Disclaimer: You can't help but sound showy when mentioning Paris. This isn't intended to sound snooty. Also, a week in Paris isn't enough to get a full picture of the place but NY endows you with a discriminating mind (and I don't mean it as a bad thing as the Buddhists view it).
You know you're afflicted by stage 4 of "it's a helluva town" when shortly after your mini-vacay in Paris, you think to yourself, "Still, the energy and quirkiness of NY remain unmatched."
[Wha? The metro shuts down at 2:15am? (huff&puff). Not that my mid-30s self will be raging past 11pm but I still like to know it's possible...say after consuming three energy drinks. For the record, the Paris Metro is as well connected as the NYC subway.]
This conflicted, limbo state is awful. Here I am forwarding a digital collage of Paris pics to friends and family - raving about Giverny - only to be mesmerized by JJ Hat Center in Flatiron-Manhattan on this new show. [Wha? It's been around since 1911 and I didn't even know of its existence until a "No Reservations" meets "A Day In The Life" hybrid tells me about it?! Aside: This isn't an insult...I like the show (down, NY paranoia, down).]
> Cue in native daughter guilt of not having seen/heard/felt/read/touched/tasted all things authentically NY prior to my leaving. <
So, here's the ultimate truth: you compare every place you have been, you currently are, and probably going to be next - to NY. I've tried suppressing/repressing/compressing this impulse that negates 'finding my peace' and 'living in the now' (note: spending too much time in the B&N self help section).
It's why:
So, yes, the croissants-coffee combo, the architecture, the breadth of history, the language, and the sophisticated style of ordinary folks in Paris are intoxicating but yet, custom cocktails are a fairly new phenom.
I know, right?[ ]Well, maybe, NY's divey/piano bar/loungey/rooftop/speakeasy/ring-around-the-rosie drinking scene* isn't the cultural equivalence I'm looking for.
How about its trend-setting mixologists, like the wunderkind Jack McGarry of The Dead Rabbit, and an accredited bartending school run by Columbia U?
Now there's something authentically New York.
*Please drink responsibly.
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