I got myself an apartment today... and genuine NYC parking ticket... I feel like a real New Yorker now, geez...

First and foremost, I have an apartment, it is awesome (and surprisingly spacious) and come August the doors are open and folks should totally come visit.

I drove there today and unloaded my car of everything I've been living off of for the past six months in Baltimore and D.C.

In doing so, I was reminded why I don't plan on keeping my car in New York.

So, I have my car in the city for not even 24 hours before I got a parking ticket. That's efficiency, I'll tell you what.

I got a parking ticket for breaking the Alternate Street Parking Law... everybody's familiar with that, right? Of course you are.

Twice a week on each side of the street, there is a time set aside for the street cleaners to come by and clean that side of the street... this creates an hour and a half window for the parking police to go hog wild. (I.E. Monday and Wednesday from 11:30 to 1:00 one side of the street has to be cleared and the same for the other side on Tuesday and Thursday... after some searching I found a sign explaining it on another street... I assume there was one somewhere on the street I was parked on too)

So folks are supposed to know (and most locals do apparently) these two windows each week when they need to move their cars and which streets are impacted when.

When I parked there were cars in front and back of me... in fact, the guy in the car behind me made fun of my feeble parallel parking skills...

"Wow, you really are from Florida, aren't you?" he yelled from his car and chuckled (friendly-like)

I can't even park in a straight-spot... so parallel parking, psh... hell to the no. Some of you have probably had the joy of watching me try to parallel park (and consequently the shame of having to buy new underwear afterwards due to peeing yourself from laughing)

Sure enough though, I come back from taking a load of stuff up to my new apartment to find that all the other nearby cars had moved to doublepark on the other side of the street and find a $45 ticket right on the hood of my car. Awesome. I guess it's kind of a rite of passage for the city, right?

Sure... something like that...

It totally just reminded me of the episode of the Simpsons where Homer's car ends up at the Twin Towers... and his flashback to his trip to the city.



My trip has actually been pretty awesome so far, unlike poor Homer's though... no pimps or C.H.U.D.s yet... as far as I know...

In case you're wondering, the area they are parodying is right where I've been staying. He starts at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, which is the subway stop I've been taking to work every morning. That portrayal of here is pre-Guiliani though. Locals refer to the 90's as the "Disneyfication" of this area into the tourist-friendly area it is today.

Oh well, that's why I'm taking the car in Florida when I go down for the family reunion/cruise and not bringing it back.

I picked up the car the Lisa's and brought it into Midtown late Monday night and by the time I leave early Wednesday I figured out it will have cost me more than $100 to have my car in the city for that time taking into account pleasing the law, paying garage fees and of course the ubiquitous tolls. I'm not counting gas money at all.

Also, I did a little more exploring of my new neighborhood, and it looks like I will definitely get to practice my Spanish... which I think will actually be neat.

I looked at a sign for a nearby bar special: "Dos por uno cervezas, 5-10, Viernes!" ... I had to reach a little to remember that Viernes = Friday.

Se donde voy a ser muchos Viernes!


Well...I'm heading for Florida first thing tomorrow... and I don't really know if I'll post before the cruise... we'll see... so if I don't, I probably won't post for another week and a half... so have a good week and a half - I know I will :)