Preparing To Leave New York

Now that residency is over for me, it's time for us to leave New York City. We're looking to relocate to Philadelphia, closer to my parents and back in the city where we feel most comfortable. Don't get me wrong -- living in Manhattan the past three years has been an important experience, and New York obviously has more to offer than any other city on the east coast, in the US, on this continent ... probably in this hemisphere. Janelle and I agree that it's been an unforgettable experience, and we're glad that we'll be able to look back and say we once lived in New York City.

I think what we'll miss the most here is the food. You can find just about any kind of food in New York, from greasy spoons to $400-a-head sushi bars, and positively everything else in between. Great food can be had at modest prices, and the number of destination must-try restaurants in this city is unrivaled in the country. We've particularly enjoyed exploring the many options right here in our own neighborhood on the east side of Midtown. Honestly, we haven't tried half the restaurants we said we would when we first moved in. It would take us a decade just to try them all, but you can bet that we tried our best.

All the cultural offerings in New York are world-class, and the people here aren't nearly as rude or inconsiderate as I assumed they would be. We each have our own stories of strangers stopping to give directions or open doors, giving up seats to my pregnant wife on the train and the bus ... I have changed my mind about New Yorkers in the three years I lived here. They're not the nicest people in the world, but they aren't the meanest either. Oh, and I love delivery in New York. You can get *anything* delivered to your door here. Seriously, anything.

But I'll tell you what I won't miss. I won't miss getting stuck in traffic every time I try to leave the city or come back. I won't miss $550 monthly parking. I won't miss having to walk 15 minutes to get on the subway, or standing on a crowded smelly bus to get home from work in the hottest months of summer. I won't miss wading through the masses in Times Square or Soho because I happened to go there on a weekend, stupidly.

I won't miss paying twice the money to live in an apartment that isn't half as good as the one we had in Philadelphia three years ago. I won't miss generally having to overpay for everything here (except the food). I won't miss having to plan an entire afternoon around trekking to the Whole Foods, because the produce in the regular grocery stores in my neighborhood is sheer crap. I won't miss having to haul it to Flushing or North Jersey to get some decent Chinese groceries. I won't miss loud sirens and honking cars at all hours of the day and night.

Yes, we're moving back to Philadelphia soon. I'm relieved, I'm excited ... in my mind I've already gone. So long, New York. It's been fun.