I recently went to New York City for vacation and to visit friends. I have to say New York is a blast and would be a great place to live for awhile and I am thinking about making the move, but it would be awhile, as New York is very expensive. A 600-700 square feet little apartment can cost like $1300 a month, and there’s a city tax besides the state tax. Basically I would need to make twice what I make now salary-wise to be able to live up there comfortably.

I was up there for a whole week and I went everywhere it seems. I got one of those one week subway passes and I am glad I did as the fare is $2.00 a pop; I would’ve spent over $50 at least if I had not gotten it.

My main reason for going up there to look at art. New York is literally the art capital of the world as they say. I went to the Chelsea district and I couldn’t believe all the art galleries there were. There must’ve been like over 200 galleries in a 5 block area. And of course I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is an incredible repository of all sorts of art. It was so big I could not get through it all it one day. New York would be a great place to grow and sell my art.

East Village was my favorite area of Manhattan, having a lot of cool places to shop and go like record stores, clothing and clubs. I even found Roman Polanski’s The Tenant on dvd, which I have been looking for for years without luck. A lot of the cool clubs were in the lower East Village. My friend Johnray, who I stayed with mostly, took me to this one club called the Slipper Room, which is primarily a cabaret club. We also went to see some awesome bands like Moi.

I also went to see Peeping Tom at the Irving Plaza. Mike Patton is an incredible musician, I always loved Faith No More; I saw his other band Fantamos awhile back but this band blew that away. Best way to describe it is Ghettotech.

I also did some of the more touristy things. I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge one day; it’s one of the most beautiful bridges I’ve ever seen, and offers a breathtaking view of the city once you get halfway. I also went up the Empire State Building, but I wasn’t thinking clearly that day because it was a rainy day so I could not see much at the top.

I did not want to come back to ole Raleigh. There’s so much more fun stuff to do compared to here. If I do move up there it would be at least a year before I could, as I would need to save up money and plan. We’ll see.