New York City, the Big Apple, home of celebrities, rock stars, Broadway musicals, and Fashion Avenue, one of the liveliest cities in the United States. Compare that to Seattle with the Space Needle and the mountains, the trees everywhere you look, and one of the dampest places in the country.
I think Seattle wins by a landslide.The trees, the views, the mountains, the population density – I just like it better.
I just got back from the Big Apple. I was there the whole first week of school for a Model United Nations Conference. We stayed at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Broadway. It was a pretty ritzy hotel – Ricky Martin was there and so was Nicki Minaj. We saw Snoop Dog, and a rapper named Mario as well. The whole ninth floor was cordoned off for celebrities. We were in the middle of the action.
And it was a cool place to visit, a really cool place. But I think I’d die if I lived there. The city environment just isn’t for me.
I have to admit, I liked being a walking distance away from everything. I liked the grid layout and how easy it was to navigate in NY. Yes, there were one-way-streets, but those one-way-streets were logical and next to other one-way-streets that went the same way. The hustle and bustle of the city was completely foreign to me but a really interesting change of pace.
Yep, it was super cool to visit there. But I’ll take the Pacific Northwest to live in. I love the trees, the mountains, the space, and living on a two-acre property in the middle of the woods.
Maybe one of the things about NY that seemed the most weird to me was as strange as it was because I come from the woods – in downtown New York City you had to walk to a designated park to see a tree. Skyscrapers were abundant; trees were scarce. I have to admit, that weirded me out. I’m so used to trees that I find them sort of comforting. Not having any trees around was just so different from what I’m used to that it freaked me out a little at first.
I could see how people could love the city life, though. Everything right there – the convenience was unbelievable. You never had to worry about driving places or losing $200 a month on gas – though that isn’t to say you didn’t need to worry about getting killed by traffic, because those drivers don’t really care that much about pedestrians. It was in its own way a beautiful place – a magnificent feat of modern scientific architecture. The shiny towering buildings were really impressive.
My favorite things about the city were the parts with history – the old building that was the New York Public Library, the Statue of Liberty – and the parts with natural beauty – Bryant Park and Central Park. I have to say, I was in love with the library. I could have stayed there all day.
But at the end of the day, I’d rather live in this area than anywhere else, even with its rain, random snow showers and constant cloud cover. I love the trees, the mountain ranges that are everywhere you look, and of course the solitary beauty of Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helen’s. I can ski, camp, backpack and river raft here.
Guess I’m just not a city girl, ‘cause I’ll take the mountains over the Big Apple.