Arrival

So here I am. I have spent the past few weeks peeking into other people's lives, be it my corporate friends' in Prague or the good doctors of Lille, France but now I am in New York and I am getting a peak of what my life might be if I had the luck and willingness to finally embrace a life of sorts. So for the record, in one week I managed to do:

- 1 weekend with my married/pregnant and yet cool friends in Connecticut at a 18th century mansion of a 60 year-old psychiatrist named Elizabeth, who happens to be my friends' neighbour and catsitter;
- 2 great dinners at French restaurants that are better than the Parisian ones;
- 1 afternoon of jobsearching with a friend getting snobbed by irritating American restaurant middle managers (him being snobbed, not me, of course; added bonus: the re-realization that I could NEVER do anything other than eating in those restaurants)
- 1 night out in the East Village with the Hungarian crowd listening to gypsy music in the one bar where you can actually still smoke;
- 1 pretty good celebrity sighting (Liv Tyler) with eye contact and all - albeit in the middle of a torrential rainfall;
- 1 wonderful PINK MARTINI concert at the Central Park summer stage - coupled with being soaked again by said torrential rainfall;
- 1 accidental run-in to a good friend from London;
- 1 vintage store hunting shopping trip with French-Togolese girl-friend from Paris (extra condiment: loud-mouthed English woman working in the fashion industry);
- sunbathing in Central park; and
- various deep(ish) conversations about race, work, the US, the EU, Hungarian culture and politics, etc).

This seems to be a pretty accurate list of all that's happened but doesn't include the numerous coffees, drinks and lunches that were all in their own way special and exciting. New York is truly that kind of a place where if you are open enough but don't expect much you can be amazed at almost every moment of your wandering through the city.

What I have yet to find out is whether I can make some sense of it all and settle - at least for a while.