I admit it, I kind of miss New York and the east coast – I miss my peeps, I miss some of the more romantic towns and I miss pizza and late night grease filled sandwiches at Subsational. I can’t remember having been away from New York City for longer, when I lived in Rochester, I would come back every few months or so and when I was in yeshiva it was pretty much the same, but the last time I was in NY was for a wedding on January 17th and I’m looking forward to the culture shock of it all.
I’m actually kind of surprised at my contentedness, northern Califronia is the first place I have lived in that I have felt content and spending almost every weekend in town. Sure, I go to one of the multiple frum communities in the area, but generally I have stayed in the Bay Area – I have spent exactly 4 shabbosim away from the Bay – once in LA, Reno, Lake Tahoe and Fresno – besides that I have wandered the communities of the Bay.
Logistically the Bay Area isn’t like the east coast where you can just hop over to another large frum community for the weekend. LA is 400 miles away and the only other close community outside of the Bay is Sacramento and it’s quite small – I have wanted to venture up to Portland, Oregon (turns out my brother is getting married to a Portland girl in a few months) and Seattle – both are very far away. In general, the west is like this, Denver for instance is over 500 miles to the nearest community of any size – but unlike many cities in the west the San Francisco Bay Area has numerous pockets of frum Jews creating this amazing diversity within a relatively small area.
I haven’t eaten pizza since February, that was when I met up with my girlfriend in Florida and I really miss the ease and joy of good pizza. I am already looking forward to flying into Lagaurdia and getting some pizza on main street in KGH. I’m looking forward to seeing frum Jews walking down the street, you never see that here, you don’t even see frummies on shabbos – wait, there aren’t actually any frummies here, maybe one or two families.
I already have my entire trip booked up, I get in Tuesday night and eat pizza, pick up my brother and his fiance from the airport the next day, drive upstate and wander around the Catskills and spend the first days at my friends farm. Sunday is my brothers engagement party in Brooklyn – maybe hit up the simchas bais hashoeva in Crown Heights, visit some peeps in Brooklyn, then think about who and what I need to see in the city – I need to hang out in central park, walk around the upper west side and am already thinking of a trip to Albany to see some peeps and then to Baltimore for the last days. Of course, it doesn’t help that the truck I’m borrowing from my ex-girlfriend doesn’t get such great gas mileage, but I love that truck and it makes things so much better.
Of course, I may have to throw some hiking and biking in the mix… It’ll be busy, but I’m really looking forward to seeing all of you!