At least according to this.
This is where I betray the fact of my non-American citizenship, but to me New York the state and New York the city are intricately linked. Or perhaps it is really more accurate to say that to most of the world at large, New York is New York City. I am not sure how sacrilegious this is to the New Yorkers out there but this is the burden to bear for being one of the dream cities of the world, alongside Paris and London.
As a kid growing up on the other side of the world, New York City was symbolic of a lifestyle to be desired and experienced. I remember my first trip to the Big Apple after college graduation. There we were, 3 scruffy starry-eyed young adults barely out of our teens, who arrived and expected the city to razzle and dazzle us. But every turn we took we were exposed to dust and filth and even worse, crazy tourists in Time Square buying M&M shaped pillows. It was all simultaneously so cheesy and grime that inwardly we all thought we were going to cry while wandering around with a determinedly fixed grin on our faces and the obligatory, "Wow!! Oh how…nice. Let's take a picture".
But New York City grows on you. Lying on the grass in Central Park may seem terribly unoriginal but what a wonderful way to be unoriginal. The museums, the restaurants, the people. And perhaps, more importantly, who can ever forget the city seen through the eyes of one's inexperienced youth; where every revelation was like raising up another set of blinds to reveal the world of possibilities beyond.
Ahh, Trader Joe's!
In the words of Calvino:
" … the city which can not be expunged from the mind is like an armature, a honey-comb in whose cells each of us can place the things he wants to remember…"
This Xmas, thinking of New York City, fondly.
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