Happy & Healthy
8 X HOW TO ACT LIKE A NEW YORKER
The past four days my beloved and I were in my favorite city New York. We ended up walking about eighteen kilometers every day because we felt like sitting around would be a complete waste. Okay, with pitstops at terraces every now and then, but we even felt as though shopping would be a waste of our precious NY time. I can do that in Amsterdam too if I wanted to. But I had to go into the city and eat and observe everything. What I wanted to discover? How to act like a real New Yorker and to avoid the question “Hey guys, where are you from?”
1. Hair and nails
A New Yorker refuses to leave the front door without a good head of hair and polished nails. Every street corner has a blow dry-bar and a stuffy floor with a legion of Chinese ladies ready to give you the perfect mani’s and pedi’s. The je-ne-sais-quoi-style of the French won’t work here. These women know what they want.
2. Flat shoes
This doesn’t mean all they have is sneakers, but a New Yorker walks around and wears a lot of flat shoes. Not a sneaker fanatic, then you’ll wear Charlotte Olympia flats with a cute cat face on them or the popular Valentino flats with studs, or the popular Gucci loafers or my Miu Miu ballerina’s of course.
“That female cooing noise? They don’t do it here.”
3. Call
Look, this is what separates the locals from the tourists. A tourist never really spends time calling. They’re too busy posing nonchalantly as they cross the street with a yellow cab in the background. Besides, if you’re from a different country, intercontinental calls are expensive plus you have a difference in time to keep in mind. So want to act like a local? Call. Preferably not with your hand holding your phone against your ear, but with headphones so your hands are free for other New York accessories…
4. …a dog
Preferably a big one. Because a tourist would never take a dog with them when they’re off on a weekend trip. A big dog shows that you live there and that you’re probably rich because you have plenty of space for such a huge animal.
5. Carry your dry cleaning
When you go to get your laundry done as a tourist, you usually get it done in the hotel that you’re staying at because you don’t really know where else you would go. The ladies of New York always drop their clothes off at their favorite dry cleaners. Nonchalantly on the phone while walking down the street, dog leash in your left hand and your dry cleaning on the other. Can’t go wrong here.
“And if you add ‘you guys’ after every single sentence…”
6. Talk loud and low
When you’re in SoHo, you talk like you want everyone in TriBeCa to hear you. You talk loud, you laugh loud. That female cooing noise? They don’t do it here. You’re either one of the guys, or you’re not. Okay…
7. Hate Manhattan
Whereas the Parisians are proud of their classics and still go to Café de Flore or Angelina, New Yorkers look down on all the things we still find cool about the city. Hanging out in Mercer Street? You’ll never find them there. In the mood to go shopping at Victoria’s Secret? So over it. Thought you were in Harlem? Haha, old news. So want to play it safe as a wannabe New Yorker, pretend like everything you secretly enjoy is ‘over’ and you’ll be fine.
8. Over exaggerate
Not ‘cool’, but ‘epic’, not ‘in love’, but ‘obsessed’, not ‘well done’, but ‘amazing’. And if you add ‘you guys’ after every single sentence, you’ll easily pass off as a born and raised New Yorker.
