as much as possible.

I’ll leave it there – I was finally feeling inspired to write a blog post so I thought I’d go for it – not all that themed or travel related but so is life! For more regular updates on my little life – there’s always Instagram and Snapchat (IFtravels)!

Winging it,

R x