If living in New York is your dream

Wow, I always find it so awkward to write a piece about myself. In America, they are very good at shameless self-promotion, but after almost two years of living in New York, I still can't get the hang of it.

In the summer of 2017, my parents dropped me off with five suitcases in the East Village where I had paid a ridiculously high deposit for a room I had never seen. I knew exactly two people in a city of eight million and was about to start a master's in journalism at NYU. You get it: I was nervous.

Living in New York had been a dream for years. I had spent two summers there: once for an English course and once to take a few bachelor classes at NYU. I hoped that those summers were enough to scratch the itch, but it made me hungry for more. I really wanted to be part of this city. I wanted to call myself a New Yorker, have subscriptions to my favorite New York magazines delivered to a New York address, see the seasons change, and go where the non-tourists go.

Additionally, I felt that I still had a lot to learn in the field of journalism. And where better to do that than in the media capital of the world? Exactly. The application process was long and stressful, but ultimately successful.

Amayzine and Bo Roobol deserve credit for my choice to fully dive into this process. Why, you ask? I have been an Amayzine reader for years (I annoyingly often wrote ‘amayzine’ instead of ‘amazing’ and genuinely didn't understand why there was a red line under my word) and every time I read Bo's pieces and saw photos, it started to itch again. Then I got a little jealous and thought: why am I not there? Eventually, that changed to: I need to go back, and now for real. So I did. And now I have my master's in hand and I'm writing here (from the apartment that fortunately wasn't a scam) pieces for this and that.

So thank you, Amayzine. Thanks to you, I started this amayzine amazing experience. It feels especially fitting and special that you now let me write for you about this magical city.

For the aforementioned reason, I will keep talking about myself to a minimum. I will act as your New York reporter and tell you everything about what is happening here, what there is to experience, and what it is like to live here.

Speak soon,

almost went under this week, I genuinely see her going far. Being very understanding and shit, but in the meantime... Oh and An, can you explain to me how that works with those braids? I find it amazing.