sherryillk | (no subject)

It's kinda weird. Reading Kurt/Blaine fics means a lot of their fics set in the future deal with NYC and reading about the city through their eyes, through the eyes of the authors who may or may not have been to NYC before and seeing and feeling their sense of wonder makes me incredibly uneasy.

Mostly because I never felt that.

I was horribly unimpressed the entire time I was there. And I think I still am.

I was unimpressed when I went there the summer before my freshman year and it was a three day orientation. I ended up with two extra days, of which I spent mostly in Brooklyn. I remember having real sushi for the first time, eating at a sidewalk cafe in Greenwich, dim sum in Brooklyn (that's where the good stuff was at). And I remember a night-time tour of the surrounding neighborhood around the main NYU campus (location? it's not really a traditional campus, I'm still not sure what to call it even after four years there), playing Taboo in Silver, eating at Kimmel, sleeping in Weinstein, playing poker for change with the Asian guys next door with my temporary Russian roommate late at night, s'mores at Cosi... And despite that, I was underwhelmed.

And after that, when I really moved there, it just seemed to make it worse. It became a part of daily life. It became so incredibly normal and while it wasn't what I was used to, it didn't seem better or more amazing, only different. And I remained underwhelmed and unimpressed. Even after visiting all the tourist attractions, being on the Cyclone going to Astroland, doing stuff I never would have done or seen things I never would have seen...Shouldn't that have left me with a sense of wonder? Shouldn't it have been cooler? Shouldn't I have felt more affected?

Even though I saw those things, did those things, lived that life, I still feel like I missed out on it all because I didn't get the expected feelings people are supposed to get. It's all very strange. And I just feel incredibly uneasy when I think about it... It just doesn't feel right.

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The first 'proper' time I visited NYC I was 16 (I'd been dragged along with Dad a few times as a kid, but my memories of those trips are a jumble of Central Park, hotel rooms, Bob Dylan and stoned hippies). While I was very impressed by some of the architecture, my abiding sense was that it was a city full of crazy or sad people. I spent most of that trip either making people laugh or reassuring strangers.

I think that if you are the sort of person who pays attention to humans rather than to spectacle, NYC can be quite a hard place to be impressed by, as it's full of very real people living very real lives, and while the architecture has some high points, it's not amazing enough to cover up the everyday urgency of the people.

Paris, on the other hand, always manages to sneak past my barriers and give me a moment of 'Oh, you are beautiful, you slarty old bastard …'

I wasn't even impressed by the architecture but I don't think I ever cared about stuff like that. Mostly, it felt like I grew up seeing pictures of the more iconic buildings and seeing the skyline on TV and when I actually got there, it was like exactly how I pictured it. Only I was there in real life but that didn't seem to tip the balance into "amazing" or "wow." To me, a lot of NYC was just older than I expected.

I can't say I've been impressed by most of the other places in the world I've been to now that I think about it... I always assumed I would adore Toronto and it was kinda boring. Vancouver didn't seem all too different from home, Hong Kong was just hot, Beijing was hotter... I've always romanticized Europe but now that I think about it, I'm scared it'll be just like all the other places I went to and not make much of an impression on me.

Sounds like you might be a realist ;-) There's nothing wrong with that!

Having just come back from NY, I will say, while I loved it, I certainly didn't get a sense of wonder. I think people have silly ideas about "new experiences", like something's going to well up inside you just because you see something or do something or eat something you never have before. It's fun (especially if the company's good), interesting, and about as special as you make it, but "blow me away"?

I loved being able to hop on the metro, to go to so many places and see so many things that were all right next to each other. I loved Central Park; this giant, expansive park in the middle of compacted sky scrapers. But I've been to better parks. I've been to London, DC, and Tokyo, so I've ridden plenty of other metros. I can't say any of my food experiences were special, living in LA.

I stayed away from sushi, since I doubt it can beat Little Tokyo; we went to Dim Sum, which the local NYers we went were were in awe of XD but for my CA friend and I, we were both like, "All dim sum places are like this...", we went to a Mexican restaurant (Rosa Mexicana?), that two NYers recommended at different times to us, and we were just like, ". . ." (you don't leave CA to get Mexican food, unless you're going to Mexico). I loved how giant the shops were, all the flagships, but about the only shop we went to that you can't go to in LA was Uniqlo. (And Accessorize, but I went to the DC station one not the NY one.)

My guess is fanfiction writers have some ridiculous idea that "small town boys from Ohio" would be blown away by big town New York. It's a big jump, yeah, but the feelings are much more subtle than "sense of wonder". NY may be full of foreigners but it's not foreign. The fact that it can be on the other side of the country and have all the same shops and restaurants as LA is proof enough.

I.e. I don't think you "missed" something when you were there. I think all these writers who have never experienced small town to big town, anyway, have some romanticized fantasy that there's more to it.

LOL, the joke we had was that there was never any place to get good Mexican. While I doubt the stuff we had was as good as California, the town I grew up in had a large migrant population and therefore a lot of Hispanics in the area so there were always places to get decent Mexican food. NYC didn't even have that and it always made me wonder where all the Mexicans went. There was good Puerto Rican and Cuban, but that was about it. I just stuck with Chipotle because if I was going to have the fake stuff, it was still pretty good.

Dim sum in NYC is kinda pitiful. It's not even that great. Slightly better than Portland, but nowhere what I've had in Vancouver. The experience was pretty much exactly the same, only long wait times. I've always wanted to do dim sum in San Francisco though -- I hear that's where it's at if you wanted dim sum in the States. Otherwise, it's Vancouver on this continent and I can tell you, it's pretty amazing.

And really, no Uniqlo? But it's so big... I remember when it first opened in NYC -- they gave out freebies on the street and I thought, what a quirky store. It was before I knew anything about it, that it was an international brand, and I thought its brand of clothing fit perfectly for the neighborhood.

See, some of them have been to NYC. I mean, sure, it's a bit different when you visit there for vacation, be it a few days or two weeks, but still, it makes some sort of impact. Unfortunately for me, the first time I was there, the main impact it made was "unimpressive" and I went from an even smaller town than Kurt and Blaine are supposed to. From what I hear, LIma has a sizable population and I came from a town that has less than 10,000 people... If you take in the entire county, I still don't think we would have a bigger population than them. But the fact that it's Ohio versus Oregon always lingers in my mind because West Coast versus Midwest has got to be a different sort of lifestyle, even if I lived in the only Republican district in the state...

Edited 2012-04-20 20:43 (UTC)

XD; I have to admit, I was a little surprised that NYC didn't have good Mexican or special Dim Sum, since it's so famous for it's ethnic food variety. But I'm super spoiled by Los Angeles. NYC does have plenty that LA doesn't have, though. I loved Zabars, I really want to go again. (It's so funny, they had Zabars merchandise at Asahiya Book Store o.O; I was like, "Zabars is famous in Japan?!)

Yup, only NYC has Uniqlo in the US (they have like three shops....?). I wonder if they're planning to expand later...? Maybe other shops are keeping them out. It is surprising they don't open one in LA... Mood Fabrics has an LA location! XD;; ....

Mmmm it's hard to say, NY is pretty impressive from a "wow you can just walk around and everything's here" perspective, but I think a lot of it is just fanfic authors building it up to be dramatic. And it is definitely different to live in a place than to vacation there... (I felt that way about LA, I can't see any appeal to the place. The restaurants are great but you can only eat so many times a day, and there's no real central area for anything.) I have a friend who schooled in Hawaii for 4 years, and yeah... totally burned out on Hawaii... well, even from my time vacationing there, I'd never ever want to live there. o.O;