The Learning Curve

I don't want to forget anything that happens to Zack and I as we adjust to life on Manhattan's Upper East Side, so I decided to write down all of our little adventures.

We arrived in Manhattan late Tuesday evening, and our Brewers were playing the Mets. We literally parked our car, ran to the apartment to change into our Brewers gear, and ran back out to the subway. We made it to Citi Field just as the first inning was ending, sharked some AMAZING field level tickets from a scalper for next to nothing, and had an amazing night. The final score of 8-2 and the rare win for Milwaukee were both excellent in their own right, but the highlight of night were the elderly rabbis sitting below us going crazy over their beloved Mets, fist pumping in their prayer shawls. A wonderful start to our new life.

Wednesday morning, the tide turned sharply. We had to get up at 6:30 AM to move the car so we wouldn't get a ticket. After driving around for over an hour, I stayed in the car while Zack ran to Starbucks for wifi and a much-needed coffee for me. We finally parked the car, 13 blocks away. Eek. But I just checked it and no tickets. The car is for sale and hopefully someone will buy it soon! It's just too much of a hassle to worry about parking it, and a parking spot here isn't worth the cost since we never use the car.

We went to the Library later on that day, it's only 4 blocks from our apartment in a beautiful old building. The free internet was beautiful, we've been feeling so disconnected from the world. Zack stayed at the library all afternoon, working on Kaplan Bar Review on his iPad.

In the meantime, I went grocery shopping. There are two Food Emporiums within a couple blocks of us, as well as Duane Reade, and street corner produce stands. Food in New York is so strange. Some things are so much more expensive - a box of Life Cereal is $6.00, but Kashi is $3.50. How does that work? And beef roasts are cheaper than chicken breasts. It's all more expensive but not shockingly so. The produce vendors on the street are actually good. Half the price of the grocers, and delicious so far!

We both made it home last night around 5:30, and the unpacking began, while trying to cook dinner. In hindsight, I don't know why we tried to cook. It took us 3 hours to make a simple marinara with eggplant and crimini mushrooms. We couldn't find anything in the mountain of boxes. The sticker shock of every little thing hit us like an icy rain. I dropped a box full of kitchen knives and it fell open at my feet. Not sure how I escaped that without becoming the toeless wonder. Talking to our parents made us so homesick. We both kept thinking how we would be unpacking with our families around us if we'd moved back to Wisconsin. The mountain of boxes that overtook our living room might not be so overwhelming there.

Today was better. Zack stayed home from bar prep. Mostly because we were both exhausted, but also to help me unpack and feel more settled. The kitchen is almost done, and I know where everything is. We have internet again, hallelujah. And we finally figured out how to lock and unlock all 3 bolts on our door. Our door, by the way, is heavy enough to render the rather unsettling amount of fallout shelters scattered throughout Manhattan entirely obsolete.

We decided to call it the learning curve. Here's to catching up.