Welcome to the Concrete Jungle

 Exactly one and half weeks ago I moved to the city Beyonce once referred to as a concrete jungle for, as I refer to, my first "big girl job." Recently graduating from the College of Charleston with my Master's degree I found myself in the position many of my friends were in post-undergad...jobless! After reaching out to my connections, and having a few strings pulled in my favor, I landed my dream job...the only thing was that my deam job is in the city I said six months prior, "I could NEVER live there!"

Well, bless my little heart, but I ate my words, sent my gratitudes to Heaven and decided I was going to make the most of this because now I am living here. One week prior to my official move I spent four days in the City to scope out my new diggs...and by diggs, I mean I was looking for a legitimate one-bedroom, full kitchen, and if I was lucky, maybe Carrie Bradshaw's closet. Afterall, I was moving from the beach house I shared with four of my closest friends on Sullivan's Island, SC...where was I going to hang all of my bathing suits? After touing 25 apartments up and down the Upper East Side, I found my home in a studio apartment beside the East River (my new version of the Atlantic Ocean).

While I ADORE my apartment, I do not drool over its architecture. I was blessed with a generous moving package by my company making my transition seamless, except for a tight squeeze that posed some difficulty. The last piece of furniture to enter the threshold was my beloved oatmeal-colored Jetton couch. It is such a solid piece of beauty that not only is the back of the sofa literally unremovable, its legs remain permantly fixated to the frame. For all you city-dwellers I'm sure you are now laughing at my expense because you would have seen this problem from the moment you walked into the funiture store, but what a hard lesson for me to learn....one of the few material possessions I've dreamt about was impossible to move through the frame of my 1950s-circa building. In the words of Snooki, "Wahhhh!!"

 My sofa is now on its way back to North Carolina where our local funiture store is graciously taking it back. I received a new couch this past weekend, a "fancy" Target sleeper/sofa, neatly packaged in a box (obvisouly a narow squeeze through the door). So while I now have a couch (and extra sleeping quarters), I will constantly be reminded that this is not my beach home. As my friend told me pior to this ordeal, "everyone makes sacrifices to live in NYC," and his words ring true. While I may not have the couch I love or the ocean in my front yard, I have a home that I love, a job that's a dream come true, all in a city that I only knew before as a place in the movies. So welcome to the concrete jungle, my new home.