Moving to a new city, state, or country can be a real culture shock. But if you want to expand your horizons, pique your curiosity, and throw yourself into a wild adventure, there’s nothing like a dramatic change of scenery. You even get a whole new cast of characters to play with. Acclimating yourself to strange surroundings may not be a piece of cake, but the lessons you learn and the challenges you face make your life even more sweet and delicious.
Enjoy this next excerpt from
by Kristi Lynn Davis
Meanwhile, the pressure was on to find an apartment and a roommate before Ashley returned and kicked me out. That task was reserved for evenings and weekends, my only free time. After living alone in that high-rise tower of terror, I wanted to move as close as possible to the one and only real friend I had in New York, Jenny.
Luck being on my side once again, Jenny’s high school friend, Darlene, ended up needing a roommate. We signed up with a real estate agent, but it still took several weeks to locate an apartment that came with a refrigerator and a landlord who didn’t bite your head off. As if I owned a refrigerator and dragged it around the country with me! We finally found a two-bedroom apartment (with refrigerator) around the corner from Jenny in Astoria, Queens. Immediately, we had to cough up three months’ rent: first, last, and a security deposit. In one fell swoop, I watched a good chunk of my $3000.00 graduation money disappear.
It was worth it, as I was relieved to be settled into a cat-free place I could call home. Living in Astoria was a bit of a culture shock, however, as if I’d moved to a foreign country—mainly Greece. The grocery stores were Greek, the restaurants were Greek, and the people were mostly Greek with a substantial smattering of Italians. The language of choice, therefore, was either Greek or Italian.
Astoria, Queens, 1987
My landlord and landlady were among the Italian contingency. Although they spoke little to no English, I thanked my lucky stars for the affable, ample landlady in an apron-covered floral dress, who always invited me in to eat when I stopped by to pay my rent, even though they were far from rich. She, her husband, two kids, and a visiting cousin all lived together in their modest one-bedroom apartment. Every night they opened the sofa bed in the living room so the kids would have somewhere to sleep.
There was always something delicious, like breaded eggplant parmigiana, cooking on the stove, and the woman would insist I sample it. “Christina, come in! Come in! Eat!” she’d say in her Italian accent, rolling the “r” in “Christina” and motioning me in with an exaggerated hand gesture. My name isn’t Christina but, somewhat fond of my special Italian moniker, I never bothered to correct her. Sometimes Mrs. Landlady would even make me sit and watch soap operas with her as we munched on her homemade, gooey, sweet, Italian dough-ball dessert. It was futile to argue with the woman, so I ended up taking my rent check to her only when I was hungry. Her husband, the landlord, was the one who did any maintenance needed on the apartment. Since he spoke only Italian, it was a game of charades telling him what needed fixing. If I were really desperate to communicate, I had to get one of the children to interpret.
My new roommate, Darlene, was a beautiful, Bohemian blonde and much more worldly than I given that she had, like Jenny, grown up in Manhattan. She was a food photographer for the prominent advertising agency Young and Rubicam. Impressive. Her family and all her friends from school lived in town, so I didn’t see a lot of her. Plus, I was just plain shy, so for the most part, we lived separate lives.
Even so, it was rarely quiet around our place, which was located on the second floor of a building that housed twelve units. The acoustics were perfect for amplifying the sounds of the kids roller skating in the apartment above us. And the building next to us sat so close that we could hear our neighbor gargling and spitting out his mouthwash in his bathroom sink. We probably could have reached out the window and borrowed toothpaste. It was a tad too close for comfort.
The interior of the apartment was nice enough: two bedrooms separated by a small kitchen and living room, all with hardwood floors. Thankfully, Darlene already owned furniture for the kitchen and living room, so all I had to furnish was my bedroom. The only “furniture” I had brought with me from Michigan was a cheap, blue, foam chair of sorts that unfolded and converted into a horribly uncomfortable excuse for a bed. While a testimony to the creative ways to push the limits of foam, and certainly sufficient for crashing on in a drunken stupor, as a regular resting place, this contraption only added to the discomfort of my aching body. Hence, getting a proper bed was first on my home decor agenda. But how was I going to get a bed up to my second floor apartment? Not a problem in New York. I ordered a twin bed by dialing 1-800-mattres, and it was delivered and assembled for me.
