sweet dee rupee: city slickin'.

Ahh, how the road smells so different from the home!

I love it! As good as it has been to live in the middle of nowhere and enjoy the smells of nature and the country sky day in and day out, escaping for a few days a few times in the past few weeks was GREEEEATTTTT!! I feel secure in my identity as a city person; this identity is reborn and refueled on the energy of a city.

About two weeks ago I took the Amtrak (first timer!) to NYC to meet up with several of my friends from Chicago (some really rad folks!). Most of me really loved seeing my friends, but part of me loved being there, too. Though I may have just been to New York a few weeks ago, there were some major differences this time around. 1.) I wasn’t suffering from any sort of roid-fueled-rage. 2.) I was with other people of a youthful age and able -bodied (though after all the walking we did each day we could have begged to differ) and 3.) the people I met up with were vegetarians that are into cycling, yoga, not-drinking-tons-of-alcohol and walking where we needed to go (despite the blisters on our toes).

It was so worth it!!! We did so much and had so much fun that it would be so hard to describe it all. We laughed so much, pretty much from sun up to sun down, for 48 straight hours; joyous!!! I encourage all friends who don’t get to see each other often (or even those that do!) to take a trip together. As long as you enjoy spending time with your friends. If you don’t, this wouldn’t be a good thing for you. It’s also important the people you want to vacation/travel with have a similar demeanor and attitude towards traveling in general. For example, if one person is used to staying at the Ritz-Carlton when they travel (I don’t know these people who do this, but this is only an example) and their friend wants to stay in a hostel, there will probably be some disagreement and hostility involved in selecting a place to sleep. However, if all parties are cool with eating pizza twice a day, don’t mind staying in a hostel and don’t mind walking without purpose, traveling to NYC with laid-back friends is something you might enjoy.

As mentioned before, it’s usually easy to tell if you were supposed to take a particular trip or not based on if you can feel the “travel magic” upon the beginning of your travels or not. If things get off to a great start, it is likely that the feeling will continue and follow you along your entire journey. Travel magic also ensures that the people you travel with were the perfect choice for going to a particular location It’s hard to describe with words; you can just feel it! Maybe other people don’t know about it unless they’ve traveled with me (cocky) and I made the whole thing up… (but I’m pretty sure it exists).

I hope my point is conveyed by how awesome of a time I had in the Big Apple (do people still call it that? I might be a bit dated with my NYC lingo)!! We walked to get food, we walked for coffee, we walked for tickets, we walked to Brooklyn, we walked to dinner, we walked to the train, we sat for a few moments to rest our aching feet on the train, then we walked to the hostel, we walked for drinks later. And that was only day one. Oh, and we tried to find public toilets, haha. We spent about 30% of our waking, walking hours trying to locate places to pee, as every 30 minutes one of us had to go.

The next day looked about the same, but we ended up taking transit a few times to escape the rain, had less food involved, more exercise (including a yoga class!), record shopping, museum browsing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a concert and much, much more fun. And much, much more pizza.

Though the subway system seems more daunting (and even kind of dirtier) than in Chicago, it really wasn’t that hard to use in practice (letters versus numbers) and the train-cars themselves were laid out more ergonomically and were a little wider than the CTA “L” cars. Way to go, New York! The rumors are true…

The feelings of loneliness and lack of human contact with like-minded folk was healed by spending time with a few people who make me feel like myself and bring out the loveliness in me, as I hope that I do for them. I definitely feel confident in my ability to have and to maintain friendships after this trip!

The weekend I arrived back in Richmond, I ran the Ukropt Monument 10K (finished in 65 minutes, not bad for plugging along in my first real race!) and got invited by a friend here to go to Washington DC to hang/have fun/explore over Easter weekend: uh, yes please!!

So this past weekend, my friend Jessica and I drove up to the DC area and took the METRO into the city to meet up/stay with one of her friends from art school. What a blast we had! We got to celebrate our first-ever Passover (lots of fun to participate in a Seder!), drank til we were thirsty again, danced til our bladders burst, and laughed until our eyes weeped and our rears tooted. Haha, what a time! The nights were a blur of bars, clubs and beers while the daytime stretched out and blurred into a series of coffees, snacks and museums, only to be followed by another of the previously mentioned evenings.

I feel so happy from having two traveling, city trips in the past two weeks. I like living in the country because I get to come back to it. I can go to the city occasionally when I need to recharge. When I used to live in the city and would escape to the country every once in a while, I would always dread going back to the city to resume my life in the concrete jungle. Now, I can escape there like a wild animal, then return home to hibernate in my country den. It smells so good and is so peaceful here. I’m staying put for at least another month. I think :)