After neglecting this blog for the last eight months I felt it time to conclude with a final reflective post.

When I first arrived in New York it seemed a little overwhelming – a plethora of noise, an abundance of lights and people everywhere. My immediate concern was of the potential struggle to adapt to this change of pace, this new lifestyle. However, once I adjusted to this urban jungle I came to love it. The thrill of the city got into my blood and I felt connected to the voltage flowing through the life of New York.

The city life certainly changed me and will undoubtedly affect my decisions in the months and years to come. The experience of being on the NY subway late at night and still having to stand due to lack of seats, really struck home. In my hometown the streets are almost silent at night but in the city that never sleeps the streets and subways are still very much alive.

Whilst I do miss the city I’m grateful for the time I had – seeing Al Pacino do Shakespeare in Central Park, experiencing the thrill of Broadway, the uniqueness of Coney Island, the pleasure of living in Brooklyn, the escape of Prospect Park, the tour of the Lower East Side in the insane cold, the experience of testifying and facing cross-examination as a witness in criminal court, the great friendships, the amazing bars, the fantastic restaurants, the vast amount of things to do, the effervescent music scene, the renowned museums and art galleries and the excitement and joy of being part of a church telling the truth of the gospel of Christ crucified for mankind – all in all it was a phenomenal experience.

New York is an extraordinary place and the same can be said of the people. Never before have I seen such a mix of variety and diversity. One of the weirdest moments that will stick in my mind for years to come was the sight of some men pushing a rabbit in a pushchair/stroller through Central Park…

But they were not alone – I also recall the man performing a magic trick on the subway with a live dove in a saucepan, the man on the Q train exploring his own unique style of exceptionally peculiar dance, the extraordinary singer performing at Union Square, the man who managed to drag an upright piano onto the subway platform, the friendly people, the unfriendly people, the arrogant, the un-noticed, the charming, the potentially violent, the caring, the indifferent and the fantastically entertaining – this assortment of people all brought together into the delightful melting pot of New York City. And I am exceptionally appreciative that within this vast melting pot I found so many fantastic friends.

‘Leaving New York never easy’ – a lyric by REM and a lyric that rings true. Leaving behind a city with so many memories, so many great friends and so much vibrancy and excitement was not easy. New York gave me one of the best years of my life and although I’m sad to have left behind a place of such unique calibre I’m grateful for the year I had; a year that will remain with me forever.

Au revoir mon ami.

Following in the vein of my last couple of posts I will once again try and catch up with this blog. This may not work as well in practice as theory but then again stranger things have happened…

For the Christmas period I was in fact back in the homeland – enjoying the joyous cuisine of mince pies, Cornish pasties and all things British.
As I had booked a fairly early flight out from Newark airport I was slightly concerned that I was going to sleep through my chorus of alarms and miss my flight in spectacular fashion but in fact all was fine – admittedly on the plane I somehow managed to spill milk in my face and choke on my coffee but apart from these near-catastrophic instances all was well.
Being back in a medium sized British town was reassuring in some ways but after being in NYC for six months it was quite hard to adjust to the quiet nature of it all – in the past I’d always seen myself as someone who wanted to settle down for the longer term in a smaller town or city but when comparing the small town to the buzzing city it seems, at least for the time being, that the city is where I’d prefer to be. That said it was great to see the family again and to catch up with old friends.

Once back in New York after some rather intense airport security it was back to work for a few days before the New Years holiday.
New Years in New York was certainly a pretty sweet affair. I had originally been tempted to frequent Times Square with the famous ball but on consideration of how cold it would be and how many people would be there I changed my mind fairly rapidly. Instead I went to a far warmer and far more enjoyable party up in the Bronx. It was a great shindig with plenty of snow-chilled beverage action and conversational fun. It certainly made me feel privileged to be able to spend New Years with such a great crowd.

Since I arrived I’d been looking for opportunities for some hiking but until a couple of weeks ago this opportunity hadn’t arisen. Thus, on MLK day three of us set out upstate to a ‘city’ called Beacon to climb some nearby hills in the name of fun…
Although I love the buzz of the city it was entirely pleasant to be able to get some fresh air for a day. In addition there was still a large amount of snow and ice around which made the surroundings pretty spectacular and because of the low temperature, perfectly produced ice crystals had formed themselves around much of the foliage making it seem like we’d accidently stumbled upon Narnia.
However despite the spectacular beauty that this ice and snow had created it did cause problems, especially for me, as the slippery surfaces meant that I lost my footing more times than I choose to remember. The most concerning times were those when I fell on an incline and started to slide, not being completely sure of when (or if) I was going to stop…
It was a fantastic experience nonetheless, complimented by the views from the hilltops overlooking the Hudson river which were nothing short of breathtaking.
We also found the ruins of a casino on one of the hilltops which struck me as a little weird.

