Welcome To Brooklyn

It's a Sunday night here in Brooklyn NY and it's been a long week full of excitement, sadness and happiness. I left Chicago Tuesday to begin a new chapter of my life in the Big Apple. As exciting of a time this is, it was bittersweet to hug my parents goodbye at O'hare Airport. I know it wasn't really "goodbye" because I'll be back in Chicago to visit ... but I found myself a little teary as I hugged my dad and walked though the sliding doors and watched my parents drive off. I'm sure they didn't notice I stood there and waved at them as they drove off. I think they just wanted to get the heck out of there! 


Fast forward a couple of days and I've juggled my luggage into my new home. A picturesque brownstone owned by a lovely family. I looked around the empty apartment ... (wait, do I call a floor of a brownstone an apartment?) and had forgotten how big some areas were. When the movers came hours later some of the "stuff" I talked about in my earlier blog, I forgot I even had some of the stuff they unloaded! While I moaned and groaned about where to put my beautiful liquor cabinet that I forgot I decided to take with me ... I texted pics of suggested spots where it could go to my mom. In the end my "stuff" found places and I began to unpack.


But, it's not the unpacking that I'll remember of my first few days of the Brooklyn neighborhood in which I know live. It's the people, the sights, the sounds and the smells. Okay ... they are all good smells! I mean the smell of pizza being cooked in a wood burning oven! YUMMO! The people have all been really nice. Even the homeless person who stands outside Key Foods wishing everyone a, "Happy Holidays! By the way can you spare some change on your way out?" seems nice. But it's the sights that have gotten to me. The Christmas trees being sold on every corner ... walking down the brownstone-lined streets seeing families decorating their stoops for the holidays ... the group of people singing carols down 7th Avenue ... the kids all excited as they leave school ... the shops and restaurants all inviting and different in their own ways. There is a book store that reminds me of the store Meg Ryan's character owned in "You've Got Mail" near me. The huge park near me is also amazing. I can't wait to explore it! Really, though it's the brownstones and walking down the streets and peaking through the windows at the people inside that's been really fun. I guess now I'm one of those people.


I live on a ground floor and my shades are usually pulled up during the day. As I was putting away kitchen utensils the other day a number of kids walking to school with their parents stopped to look in at this new person living in the browstone. I waved at these cute kids. A couple waved back, while others just went on their way to school. But it's something I wouldn't be able to experience on the 26th floor of the condo building in Chicago I used to live in. I also wouldn't be able to smell the yummy food my landlords cook every night above me ... the scents filtering through the vents into my place. 


So, as I drink a glass of wine and watch "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" on my first Sunday night in New York ... I am thankful and excited and nervous about my new adventure in this new city ... I am settling in nicely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R45yoW4wxU&feature=related

**Love the above song. It just happens to be titled "Brooklyn"