A real, honest-to-goodness bed that could give me a good night’s sleep? Check. My clothes, however, were still housed in cardboard boxes, and newspapers hung in lieu of curtains. For a while, I had lived without any window coverings at all until I noticed the peeping Tom spying on me from the apartment building behind ours. Creepy! (From the safety of my current Midwestern home, my much-more-mature self now realizes that it may be perfectly natural to curiously gaze at a neighbor on display in an unadorned window; who doesn’t love to observe fish in a fishbowl?) Whether he was actually a peeping creep or not, it behooved me to shell out some cash for legitimate window treatments.
Discovering an absence of any home goods stores near me in Queens, I was forced shop in Manhattan. After an exhausting and extensive search, which would have been an easy trip to Target or Kmart back home in the Midwest, I found affordable bamboo blinds and three large wicker baskets with lids to store clothes and other belongings. Success! Ah, but then I had to get them back to Astoria.
On the interminable trudge to the N-train, my sore arms strained to prevent my precariously perched purchases from toppling out of their tower. Boarding the subway was no less an ordeal; I could barely see where I was going because of the big basket blockade. Every subway car that arrived was too full for me to squeeze onto anyway. I had to wait and wait and wait until a sufficiently empty car arrived. Once aboard, I sweated nervously as people stared and gave me the evil eye for taking up too much space and having the nerve to move to Their City. I knew they were thinking, “Who gave you the right to come here and transport home goods on our crowded subway?” I quickly scanned the walls for a list of rules stating that “under no uncertain terms are large hampers allowed,” for that was the non-verbal communication I was getting from the other passengers. I longed to drive a car to Target and get the things I needed with ease. Once at home, I plopped down on my dial-a-bed, exhausted and wondering if I should have stuck with cardboard boxes and newspapers.
My neighborhood peeping Tom spooked me to such an extent that I began planning ways to save myself if he ever showed up at my doorstep. At least there was a police station at the end of our block if someone came after me, I reassured myself. Just when I was building up my confidence, Jenny and I got flashed by a stereotypic and unimaginative flasher in a long raincoat and boots with nothing underneath. Jenny automatically shouted profanities at him, but I just stood frozen until she grabbed my arm and briskly lead me away. My nerves were rattled.
Other than peeping Toms and the occasional free peep-show, Astoria wasn’t much of a happening night spot. So on the rare evenings when we weren’t too tired, Jenny and I made our way back to Manhattan for after-hours alcoholic adventures. Jenny often preferred to patronize either the discreet, dark and shady Russian bar whose name I’ve long forgotten where, like clandestine spies, we’d watch for high-class drug deals going down and Russian mafia swapping messages; or, when feeling less detective-y and more festive, a colorful Mexican joint, Tortilla Flats, for margaritas and free chips and salsa.
The downside to venturing into Manhattan was that Jenny wouldn’t always return to Queens with me afterwards. I dreaded having to take a subway alone in the wee hours, so I was forced to spend a fortune for a cab. Late one such evening, my driver was an Evil Knievel wannabe who gave me the taxi ride of death. I nervously rattled off directions, so he would know I knew the way home. My NYC friends had warned me of drivers who’d scam you by taking you the long way to hike up the fare. Unfortunately, he spoke no discernible English, or he pretended not to speak much English. When he started whizzing to Queens at speeds that would break the sound barrier, I wondered if I should demand to be let out. But I was drunk and tired, and anxious to get home, so I decided that I would either die or get home really fast. Fate was kind that night.
Just learning how to catch a taxi was tricky. There should be a school that teaches people not only how to hail one, but also how to give directions in grunts and hand signals to all the non-English speaking cabbies. You really had to be bold, wave your hand high in the air, and claim your space when the other, more experienced New Yorkers were standing alongside you competing for the next taxi. Unlike at the deli counter, on the street you couldn’t take a number and be waited on in turn. It was survival of the fittest. I stood on my tiptoes creating the illusion of being larger, waved my arm wildly like everyone else, leaned out into oncoming traffic (always maintaining readiness to pull back when a raging semi was about to decapitate me), and prayed that some taxi would stop.
