Big big plans...

Writing this blog this year has been a lot of fun, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.  It has been a cathartic and reflective process, and really got me to appreciate the year in a way that would have passed me by otherwise.  I was always looking for a photo, or a tale that I could tell you guys.  I hope it has been as fun to read, as it has been for me to write it.

Obviously, the initial premise behind this blog: my year abroad in NY, is now over.  But I would really like to continue writing.

However, from now on, it's going to be about my next adventure... my quest to get to London. 

I hope you will continue to read (and at times, yes, point and laugh) at the tales I have to tell in the future....

Stay with me, the journey's really just beginning....

xxx

I Just Came to Say, "Goodbye, Love"

I am hoping through the dark clouds, light shall break and bring a bright sky...

As the sun sets behind the Flatiron, signalling the end of a late summer/early fall day, so, too must my time in New York come to an end. 

I am writing this in the UK, back at my parents house in Bournemouth. 

I cried all the way home.

Leaving New York is the hardest thing I have ever done. 

Maybe I should be grateful that that is the hardest thing I have ever done, I don't know. It didn't make it any less painful. It hurt more than leaving home to go to uni.  It hurt more, and gave me more anxiety than you get when you're a little kid and you've gone and lost your parents in a big crowd.  It hurt more than when my ex-boyfriend told me he didn't love me anymore, despite all I'd given to him.

It hurt more than anything, because I've left a part of me behind there. This year, I came to New York confused, about life, about love.  About what I wanted, about who I was. 

New York so easily, so effortlessly showed me what I want, what I need in order to survive, in order to feel more alive than I've ever felt. 

I see my future path so clearly.  My old life and my old concerns feel so small, so insignificant.  The things I have done in this city, the amazing year I've had, in the most amazing place with all the amazing people I have met have produced in me a new sense of self.  I now walk with a self-assured strut, no longer looking down at the ground.  I feel like nothing can stop me.

And even though a part of me got left behind in New York, it's ok.

Because I'll be back there to get it.  And then I'll never leave.

You'll see.

Nine Eleven

In memoriam

I've been thinking about what I was going to write here all day. Everything I thought of sounded trite and cliched. What is there to write about 9/11 that hasn't already been written? Everybody remembers where they were when it happened. It's the one event that has defined my generation.

I'm British, and obviously I had been sad and felt awful, scared and confused when it happened. But it happened in America, somewhere I had never been, and whilst I appreciated the impact of the event on the rest of the world, I was always acutely aware that it was still something that had happened somewhere else. I was 16 and I couldn't even begin to get my head around something like that, on that scale happening to me, my town, my country.

WTC

I remember this day last year. I had arrived in America, in New York, a mere four days earlier. I was already beginning to fall in love with the city: its vibrancy, its energy and its attitude. But it wasn't home yet. I was still a tourist, and as such, standing in front of Ground Zero and reading the tributes to loved ones lost, and witnessing grown men breaking down in tears... as such, I realized that day that I was the worst kind of tourist: a tourist of peoples grief.

I had to leave, I couldn't stay, I felt dirty and ashamed. I had no right to be there, who was I to be there? The events that day had affected me in some way sure, in as much as I am a citizen of the world, but all around me was the real cost, the real pain. I couldn't even try to relate to that. 

Today, I sit here writing, and trying to identify how I feel a year on. After a year of living in this city, this most beautiful city. This city that has been everything to me. This city that is home, and always will be. 

Today, I went to Ground Zero again after work, and sat across the street watching the sun set. 

I can't really put my finger on it, but I didn't feel like a tourist this time. I felt like I had a right to sit there, take a moment, and realize how precious this city is to me.  And I can relate to that as much as, and as fiercely as any native New Yorker.

I love you, New York. Now and forever.

xxx

The Story of Why I am a Bad Blogger and What is to Become of Me

The important thing to note here is the sky. I did not make this up.. the sky was a brilliant brilliant shade of purple. Irrelevant to this post, but oh so true.

I am a bad blogger. There's no getting away from this fact. I last wrote something on July 14th. JULY FOURTEENTH. That's such a lifetime ago I don't even remember who I was then.

I was toying with the idea of writing some posts and dating them in the past so it would be like I'd been a good blogger all along.. but that's not the truth. And I've recently discovered I'm incapable of lying. And also, plus, additionally, there's reasons why I haven't sat and done this for a while.

First one was that my lovely sister Eleanor (or as I more affectionately call her - EEnor, in the style of an ambulance siren.. yeah, long story) came to stay for a whopping two weeks. That's a long time.

If you see this girl, shout EENOR EENOR at her in the street. She loves that.

We did lots of things, I think I literally showed her every area in New York City. We went rowing in Central Park, where we discovered that Eleanor can not row. At all. For a moment, I thought she'd got it down, but then I realized we were rowing into a rock.

Row row row your boat. Or at least attempt to.

So also, we ventured to Strawberry Fields. Where we witnessed a super wicked argument between two hobos. I mean, you can't make this shit up.

Hobos not pictured.

We were cultural and went to my favorite museum... Guggey:

If you're in NYC, go here. Go, like, yesterday. It's great.

And got topical in Times Square:

November 08: It's not just a right. It's  a responsibility.

And lastly we cracked out the Soprano's catchphrases in Little Italy. 

Fugheddaboudit... CAPICHE?!!

There's literally nothing Eleanor loves more than a cliched Italian-American catchphrase.

How YOU doin???

As you can see we had lots of fun. 

And as for the other reasons as to why I am a Bad Blogger... it's because I have to go. I have to leave. I have haul-ass out of this town so, so soon. 

And I really don't know how.