Dear Diary,
I just got back from an amazing vacation overseas. I saw so many interesting things and met so many interesting people and I tried experience how they live. No, diary, really I did. I tried to detox from NYC and act like a normal human. I tried to strip away my New York suspicions and cynicism. And I went to places that were off the beaten track, cities and towns that don’t make it to Rick Steves’ YouTube videos.
Diary, here’s what I found.
I actually found that indeed there are places that are dirtier than New York. Mamma Mia!
I wanna tell you, diary, that in Sicily, people throw their garbage on the cutouts on the sides of highways. Bags and bags of garbage and other trash, just laying there, festering in the hot Sicilian sun.
I asked several people, politely of course, why their beautiful and historic island is marred by all that garbage and I never really got a straight or a convincing answer.
I guess maybe today’s Sicilian trash will be tomorrow’s Sicilian archaeological treasures.
All I know is that parts of Sicily made me feel good about sanitary conditions in New York.
Diary, I also have to tell you about the fancy shmancy beaches I visited all along the Mediterranean, Adriatic and Ionian seas.
I have one word for them, meh.
When they weren’t painfully rocky they were narrow. I gotta tell ya, diary, they can’t compare to the Long Island and Jersey Shore beaches. But I will say those foreign waters were gorgeous, with unearthly hues of aqua-marine and blue, not like the dull, grey Atlantic.
Diary, one cool thing, at least I think it was cool, I stayed at a hotel that was once a post office during the rule of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Okay, it wasn’t all that cool, but diary, do ya think that’s kinda like staying at one of Trump’s hotels?
One other thing…the flies and the mosquitos. Holy crap diary, they were everywhere and they were ravenous. I had more mosquito bites in a month than I’ve had in New York in three years.
The Big Apple may be losing the battle of the rats but it wins the battle of the bugs! Yay New York!
But I have to tell you, diary, New York didn’t always win out.
On foreign shores, I didn’t walk down streets with vacant stores and I didn’t have to pay a king’s ransom to park my car in a center city garage.
And diary, I have to tell you, I felt safe. I wasn’t looking over my shoulder. I never felt in danger and I got the sense that the residents weren’t fearful either. You could tell by their body language. Their physical safety was not a concern. And that is, sadly, very much unlike New York.
But when it comes to innovation and thinking outside the box, my dear diary there is no question that New Yorkers are way ahead of the siloed, set-in-their-ways foreigners that I met.
Take New York’s Mayor Eric Adams for example.
What a brilliant idea he’s just come up with. He wants to lease a big cruise ship, dock it on Staten Island and fill it with illegal immigrants being shipped here the Feds and by Texas.
I mean, where would you rather live? In a tent in the Bronx or on a Norwegian Line cruise ship on Staten Island? The pizza is so much better on S.I.
Bravo Mr. Mayor, I salute you. Your New York street smarts has won the day. New York will do right by the more than 15-thousand illegal immigrants who’ve flooded the city since May.
And even though Nancy Pelosi wants to keep them down south so “they can pick the crops,” as she says, your plan Eric is so brilliant, so New York, that you should lease more ships.
You could have one ship just for dirt bikers to deafeningly race around the holiday deck to their hearts content.
But seriously, Mr. Mayor, have you looked into leasing a ship to help ease the awful homeless problem on our streets?
Those ships would be secure places for the unhoused to live, to get proper food, care and social services.
So, dear diary, my trip really helped me appreciate and reevaluate my home town. As I visited so many ancient sites, long abandoned by forgotten civilizations, I came to appreciate some of New York’s beauty and its never-ending ability to make chicken salad out of you know what.
Diary, I’m praying we don’t run out of chickens anytime soon.
3 thoughts on “Them vs Us”
Thanx for your insights. Stay Safe. Shana Tova to you , Wendy & the entire Mispocha C&C& family
The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, but sometimes it definitely is:
Societies and countries have similar problems wherever one lives. You may not be aware of the foreign problems, just like the Europeans in your blog from 2 weeks ago who savored the idea of coming to NY. Then you find garbage in Sicily, homeless and graffiti just about everywhere else, and extremists groups internationally.
However, it is another matter to be forced to move elsewhere because of overwhelming economic, political, or social unrest. In the later category, Jews without a land of their own, were “tempest-tossed” for centuries. If events took them to places better than from where they came, appreciation and gratefulness for their new home was and remains the rule, assuming in current times they were not overly influenced by woke “educational” (read instructive) doctrines. That is why we thrived in the United States and annual polls show Israel society to be near the top of satisfaction ratings, despite significant problems in both countries.
As for NYC, with all its very real and seemingly growing problems and failing political leadership, I still have hope. Besides, some NY bagels, and most Long Island beaches beat Europe hands down. Generally the plumbing and other infrastructures are better too. Welcome home and suspect you are happy to be here.
I am so happy you had a wonderful trip overseas. You compose these articles beautifully and your insights are amazing and so true. I love reading your posts.