One year here

All of a sudden it was July 31st.

Which meant that I had been here for a year.  Which meant that i made it through my first year of my new job.  And my first year in NYC.  And not just made it through, I had a ton of fun!  I never would have guessed that I would like it this much.

Here are some of the things I did this past year:

• Saw a lot of awesome street art

Long Island City

• Found routines – like morning walks by the public housing building near my house and seeing all the Vietnamese residents doing exercises in the backyard – just like I saw in the mornings in vietnam
• Roller derby in coney island

Coney Island Roller Derby. We rooted for Brooklyn. Naturally.

• Learned the subway system (after some disastrous starts)
• Biked out to Coney Island

Coney Island’s kind of scary

not sure what this ride was… well, I could imagine, but I don’t want to ride it

• Ate lots of good food — kind of like when I traveled.  Legit South India, Vietnamese, papusas (my new favorite!), tacos
• Took a spanish class – and then forgetting a whole lot of it – but making some good friends in the class!
• Put myself out there to make new friends and try new things (checking out live music, going dancing, joining groups) – which sounds like a small thing – but not being a joiner makes it hard!  But – happy to say, I have a group-ish of friends now, people I can call up to go out with, people I can go ride bikes with, people who will go drink mezcal with me (to read more about my new obsession, see below), people will want to go hiking
• Discovered the craft beer scene in Brooklyn (luckily one of the really good bars is right near my house)
• Also discovered that I am a big fan of tequila and mezcal drinks (NYC has no shortage of fancy cocktails — like the night I went to a bar focused on experimental cocktails and had some crazy tequila and mezcal drinks — all for the low low price of $16 each!)
• Survived my second year of being car-free (last year probably doesn’t fully count) – though I do miss escaping out to the mountains.
• Found places to get fresh veggies and good bagels and awesome coffee – and all those other things that make routine a good thing

And so much more….

So much fun to be had!

When I was traveling, I was limited by time, but was free without a plan – so I would move on when I felt I was ready, when I wanted a new adventure.  Though there is still a fire inside of me, wanting to see the world, wanting to climb mountains and trek through foreign lands, there is still so much here for me to explore –  I feel like I barely touched the surface.  How fun – to know that I still have so much more to do here?

I am still grounded in knowing I am in the right place, at the right time.