Philadelphia to New York City

Philadelphia to New York City

It is now high time to sink or to swim.

The tenure on my stay in Philadelphia has now expired and it is time to again depart along that long urban corridor up to the Big City.

I am now packing up the Kelty rucksack and the North Face messenger bag for the final haul into New York City. I am moving there for the next 14 weeks and I am going to keep my living circumstances mobile.

I feel most comfortable when I am always able to leave, to move, to travel at my whim.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Philadelphia, PA, USA- September 8, 2008
Travelogue — Travel Photos
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So I have temporarily given up the hunt for an apartment. Commitments are restrictions, and I would gladly give up the comfort and security of my own room for the freewill that I have become accustom to. It is my impression that I am a very spoiled man.

To rent in New York City will mean that I will have to work continuously. $600 to $700 a month for a measly room in someone’s apartment that I do not know is a measure of money that would take a lot of effort to come by every month. To work full time as well as go to school full time as well as writing full time would be a load that I do not know if my back could bear. My usually total travel budget is usually less than $400 a month; perhaps it is folly to double this just because I am in expensive circumstances? I know that I cannot buy my path to comfort in New York, but I also know that expenses are arbitrary. It is a higher priority for me to really discover the underside of a place rather than to live comfortably in it; it is a higher priority for me to engage myself fully in my final school projects than it is to have a place to live regularly, continuously, and well.

I will try this initial modus operandi just to find out where it takes me. If a room falls in my Path that I can afford then I will of course take it, if not I will keep my feet moving.

For the next three and a half months the New York City area will be my entire world, and I shall travel it as such. From Staten Island up to Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, clean up to the Bronx, my stomping zone has been slabbed down to a single metropolis that is suppose to the top-side representative of human culture on planet earth. All peoples have a place in this world and all people have a place in New York City. So I will peak my head into the culturally varying living rooms and find out if this is so. I really wonder if my travels have prepared me for anything.

To live on the tramp means that I need to speak with strangers, make friends, keep my ears open for any opportunity, trade for a place to live, work for meals, and dig up any temp employment that I can find. This is fun to me.

To have a comfortable place to stay means that I have the option of absconding into the cloister of the written word. Cities are about people, and I must have my keep out of the books to meet them. As I know that every human is a book in their own right, and I shall read them as such.

New York City is said to be the whole world in microcosm, and I choose to temporarily take this as a literal statement.

Looking forward to finding out what happens.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• English Teaching Urumqi Xinjiang China
• Travel Notes Hungary
• Caving Under Budapest