let's hear it for new york

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today, august 9th, we've lived in new york city for 1 year.
year 1.
i heart nyc.

late on august 9th, we pulled up in our car, having already traveled across the international dateline (from japan), flew into dc... then drove the 4.5 hours to nyc. we were subletting, getting to know our neighborhood, harlem and struggling with the worse jet-lag we have known. somehow we found an apartment in a week, ben was able to function in law school (the first and hardest year!) and i was able to find a job within a couple months.
all miracles.

or maybe the biggest miracle was actually moving into our fifth floor walk up - we hired movers but one of them didn't show up and we've never been that sore in our entire lives.
also remember when we bought our beautiful brown leather couch and we decided just to move it up the stairs ourselves? just the two of us. with a big couch. and a narrow winding staircase.
other fun things...
we were silly and we used to "quickly" go enter the book of mormon musical lottery... like every single day.
we were stoked out of our minds to get unlimited ride subway passes.
realizing once we had seen handfuls of celebs - that it's a common occurrence and no biggie.
we ate harlem soul food when we signed our first manhattan rental lease.
grocery shopping is a whole other planet experience in the city. especially when you have to carry the groceries up many many many stairs.
it's funny how we thought we knew the city fairly well when we moved here, but we have learned something new everyday (mostly good).
we've built a lot of new favorites, new memories - not all based on our old memories from when we would visit on weekends.
we still love our apartment.

side note... no matter how much i love this city, there are still some things i will never love. dirty streets and subways. that the subway is 20 degrees hotter in the summer than it is outside. being in such close proximity of dirty, smelly strangers EVERYDAY. rats, mice, roaches, pests in general!
that is all :)

with that...

the first year at something is always tricky... you're trying to find your groove. but i feel like each day gets better here... and i have a feeling each year will also just get better.

AND, well... we believe it's best to always be a tourist in your own city. otherwise, you may miss something.