#NoFilter - Unedited Ramblings

I think I just had a breakdown at a salad bar. I popped in for a cheap sandwich but got distracted by the most exciting salad bar ever – it had everything you could EVER want on a salad. It was all the excesses of the American Dream portrayed through salad, the perfect metaphor for New York. However $12 later (sob) I’ve learned a valuable lesson and come to realise that just because you’re offered all your favourite salad ingredients, it doesn’t necessarily mean they should all be served together.

Apart from the usual leafy greens I also included tuna (with cranberries!?), hummus, too many types of grain, falafel, kale (it seemed like a NY fashion babe thing to do?), about 8 varieties of cheese (remarkably less fashion babe) and some sort of big green pea. I topped off this master piece (horror show) with about three types of dressing. What an absolute car crash.

The whole experience felt very NYC though – especially as while I was eating it the man sat next to me was sharpening his chopsticks to tackle his intimidating looking sushi and the woman opposite was literally and loudly sobbing about ‘learning to accept her limitations as a human being.’ Awkward. Bizarre. New York.

I’ve been here for 24 hours but other experiences that have made me feel like I'm in an episode of Girls include:

-Seeing a rat crawl across the subway tracks. Horrific.
-Speedily jumping back from the curb so I didn’t get splashed by the tidal wave of water caused by a passing yellow cab.
-Writing this blog in one of the grand reading rooms of the absolutely beautiful New York Public Library and daydreaming that I'm here because I'm a struggling NY writer who can't afford the heating in her hip Williamsburg warehouse apartment. Delusional.

Apart from the salad bar hysteria, I’ve been holding it together pretty well. Oh…except last night – when my only pair of shoes in a 700+ mile radius snapped whilst I was shopping, meaning I had to send the staff on a wild goose chase for sellotape (or “scotch tape”) as they call it) in order to do an emergency repair job to tide me over. Very Bridget Jones. Pitiful. At least I got to make the most of that famous American customer service without buying anything.

I've visited so many lush forests and idillic beaches where it was totally acceptable (and actively encouraged) to embrace the hippy barefooted lifestyle but of course the only place I found myself shoeless was a dirty New York City 'sidewalk.' Gap Year Glamour.