And the fight didn’t finish when the cab stopped in front of you. Everyone within a ten-foot radius would madly dash to the cab as if it were theirs and compete for the opportunity to fling open the doors and sit down. Truly, I think the rule is that whoever’s butt meets that dirty, black, cracked leather first wins the cab ride. Squatter’s rights. After doing the mad taxi dance for several cabs off duty or already full of passengers, I realized that only the cabs with the light on the top were available. And don’t be fooled by those fancy ladies in full-length minks and high heels. They are the best and most fearless taxi hailers of all. I lost out to them every time.
Kristi Lynn Davis & Jenny goofing around, New York City, 1987
While I found flagging down a taxi to be distressingly difficult, it was easy for my city-slicker friend, Jenny. Jenny grew up in a multimillion-dollar “loft” (another new term for me) on 5th Avenue and 15th Street within walking distance of New York University where her eccentric British father was a computer professor. Around the corner from their home, a mob of dark-haired men with Indian accents stood on the sidewalk in front of their stores hawking electronic appliances and knock-off designer bags and watches. Jenny’s building had eleven floors, and her family’s loft, which was the entire top floor, had its own stop on the elevator. Being on the top floor, they had put in sunroofs and a roof garden making their space that much more valuable. The loft’s 3600 square feet included three bedrooms and a small ballroom that housed a pipe organ and other unusual musical instruments. Famous actress Uma Thurman lived in the loft below them.
I, on the other hand, grew up in a suburban Midwestern neighborhood as white as Wonder Bread. My father was a physicist at Ford Motor Company. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. Old, widowed, not-famous-in-any-way Mrs. Barnett lived next door to us.
Our dissimilarities didn’t end there. Unlike me, Jenny was an outspoken feminist. She flat out refused to allow guys to hold doors open for her or pay for her meals. But that didn’t stop her from appreciating men in the bedroom. “You know, Kristi, you’d be a better dancer if you had sex,” Jenny said in all honesty one day. She laughed at the absence of a working male organ in my life. Her parents permitted her to have her boyfriends spend the night. In their home. In her room. With her. My parental training in sex came from a book about a boy and his puppy who grew up to be a man and his dog, and a girl and her kitty who grew up to be a woman and her cat. The man and woman ended up in the same bed and, magically, a baby appeared. I don’t know what happened between the dog and the cat. Jenny learned about sex from field experience in her own home.
Jenny also constantly made fun of me, because I had been a cheerleader in high school and a sorority girl in college, two institutions she absolutely abhorred. She was stunned that I had any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Had I been homeless, black, handicapped, gay, Jewish, or Latino, she would have accepted me wholeheartedly. Having attended a multiculturally-mixed high school, she was proud of her non-prejudicial attitude. But she couldn’t see past the stereotype of cheerleader and sorority girl.
Maybe she saw our differences as a challenge, but she took me under her wing, like the city mouse to the country mouse. As a native New Yorker, she had an attitude of superiority and was eager to teach me about the Best City in the World, the correct way to live, and the proper way to eat pizza. “Kristi, this is real pizza,” Jenny exclaimed leading me into a take-out pizza joint in Manhattan. “It’s got thin crust, not that thick crap you get in the Midwest.” She showed me how New Yorkers eat it on the run by folding it in half and nibbling from the tip up to the crust. That was the only genuine pizza and the only way to eat it. Practicing her principles, I professed that the pie was pretty tasty. Pretty tasty, indeed.
You don’t need to make a drastic move across the country to jazz up your life. Try the new Thai restaurant. Take a belly dance class. Go to the opera. Meditate at a Buddhist Temple. Ask an octogenarian to tell you his life story. Buy a slinky, red dress from the thrift store and go salsa dancing. Life’s an adventure if you choose it to be. Thanks for reading.
Cha-cha-cha on,
Kristi
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