It was cold outside. And not the cute and fuzzy type of cold that you associate with the holidays, but the cold that makes you want to whine about it. It was so easy to complain about New York City winters because the wind would race down the long avenues and hit you in the face when you turned the corner.
I should have been socializing, but instead I was standing in the middle of the apartment, thinking about how cold I was. Why did we have to leave the window open in January? Oh right the NYU kids wanted to smoke. Honestly I couldn’t tell you why I was at this apartment in the East Village. I was hanging out with Sandra this afternoon, and come 8pm her phone lit up with invitations from her NYU friends.
I was interrupted from my sulking by a warm laugh from across the room. It jumbled my thoughts to hear something so joyful. It was the new guy, Dean, who had just arrived to New York from California. I had never met anyone from the West, so I introduced myself.
“How do you like it here?” I asked.
“Man, it’s freezing here. I only brought one sweatshirt,” he said grumpily. “I’m just trying not to think of the palm trees out West.”
I had always associated warm winters with South America. I heard even Texas got snow, not that I would know because I had only ever traveled around the North East. News of a USA without harsh wind chill was enough to capture my attention. The rest of the night in that small living room I listened to Dean’s stories about an America I had never known. I thought New York City was diverse enough, but Dean told us about all new different types of people. What was I doing in this frigid steel city? It was time to find the palm trees in the warm breeze out West.
It was cold outside. And not the cute and fuzzy type of cold that you associate with the holidays, but the cold that makes you want to whine about it. It was so easy to complain about New York City winters because the wind would race down the long avenues and hit you in the face when you turned the corner.
I should have been socializing, but instead I was standing in the middle of the apartment, thinking about how cold I was. Why did we have to leave the window open in January? Oh right the NYU kids wanted to smoke. Honestly I couldn’t tell you why I was at this apartment in the East Village. I was hanging out with Sandra this afternoon, and come 8pm her phone lit up with invitations from her NYU friends.
I was interrupted from my sulking by a warm laugh from across the room. It jumbled my thoughts to hear something so joyful. It was the new guy, Dean, who had just arrived to New York from California. I had never met anyone from the West, so I introduced myself.
“How do you like it here?” I asked.
“Man, it’s freezing here. I only brought one sweatshirt,” he said grumpily. “I’m just trying not to think of the palm trees out West.”
I had always associated warm winters with South America. I heard even Texas got snow, not that I would know because I had only ever traveled around the North East. News of a USA without harsh wind chill was enough to capture my attention. The rest of the night in that small living room I listened to Dean’s stories about an America I had never known. I thought New York City was diverse enough, but Dean told us about all new different types of people. What was I doing in this frigid steel city? It was time to find the palm trees in the warm breeze out West.