These are a few of our favorite things...

Kendra here. (= Happy Saturday!

Sorry we've been dark for a little while - things have been a bit hectic to say the least...We're slowly but surely getting settled. It's funny how things you take for granted as being so easy to do (ie, run to Target to pick something up) become a whole day trip and multiple subway connections later. Yep, that's right - we braved our first trip to the Target in Brooklyn. The nice part is that the mall it is in is attached to the subway station. The problem is that that subway station is HUGE! We were wandering up and down stairs around that place forever just trying to find the surface. But many hours later we had successfully done Target, and managed to only purchase what we could carry. I think that's the hardest part: you no longer have a whole car to load with your findings - you have your 2 hands or you get a cart. Since we have not yet purchased a hand cart, we're stuck with what we can carry. And somehow we always end up on the subway back right at rush hour, which means everyone around us hates our giant bags as much as we do. Whoops.

Pictures aren't available right now, but we thought we'd compile a little list of our "favorite" things in NYC so far:
- Looking for rats in the subway - they run around on the tracks periodically and it helps distract you from how darn hot it is down there before your nice, air-conditioned train shows up. The bad: Waiting for the R train and seeing well over a dozen rats coming out of a hole in the wall ON THE PLATFORM. Especially when the biggest rat we've ever seen was running straight for us. We immediately scurried to the other end of the platform. Yuck!

- Walking down the street, enjoying the cool afternoon air, and walking by the guy peeing between cars in daylight. But the best was the evening there was a mom telling her little boy it was ok, just go on that car there, no one will see you. Way to go mom, teach them at a young age.

- So you hear it all the time: people in New York are soooo rude. Well, so far, people have been fine. Tourists make walking down the street a little more difficult, but for the most part, everyday people are nice. We found where the rude ones are hiding - in retail stores. Of all the shopping we have done, there have been 3 sales employees who have been friendly (2 of which were at Home Depot, where I think it is a pre-req to being hired). And one of them just moved here from San Diego as well, so I don't think he counts. Maybe someday we'll get over the lack of customer service skills in this city, but really it is just sad.

- The birds, pigeons in particular. They all fly quite close to you, making us both duck our heads when one is coming. For the most part, this is not actually necessary because these birds know where they are going, and want to avoid you as much as you hope they do. However, we encountered a pigeon who had a malfunctioning GPS system: after narrowly missing a collision with our heads, it flew directly into the wheel well of a taxi with a very loud thunk. Whoops. I think it survived, and hopefully walked everywhere for the rest of the day.

I think these are the oddities that make city life so fun. We're certainly taking them in and getting a good laugh.

Sorry if we aren't very good at returning calls so far, but we appreciate the phone calls, messages, emails and comments left. Everyone is so incredibly supportive and excited for us. It's nice when we have our more challenging days to know how much love and support we have. We feel bad, because people call us, all excited, "What are you doing???!!!?" This happened yesterday when I talked to my sister, Nicole. I asked if she would be disappointed to hear we were sitting on the couch watching Jeopardy. Her response was priceless: "That's not disappointing! You are watching Jeopardy on the couch in YOUR apartment in NEW YORK!" Hah. I guess living here means not always being so exciting, but the physical location of NYC adds a level of interest. We're happy to keep sharing the mundane, if you keep finding it interesting. We'll get better at updating more frequently again, we promise. And pictures to follow in a bit - we spent the afternoon at Central Park yesterday, and it is stunning. I can't get over the sheer size of it! Hope all is fabulous with you. (=



NYC Factoid of the day: Most vertical windows in this city open from the bottom...and the top! Did you know that? We certainly didn't...live and learn, right?