Today I fly out of New York City, and I wanted to give a quick review of my time here. If you don’t have much time and need to go, I’ll give you a review in one word: terrific.
This is the third time I have visited the Big Apple, and I have now come here in Spring, Autumn, and now Winter, with only Summer waiting. Seasons really make a difference to a metropolis like New York, and the rhythms of the city have moved significantly than when I visited in Spring. It is cold (-6c/22f at time of writing), but in some ways it is far less oppresive than when I last visited, where the heat was high and lingered, and the city was filled with scents and sweats, some of which was provided by yours truly.
On this trip, with the mercury rather low, the focus has been on seeing friends and family over seeing the sights. On this trip, I saw:
- The team at Auror. They’re all great people, and they have been incredibly welcoming to me. On this trip we have gone bowling, dined out at some Quality Italian, and had a few too many beers at a pretty good burger place.
- VM, my friend from Oxford. She’s currently living her best life on the Upper West Side, and has recently been promoted to a leadership position. I’m really proud of her.
- My friend JG, who I met at UATX last year. We met at the Penn Club, had a wonderful few hours talking about business, magic, culture, and education. JG is about to launch his own start-up soon, and has spent the last year or so building the platform. When it goes live, I will let you know, with his permission.
- I was fortunate enough to catch up another UATX pal, CS, on my visit here. We met at Qahwah Coffee House, which is a great place for a cuppa, but DO NOT come here if you’re in a rush. I think the average wait time was 8 minutes for a latte, and the place was NOT busy. CS lives in the UK these days where is completing her D.Phil at Cambridge, but she has a NYC based boyfriend, which is keeping her busy across the Atlantic. The two of us don’t have a huge amount in common, but we have been fast friends from the moment we met, and we had a wonderful time.
- I have an aunt who lives in NYC who loves nothing more than to feed people she loves. On this occassion it wasn’t a blow-out, but I certainly didn’t leave hungry. I was also able to briefly see my cousin who is back off to college, which was a bit of fun as well. He is off to Berlin next semester for Study Abroad, so chances to see him may be few and far between this year.
- A final UATX friend, SK, was my shortest but possibly most memorable meeting. SK and and I are quite different, he’s an orthodox jew who runs an AI company and has a kid, and I am, well, not that. We talked about the good stuff, but also some of the things that are troubling us, and when we finished up, we both left in high spirits.
- The final friend I was fortunate enough to see was B, who, in an unbelievable twist of fate, was living 200f from our hotel. We caught up for a few beers and he explained how NYC is Stockholm Syndrome in a city; you hate how much it infuriates you, but the prospect of leaving is just unconscionable. I thought it was very apt.
One of the reasons I write this blog is to keep my readers informed of how things are going in my life, but also as a way of storing information for myself. Hopefully I will look back on this one day and it will remind of the great times I have had.
Leave a Reply