The wide eyed tourist.

I landed upon this city that is supposed to be one of the most terrifying and electrifying cities in the world with a mixture of fear and awe. I thought leaving the JFK airport would instill a sense of energy in me that I'd been hoping to feel for months. I was disappointed. It looked dirty and raped with vandalism. Not the inspired art that comes from the truly urban, raw graffiti spray painting that you see depicted of NYC in movies and TV but the type that comes from poor, inner city anger and rebellion. The ride to my temporary home was chaotic and full of emotion. I felt like an abandoner as was well as the abandoned. Escaping from the smallest of ponds to the largest wasn't what I was anticipating. I looked around as we drove through Queens and then Brooklyn and I saw the overcrowded, brown landscape and thought of nothing but home. Palm trees and sunshine 372 days a year. Then I reminded myself why I was doing this. "It's time to grow up," I said to myself. "I must figure out a way to survive in this unsurvivable land."

A venture into Williamsburg was illuminating. It was here that I discovered the convenience that comes from having money. It was at that moment that I had the epiphanic realization that NY truly is broken into pieces in ways that many cities never are. Relativity to subway = more expensive. Proximity to bars and restaurants = better paying jobs. What am I, as merely a waitress with a college degree and no job prospects, to do?

My second day existed in a holding pattern as my host was tired and slept the majority of the day. I've spent two solid days living in fear of the subway and getting lost in the myriad of gridlock that is Brooklyn. Bodegas, corner bars, and bistros...oh my! But which to go to and what to see? I'm no city girl. Tampa is not truly a city in the sense that New York is. I feel like a child lost in an IKEA who doesn't understand which kitchenette area leads to the bedroom fixtures. Every block is another street name that I do not know leading to a lamplit block I've never seen. True New Yorkers pass by in a blur of trendy haricuts sporting iPods, oblivious to all but their own destinations. I feel like a foreigner in the country that I was born in, wearing the stamp of the tourist.

Afraid of looking like the obvious outsider that I am, I attempt to fruitlessly stride the streets, looking as purposeful as those around me. They traipse by with the pace that comes from practice, looking at me with the knowing eye that I am completely out of my element. Cabs streak past in a bumblebee striken stream and I stop, to stare dumbfounded at the Manhattan skyline. Am I really here? Has all this sacrifice and pain that I've endured to reach this point really come to fruition?

What does tomorrow hold? And am I ready for it?