It was in 2006 when I came to New York for the first time. The plane was landing at JFK airport and the view I saw from the window amazed me. It was after sunset and all of New York was shining like the lights on a Christmas tree. That day I decided to be a part of New York, as Frank Sinatra said. I moved to New York in 2010 and it has been five years since I came to Big Apple. Even though living in New York is not easy and there are many difficulties, I have had more good experiences than bad ones. On the one hand, it was so difficult at the beginning to adjust the city.
Because deciding to live in a new place much more different and difficult than just visiting there for short time. Immediately, I had to find a place to stay and a job to afford all living expenses. I stayed with my cousin for couple of days than a friend of mine who I know him from Turkey said that I could move to his place. I stayed at his place just for three months because he gave me living room and it was always very noisy and I did not have any privacy. Until I found a good place, I had to change couple of more places. Another primary thing was finding a job.
Even though I had a long working experience in back home, it was so difficult to found job especially an immigrant and no experience about the city. My first job in New York was a server position at a Turkish restaurant. With long experience and worked at different positions, it was not easy to accept working as a server. However, I had to work and I did not have another option. Nevertheless, beside these problems most difficult problem was adjusting the language and the culture. I worked at tourism industry for long time and I thought my English is good enough until started to live in New York.
But first couple of months I even had problem when buying a coffee at Starbucks. For instance, I didn’t hear the terms and kinds of coffee that they use when I am buying a coffee. I still have problem with cultural differences. The culture which I was born and grew up is completely different. In the culture where I came from, people are share and help each other, friendship is very important and friend do anything for friend, we know all our neighborhoods who are they and what they do and even neighbors know about us. But in New York, people are very far each other and every person is only a stranger and nobody trust to anybody.
All these problems made very difficult to get used to living in New York. On the other hand, there are lot of good things that New York gave me as well. Four and half years ago, I met my wife through a common friend and we decided to get married just few months later. After we got married, we have moved to our current apartment and lately we have been looking for to buy our first home. Moreover, the best thing happened in my entire life almost two years ago, I became a father. My wife gave me the best gift, our son. This is a kind of feeling that nothing else can give same feeling again ever.
In addition, I finally got a very good job after all suffering and struggling. I am very thankful to God for gave me all these beauties and hopefully they could last forever. Overall, New York is one of the most expensive and difficult city to live but in same time gives a lot of opportunity. I also suffered a lot at the beginning even now there are many problems I have to handle, but New York taught me a lesson which is we have to know to be happy with whatever we got and even if we get more than what we expected that will make us more happier.
