Goodbye, New York, it’s been emotional

Start spreading the news. We’re leaving today (well, next week). After three exciting, crazy years, we are leaving New York and returning to London. We’ve experienced New York at its finest, and it’s been way beyond our expectations. As the song goes, in New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there’s nothing you can’t do. And anything is possible. We’ve driven in New York traffic.  We’ve lived under the Obamas and the Trumps. We’ve even made a little New Yorker of our own… Fuhgeddaboudit.

I’ve been chatting about this with C, and interestingly, he says he feels like a New Yorker now, whereas I still feel like an expat. He regularly plans his weekend walks to pass specific coffee shops. You drink coffee, I drink tea, my dear. I’m an English girl in New York…

But it’s been three years, and it is time. Six year old T expressed it perfectly the other day. “We’re excited to be going back, but sad to be leaving. It’s like bitter sweet food.”

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Skating in a winter wonderland

There’s something so iconic about ice skating in New York. It feels like you’re in a film.

Some old friends flew out from London last week, and gave us a great excuse to hit the classic tourist spots. See the Rockafeller Center Christmas tree? Tick. Admire the 5th Avenue window displays? Tick. Go ice skating in Central Park? Tick.  Visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island? Tick. Go out for a bit of live music at Cafe Wha in Greenwich Village? Tick tick tick. It felt v gratifying to be the local rather than the tourist, and made me realise how much of the city I’ve explored and am now a part of.
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