This is a continuation of my post from a month ago about how my first month in NYC went. At the time I wrote it I wanted to devote some time to talking about how life here has differed from living in Seattle, but didn’t have the time and that post was already getting long. So I’m going to complete that thought this week with a little more experience under my belt.
Just to start off, the biggest difference between the last post and this one is that, since then, everything has been moved here from Seattle, including my wife and cat. So right away I can say that it is a lot less lonely and it is starting to feel like home, though we both still have several moments each week where we have to remind ourselves that we really live here now. The only other comparison I can make is when I moved to Spokane for college, but that was always with the understanding that it was a temporary thing. With this move, we don’t know yet how long it will be. Hopefully it will be a good, long while since we both like it so far, but the future is never set in stone.
Let’s go ahead and start in with the differences between NYC and Seattle. First, the apartment we’re in, since we spend most of our time here. Definitely smaller than our old townhome, it’s somewhere between the sizes of the previous two apartments. But since we got rid of a ton of stuff during the move, it honestly feels more open than it used to be. Due to the design of the townhome we could only host 8 or so before it started to get crowded. The new layout allows for 10-12 easily. Plus, since it’s an apartment building, there are community areas that can fit even more if required.
The other big difference is that this apartment is 100% wood flooring. Living in Seattle we never had a home that wasn’t mostly carpeted. There is one part of me that will always prefer carpet over wood since it’s just nicer to walk on. On the other hand, wood floors are easier to maintain and you get a better sense of how dirty things actually are. Carpets are straight up nasty if you think about it. The wood floor, along with other aspects of the apartment, will lead us to be better at keeping things tidy and clean, so it’s a benefit overall. Just have to be more careful about dropping things.
In terms of other apartment amenities, most of them we’ve seen before. Rooftop deck, courtyard, fitness room, community area, garage, etc. The only real amenity that’s different from Seattle in general is the 24/7 doorman (or woman). It is super common here, particularly for luxury apartments like ours. The hole-in-the-wall apartments don’t have them, but any building that has a front desk of any kind will usually have one. Plenty of apartment buildings in Seattle have leasing offices that handle most of the same functions, but I can’t think of any that were 24/7. Suffice it to say, it’s pretty convenient, and since we see them so often, it quickly becomes a bond like being a familiar at a bar or restaurant.
The next big area for me is working, since that’s a good 50+ hours of my week (including commute). Speaking of the commute, outside of the obvious differences of using a train instead of a bus, there really aren’t that many actual differences. The trains are more frequent and don’t get held up by traffic of course, unless there are delays for one reason or another. I will say that work on the subway is consistent enough that you do always have to be cognizant of what might impact you and how you have to work around it, which never really happened taking the bus in Seattle. There are really only two cultural differences in the commute. One, people rarely shoved to get on the buses in Seattle. It is as common here as it is in any other big city you might visit in Europe or Asia. Two, pedestrians in Seattle definitely do not jaywalk like they do here. I know there is a general stigma because police in Seattle will actually write people up for it, but it’s simply not enforceable here so literally everyone does it.
As for work itself, this is the first job where I’ve had a standard 9(ish)-5(ish) schedule. My first standup of each day is at 9am, so I have to be there by then (I usually get there by 8:45). And I leave sometime in the 5-6pm hour, depending on how long of a lunch break I took and whether something urgent needs to get done. I think the only reason why this actually works for me is because rush hour isn’t that big of a deal here, as long as you don’t drive. Trying to get around Seattle during rush hour was literal hell, so most people I worked with shifted hours to avoid it, including me. It doesn’t seem to be that big a problem here, so most people hold more standard hours.
The culture of the company itself is different in plenty of other ways. I can’t say how much of it is really coast-versus-coast rather than Amazon-versus-literally-everyone-else, so I won’t get into it. I’ll just say that it’s more old school here where people are more interested in protecting their backs than collaborating towards a common goal. What I can say is coast-dependent is that everyone here dresses so well. I feel like a damn slob most days because I haven’t had a chance to update any of my wardrobe yet. About the only piece of clothing I have that isn’t embarrassing is my jeans. Luckily everyone understands that I’m west coast and haven’t transitioned yet, but I feel bad about it. I just want to look good too.
The last area I want to mention is around the food scene. I’m sure there are plenty of other cultural areas I could get into, but since we haven’t had any real time to explore I don’t have any observations there. But when it comes to food, it is a pretty easy statement to say that the quality here is off the charts compared to Seattle. I’d like to think that most of the places I liked frequenting in Seattle would probably do just fine here as well, but there’s a good 90% or so of Seattle restaurants that would be laughed out of town. And it’s not just the flavor either, you can tell that the ingredients are also better. You go to any grocery and the stuff you find is all high quality. The side effect is that none of it is cheap, but that’s just an adjustment you have to make in general.
One of the things that I noticed within the first week of going to work and getting food around the office is that NYC as a whole is a bit behind most cities on the west coast in terms of eco-friendly packaging. Even though it has technically been banned, I’ve been to a few places where everything is still styrofoam. And plastic bags haven’t been banned at all, so they are freaking everywhere. It is legitimately difficult to convince people that you don’t want or need a plastic bag to take something with you. The idea of reusable bags at the grocery story is novel to many cashiers. Seattle hasn’t even had the bans on these things for that long either, but it’s been long enough that it was immediately apparent what a difference it makes.
In terms of the varieties of food, NYC is certainly going to be more diverse, but it’s interesting to see which cuisines get more favor. The biggest thing I miss here so far is a distinct lack of Vietnamese food and teriyaki (sushi and ramen are pretty common though). There is a lower percentage of Asian food across the board here compared to Seattle, for obvious reasons, but those two in particular are things I’ve had trouble finding. Over here what you will find a ton of that Seattle has relatively little of is Mediterranean/Middle Eastern food. It seems like every other food cart on the street serves either bagels or shawarma. Another thing there’s more of in NYC that I never saw in Seattle is South American food. I’ve had a chance to have Venezuelan, Colombian, and Peruvian stuff here and it’s all amazing.
Another obvious area where Seattle reigns supreme is in coffee shops. Sure you expect there to be more Dunkin Donuts here versus Starbucks, but there aren’t that many of either compared to Seattle. In my experience most people don’t care that much and will just have the office coffee or get whatever is closest to the office, whether that be Starbucks, Dunkin, Pret, Joe and the Juice, or whatever. I don’t care being a coffee avoider, but my wife will probably miss that aspect of Seattle over time. On the flip side, NYC has pizza everywhere in the same way. And yes, the pizza here is better than any pizza in Seattle, with a couple exceptions.
I think that’s enough bloviating for one post. I’m sure there will be more observations to make in this area, so maybe another update will be due in a few months. Until then, going to try to do as many new things as possible.