NICOLA: Hang on New Yorkers, before you start giving me a hard time about the title of this blog let me start this off by saying unequivocally - we love New York. Really love it. Yes, it’s probably the best city in the world. The music, the art, the culture, the food is outstanding. Everytime we come here we feel inspired by the incredible energy of the city and the range of diverse talent that inhabits the place squeezed together cheek by jowl in vertical villages. And it truly is the city that never sleeps, whatever you want anytime night or day you can get it.
Over the last few months not only have we greedily taken in all it has to offer but as a centre of excellence we've also taken the opportunity to do some more learning. Mikey is now a qualified piano tuner and I am proficient in making organic soaps/candles and can spin a few jams as a DJ. Finally we have really good friends here and love the people in our artsy apartment building.
New York is a cool and groovy place.
So why are we happy to go? I guess you might think it was the brutal winter of polar vorticies and other newly name arctic blasts that slammed the city this winter. But no, even that New York simply shrugs off as an annoying irrelevance (something London has not yet learned to do). It's simply that too much of a good thing can be...well just too much!
New York then is like rich dark chocolate. A few exquisite pieces savoured are much more satisfying than wolfing down the whole bar and feeling sick. The intensity and vibrancy of the city is something that can only be appreciated in short bursts. As humans we readily adapt to our surroundings and before too long can be blase about what surrounds us, often resulting in increasing failure to realise what it was that we liked about something in the first place. This is all the more apparent in New York. When we first arrived after 2 years of meandering around the USA we were like little kids, filled with awe and wonder. By the time 5 months had passed we were starting to become cynical and critical.
Time then to go. So we'll be excited again when we come back.