{"id":386,"date":"2007-07-02T23:19:43","date_gmt":"2007-07-03T03:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.livingingin.com\/?p=386"},"modified":"2011-07-17T03:00:31","modified_gmt":"2011-07-17T07:00:31","slug":"arrival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.livingingin.com\/?p=386","title":{"rendered":"Arrival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, I&#8217;ve been in NYC for about 24 hours now, and I finally have a minute to catch my breath after running all over the place for errands and official Columbia business.<\/p>\n<p>I left Chicago around 5:30 PM on Saturday (a few hours later than I was hoping, but oh well), spent the night near Cleveland, and got into NYC around 3:30 yesterday afternoon. Aside from the usual traffic delays around Chicago and NYC and some construction delays in Pennsylvania, the trip was uneventful. As of yesterday, at one time or another I have moved from Chicago to each of the three biggest cities in the northeast: Chicago to Boston in 2000, Chicago to Philly in 2002, and Chicago to NYC in 2007.<\/p>\n<p>Funny how each time I moved back to Chicago, it didn&#8217;t take me long to remember why I left in the first place&#8230; Never say &#8220;never,&#8221; of course, but this time I have the feeling that I&#8217;ve finally left Chicago for good. Maybe I would have felt more inclined to stay in Chicago if I had a better job there or if all my old friends there hadn&#8217;t gotten married, started having kids, and\/or moved away or if there were better education options for me there. Oh well&#8230; I&#8217;ll always have some fondness for Chicago, but for now I&#8217;m just glad to be out.<\/p>\n<p>Upon arrival at Columbia University I got my housing assignment, which is for a fairly large private room within a suite on 113th Street. Nothing special, but it will suffice. So far my cat seems to be handling dorm life without any problems. He&#8217;s behaved very well throughout the trip.<\/p>\n<p>Today I dropped my car off at a garage over in Newark, took PATH back into the city, did some paperwork for Columbia housing, got my Columbia ID, and took care of a few other odds and ends.<\/p>\n<p>Last night I was able to take a stroll around Greenwich Village, and today I did some walking around the financial district&#8230; I had forgotten just how much of a sensory overload this city can be. There&#8217;s usually something interesting to see no matter what direction you&#8217;re looking&#8230; It&#8217;s thrilling when you first arrive here, but it can become wearisome after a while&#8230; I think the secret to staying sane in NYC is to have some sort of escape destination outside the city you can head to when things get crazy here.<\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t decided yet, but tomorrow I may head down to Philadelphia while I still have my car and some free time&#8230; It&#8217;s been a while since I&#8217;ve been back there, and it would be nice to see the old stomping grounds again. And one of these days I&#8217;ll make it up to Boston for a visit&#8230; I haven&#8217;t set foot in that city since 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, I&#8217;ve been in NYC for about 24 hours now, and I finally have a minute to catch my breath after running all over the place for errands and official Columbia business. I left Chicago around 5:30 PM on Saturday (a few hours later than I was hoping, but oh well), spent the night near [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[108,112,102],"tags":[139,65,43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingingin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingingin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingingin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingingin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingingin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingingin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingingin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingingin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingingin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}