h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

so here i am in the big apple. it is, as expcted, quite different from the big easy. the most noticable difference is the cold, which i am getting used to. i saw snow for the first time a few days ago, but it has sonce melted. it was only an inch or two and i have been informed that "that's npthing" and "wait till it snowws a lot. you'll hate it." the people here are different too. it's like they all have some samurai code of honor. in new orleans it was 'to each his own', which is probably why there are so many degenerates there, but it also fosters originality and uniqueness. here, i've never heard the word RESPECT used so much. if you get drunk and accidentally insult someone, it's a matter of respect, rather than of being too drunk as it is in new orleans. if you forget to do the dishes until the morning after, you have disrespected someone. as you may expect, i have been biting my tongue a lot; talking s**t is just sport in new orleans, but it's a very serious affair up here. i'm living on staten island. it's part of new york city proper, but manhattan is what people think when they think new york. and it's such an affair to go there. you have to get on the ferry, which takes half an hour to get to manhattan, and then ride subways. people said i might be overwhelmed by the bigness of the city but that's really not the case. the buildings are so tall you can only focus on one block at a time. and you don't get to see much of the city if you're going somewhere in particular. you get off the ferry and hed underground to the subway. then you pop up a few blocks from where you want to be. you spend most of your traveling time underground, and there's not much to see down there.
i don't have a job yet, which is depressing. but it's all my own doing. i haven't even looked yet. people have told me to watch out where i get a job since some of the neighborhoods are dangerous, but i don't know where is a good location and where isn't and it's so defeating to not know stuff that i've been too depressed to look. and it's so cold, it all but discourages exploring. but i'm going into the city tonight. i like it there.
another wierd thing is all the ethnicity. maybe i just didn't notice it in new orleans cuz pretty much everybody's cajun. but in new orleans if your name's flannagan, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're irish. but your last name pretty much dicataes your identity here. and everybody speaks more than one language. i went to the mall and saw people speaking everything from spanish to russian. it's kind of intimidating cuz i feel like i'm the only cajun in new york.
ryan's been very good at making me feel at home, and his friends are really nice and generally good people. he recognizes that i feel bad about not knowing anything here and, knowing my independent nature, has done a good job of reminding me that i'm a capable person and that i can go out and find everything myself. this is nice, but sometimes he brings that up at the wrong time, when i'm too overwhelmed and don't have the energy or focus to go out and do the trial-and-error thing. but pretty much i've been getting by.
the things i miss the most are , aside from my family and all, the food (of course), the giant live oak trees that line carrollton avenue where i used to live, people who prefer to be friendly and accidetntally bother someone or waste time than to be efficient and fast and keep to onesself and be bored, the food, and how close everything is to everything else. i also miss the fact that the bars stay open in new orleans 24 hours and you can buy liquor anytime at just about any store. here, the bars have last call, which is wierd to me, and though you can buy beer anywhere you have to buy liquor at liquor stores which close at ten every day and don't even open on sundays. which sucks for me cuz i don't drink beer.
but all in all i'm having fun and am very close to being used to this being my new home.

'The only cajun in New York' sounds like a book.