New York is an incredibly interesting mix of old and new.
The juxtaposition of shiny new modern shops (vegan ice cream and crepes, cashless only, don’t even use cards just pay with your phone) for the most millennial-ish among us, to the corner bodega that looks like it’s been there since 1914 and maybe hasn’t been cleaned in half those years.
But the most startling example of the intersection of old and new is within apartments themselves.
I moved to a new Airbnb today and it’s teaching me a lot about judging a book by its cover.
It’s sparsely decorated, not a lot of aesthetic appeal to speak of, old, and overall just really bare bones.
However, every door has a keypad lock, and the lights are all motion activated, and there’s a roomba sitting in the living room.
However.
The most startling off all is in the bathroom.
Let me tell ya, folks.
There is no feeling quite like the feeling of waking up at 3 am after falling asleep from a literal food coma due to consuming obscene amounts of fried chicken, stumbling blurry-eyed to the broom closet of a bathroom in the large Airbnb that you’re supposedly inhabiting alone but can’t 100% confirm, only to have the lid of the toilet seat spring up on its own volition at the same exact time that the long-forgotten motion-sensing living room lights turn on behind you causing an instant knot of terror, dread, and an acute awareness in your bladder of why you got up in the first place.
Anyway, happy Labor Day everybody.