Our next move was to a studio apartment in midtown, at 54th and 2nd. Our expectations significantly lowered by our last experience, the fact that this place had an actual bed (as opposed to a slightly wonky and uncomfortable sofa bed, or a blow up mattress situated in the sweatiest room in the whole of NYC), separate sofa (plus two armchairs. Oh the luxury!), effective a/c and proper desk for Mr to set his enormous computer up at, made us both extremely happy. We were in competition with a few other candidates for the apartment, we always are, as the sublet market is surprisingly competitive. Fortunately, our nationality seems to work in our favour, 'oh I love the British, you're so respectful!' they exclaim. I'm not sure they'd think the same if they visited one of our town centres on a Saturday night, but it works in our favour so I'm not complaining.

Our previous host had insisted on a cleaner at the start and end of our stay, for which we had to foot half the cost. Initially I was a bit peeved at this, taking it as a personal affront (I'm f*cking awesome at cleaning. Impressive, aren't I?). However, when we started seeing the cleanliness, or lack of, in other apartments, her reasoning started to make sense. When you're moving into a strangers home, sleeping in their bed, cooking with their kitchenware and bathing in their bathrooms, seeing accumulated grub can be a little stomach churning. To be fair to our midtown host, his place wasn't that bad, just dusty. Trouble is, dust is made up of something like 80% human skin and when that skin belongs to someone you don't know, and is everywhere, it can be a little grim. More on this in a future post, as we've had worse experiences since.

Despite the dust, the fact that we were stuck in one room (not counting tiny little box kitchen and bathroom) and our hosts strange taste in art (one of the pieces on the wall was either super libertarian or worryingly conservative, I never worked out quite which), this was one of our favourite months in New York. As I've mentioned previously, our housing choice was criticised by a colleague of Mr. Apparently none of the cool kids live in midtown anymore. I don't doubt it either, it's so expensive that there's no way most artistic types could afford it. Even a six pack of beer costs $3/4 more than in other areas (yep, I measure areas by the cost of beer, what of it?). The great thing about midtown though is that, like the name suggests, it's in the middle of everything, and walkable to many of the best sights in the city (though, admittedly, bars and restaurants are generally better in lower Manhattan). Walking out of the front door and being in amongst all the skyscrapers of NYC wasn't too bad either. Weirdly though, despite being just around the corner from the New York headquarters of the United Nations, midtown is WHITE. The only people who weren't as whitebread as the Brady's seen regularly tended to be working and didn't seem to live in the area. Not to sound like a city wanker, but I'm used to diversity and I prefer it. Happily, where we moved next changed this right up. Till next time my darlings!

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