Even as a writer, occasionally words fail me.<\/p>\n

For several days now I have searched for the right words to sum up my New York experience, but those words have eluded me. I had hoped to find and share a single anecdote that would neatly encapsulate one small town mouse’s view of the big city, but how can such an overwhelming experience get narrowed down to a single story when you’re comparing small oranges to such a big apple?<\/p>\n

Through my Oklahoman eyes, New York is big, loud, crowded, and a little scary. The reality I know of hopping in my car each morning and driving fifteen miles to work in fifteen minutes simply doesn’t exist there. Those with a fifteen minute commute in New York are few and far between; daily commutes of 30 to 90 minutes (each way) are apparently more common. Manhattan is a city made for walking. A seven-day unlimited MetroCard costs $27. Parking at the hotel costs $65\/day. Everything anyone ever told me about New York City traffic is true. You couldn’t pay me to drive in it.<\/p>\n

Tourists are easy to spot in New York City. Many are holding cameras or subway maps, and a lot of whem are wearing white tennis shoes, but the easist way to spot one is if they make eye contact with you or say “excuse me” when you bump into them in a crosswalk — two dead giveaways.<\/p>\n

This morning for the first time I saw Oklahoma through a New Yorker’s eyes. I marvelled at the open fields. I smiled when a fellow motorist allowed me to merge. I laughed when I realized I had not heard a single car horn or siren all day. Today for lunch I realized we had driven ten minutes and not passed a single restaurant. I wonder if there is any place in New York City where one can drive for ten minutes and not pass a restaurant?<\/p>\n

But there were parts of New York City I loved. I loved seeing restaurants open past midnight. I loved Times Square and Central Park. I loved walking down Wall Street, 5th Avenue, and Broadway. Then again, I could just as easily list things I would not love. I would not love the traffic, the daily pace, or the rent.<\/p>\n

If you’re waiting for me to say that I could never live in a place like New York City, I cannot. There were parts of the city that I really connected with. How can a city with surprises awaiting you around every corner ever get old? Oklahoma does seem quaint in comparison — then again, in the middle of the night with no sirens, horns or subways to wake you, quaint sounds pretty nice.<\/p>\n

Here are all the pictures I took during my week long adventure. The New York City pictures are bookended by a few from Chicago, where my train ride began and ended. I took a lot of pictures looking out the window of my train to kill some time, which in retrospect are pretty boring; feel free to skip some of those.<\/p>\n

My walking adventure through Manhattan took me through Chinatown, Little Italy, the Financial District, Wall Street, the marina district, Staten Island, past the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Rockefeller Center\/Plaza, Broadway, and Times Square. You should be able to find all of those pictures (and more) in the following photo gallery.<\/p>\n

Photo Gallery: Rob’s Adventures in New York City<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even as a writer, occasionally words fail me. For several days now I have searched for the right words to sum up my New York experience, but those words have eluded me. I had hoped to find and share a single anecdote that would neatly encapsulate one small town mouse’s view of the big city, but how can such an overwhelming experience get narrowed down to a single story when you’re comparing small oranges to such a big apple? Through my Oklahoman eyes, New York is big, loud, crowded, and a little scary. The reality I know of hopping in… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}