3 weeks in New York City....
It was 3 weeks ago I drove down to New York. When I first thought of the move, I was slightly concerned. Hanover, NH and New York, NY are as different as they can get. Add to it the fact that the last 9 months I was living life as a student and was among a friendly set of people. I came from an environment where everybody knew each other. When you went to the coffee shop or to pick up food, you invariably met people you knew. At New York I am a professional. The city is a gazillion times bigger than Hanover and very impersonal. The chance of running into a celebrity is more than the chance of running into somebody you know. Of course, everybody (moi included) is in a tearing rush! So, I guess the concern was firmly grounded in reason.
Looking back, the last 3 weeks have been a lot of fun. The pace of life in the city is fascinating. Everybody is trying their best to wring value out of each minute of the day. I could just be a fly on the wall and watch life go by.
My internship is shaping up nicely. I work with a set of super smart and super nice people. (On a side note, I haven't met many people who are super smart and are jerks). I have been given a level of responsibility that is higher than what anybody would have expected going into the internship. The work hours are reasonable. I leave home at 0715. After a 20 minute commute, I am at my desk by 0735. By 1730, on most days I am done with work. So, at 1800 I am back home. I try and work out atleast 4 days a week. Since I live in the apartments sublet by New York University, I have access to a couple of NYU gyms. I get to work out for an hour on most days. Since I do a job where I don't have any physical activity, it is vital that I get some exercise. On most days, I return from the gym and cook myself some food. For the first week, I didn't cook much and usually went out to eat. Then I took a hard look at what I was eating and realized my diet was absolutely unhealthy.
I love Indian food. A trip to Jackson Heights, Queens and I got all the groceries I needed to start cooking. The stores there stock just about everything. I wonder whether my earlier employer has a manager doing Fair & Lovely sales for the East Coast. I was able to get Bedekar's mixed pickle, packets of Maggi and lots of different masalas. On some evenings I make puliyogare (MTR of course). On the side I have uddina happala. Variety is the spice of life. Occasionally I make myself Maggi noodles (Masala tastemaker, in case you were dying to know). For those of you who don't know Maggi - it is a variety of instant noodles from India. The supermarket next door has these convenient pack of stir fry veggies. To make for a balanced meal, I cut these up, microwave them and toss it in with the noodles. Since I love eggs, I also break an egg into the whole mixture. Voila, you have a tasty and healthy meal. On some other days, dinner is naan and a sabzi. Best way to make naan is to break it in half and put it into a toaster. The heating elements of a toaster seem to mimic a tandoor. If you haven't had authentic tandoori naan recently, it is hard to tell the difference. For sabzi, I go with ready to eat stuff - MTR or Tasty Bite or Ashoka. Not as tasty as stuff mom makes, but does the job.
A couple of days into my internship, I realized that I didn't have a sufficient number and variety of shirts. Went shopping to Thomas Pink with a friend and almost died of sticker shock. Thats when I hit upon the idea of ordering shirts from India. The Thomas Pink of India is Charagh Din. And they have a wonderful online store. Yohan Daswani who runs the online store is extremely customer friendly. I ordered 7 shirts and they reached me in 5 days time! The quality of the fabric and the stitching blows people away. The only other brand of Indian shirts that comes close is Zodiac. Some of their designs are more contemporary and European. Sadly, they do not have an online outlet.
Today promises to be a nice and lazy Sunday. Much like yesterday. I will probably go for a swim later in the day. But most of the day, I plan to just laze around.
posted by Tagad_Tale @ 8:19 AM
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