Following on from my previous attempts to seem a little on the cultured side I went to see a production of As You Like It recently. Being directed by Sam Mendes I was expecting big things and fortunately I wasn’t disappointed – not being an expert on the aforementioned play (I’d read a couple of summaries the day before…) I couldn’t give any kind of authoritative opinion but the simple fact that I was kept entertained throughout was a good enough result for me.
I also found myself attending the Romeo and Juliet ballet recently. I was a little concerned that in doing so I would irrevocably be damaging my masculinity and almost felt it necessary to grow my beard, put on a deeper voice and carry a crate of beer around with me just to assert to the world that my masculinity was still intact. However it turned out that there were plenty of other men in attendance and in fact because of the fantastic Tchaikovsky score it was actually pretty good.

I’ve also been recently excited by the fact that my church is, as of tomorrow, starting a new church plant downtown. The boldness and determination of such a gospel-centred move really encouraged me. It can be very easy for me to be content with being settled in church and not wanting to be outward in my faith for fear of disrupting the status quo so the opportunity to be a part of this plant is a real blessing.

Admittedly I planned to catch up on this blog over Christmas but it seems that this didn’t happen…so here goes.

Spending the run-up to Christmas in New York was certainly quite an experience – there were lights, decorations and displays aplenty, including the apparently famous Rockefeller Christmas tree. For weeks beforehand I had heard people raving about this tree so was clearly expecting a tree two million feet high with flashing lights, sound effects and dancers. All things considered this was probably a little too expectant, as when I saw the tree it was alright, but wasn’t quite as spectacular as I had hoped…

Before Christmas I also had the privilege of having two good friends from the homeland staying with me. After being away from home for a while it was properly good to be able to chill out with a couple of old chums and reminisce on times past.
Admittedly being exposed to the British sense of humour again led to a barrage of (apparently funny) ginger jokes and humour involving mothers but in fairness, in a strange kind of way, this was quite reassuring as although time seems to be flying by at a spectacular pace there are some things that simply don’t change.
Talking of time, it felt bizarre that only a year and a half ago we were all finishing university together and that now we were touring the streets of New York City…

A while back I somehow found myself visiting the opera. Normally I wouldn’t frequent the opera due to the incredibly long run times, but when my attention was drawn to an opera called ‘From the House of the Dead’ with a run time of only an hour and a half I felt that this was the best opportunity to witness the Metropolitan Opera in all its glory. And certainly in retrospect I’m glad I went, but it was certainly one of the more surreal experiences of my life…the basic setup of the opera in question is a group of prisoners in a bleak Russian prison singing about how they ended up in prison, e.g. ‘I’m in prison because I murdered this bloke’ etc. This is certainly quite interesting but because the opera is sung in Czech it was quite hard to keep an eye on the subtitles in relation to the action – often I would read the subtitles (on the side of the stage) only to find that by the time my eye had returned to the action the scene had changed, meaning that I was constantly slightly behind what was going on…it was worthwhile though and good to experience something different from the norm. The Met Opera House is something else as well – just a little on the spectacular side.

Of note also was the bizarre experience of an impromptu comedy night whilst chilling out in a random bar on second avenue. We were peacefully drinking and chatting when suddenly some bloke stands up with a tiny amp and starts boasting about the fact that he is the host for the comedy night. Clearly nobody in the bar was expecting this change in events as most people either looked confused or angry that this man had interrupted their conversation. The guy must surely have realised that this evidently wasn’t the best time to host a comedy night, but he continued nonetheless and welcomed up the first ‘comedian’ who ended up leaving before he had finished because nobody was really paying attention…it was a little awkward to say the least. After this awkward exit the following comedians got a little more attention, perhaps because they were slightly better, or perhaps because people were feeling bad about the first guy…in the end, when the comedy night actually became a comedy night rather than an uncomfortable interruption it really wasn’t that bad – I may even have laughed.

The subway weirdoes are out in force again. These include the man giving a monotonous commentary to the whole subway car about the state of his two drunk girlfriends, the woman who was trying to sell the worst pirated DVDs in the history of time, the man who seemed to be sleep-eating, the fool who was cycling his bike along the edge of the platform as the train was coming in and the man doing a jig whilst over-engaging in his music. The variety of life is quite something.