People often comment that it’s pretty impressive how Adrian and I manage to spend 99.9% (basically whenever neither of us are pooping) of our time together and can still stand each other. That’s true most of the time, but honestly, every time we get into a major city, like clockwork, we’re at each other’s throats. Maybe it’s the smell. Maybe it’s the crowds. Maybe it’s all the shiny things that we can’t afford or the endless hours on public transit. It’s probably all of the above, but it sucks. We made it through about 12 hours in New York City of hardly talking before giving up and “discussing our differences” in Central Park.

We’ve always said that a goal of this trip was to figure out where we wanted to be in the long term. I think the one conclusion that is becoming quite clear is this: No cities!

We’re now somewhere called Southington, CT and everything is fine. We even got woken up by a police officer at 5am and were completely unfazed. It was a good excuse to get coffee and an opportunity to get some writing done.

Despite all the drama, we did see some cool things in the city. Since this is a travel blog, I’m going to list them off like they were awesome. This is our New York Experience…

Day One: We arrived just as the sun was setting, dropped off right in front of Jeff’s house. Jeff wasn’t expecting us until the next day, but he welcomed us in and made us tea. He was an incredibly nice guy who works very hard to make sure that people visiting internationally have a positive experience in New York. We spent our entire stay in our tent, pitched in his backyard in Queens.

Day Two: Time Square and Central Park! Quintessential NYC introduction.

Day Three: Music and writing in a trendy Long Island City Cafe, followed by drinks with Adrian’s cousin, Kathryn, who we didn’t know existed until a few days previous. That evening, the three of us saw a concert in Madison Square and walked the high line as the sun went down.

Day Four: A morning bike ride through Queens to get vegetables at a local grocer and bagels at a local bakery. We brought them back and ate them while hanging out with Jeff. Then, after several hours of misadventure, we ended up on the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. Very majestic. On Staten Island, I touched the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in my life. Before we went home for the night, we tried a street vendor pretzel and visited Strand’s Bookstore. Adrian had to drag me out of that last one.

Day Five: Busy museum day! We spent 3 hours each in the Museum of Natural History and the MoMa. It was Friday night, so the MoMa was free, making for some very interesting people watching.

Day Six: In the process of trying to decide what to do in the city that day, we decided just to leave. The last sight we saw of the city was Grand Central— a sight for sore eyes if there ever was one.

Thank you again to Jeff for the home, the bagels and the company! We will hopefully come see you in Oklahoma someday!