I’m in New York! Awesome, but California is better

My daughter is playing a tennis tournament in New Jersey and we decided to use the opportunity to spend a couple of days in New York, to show the great city to our ten-year-old twins.

Before I immigrated to America, America and New York were synonymous.

First, synonymous in a very cliched way. I grew up in Soviet Moscow. America was a mystery. And America was New York, to be more specifically — its skyscrapers.

Then, when I was fourteen, I went to America as a foreign exchange student. I spent a year in Oklahoma. I understood that America was much bigger than New York. My parents visited me for Christmas. We spent time in Oklahoma and traveled to New York. We were in Times Square to greet the year 1995 but our New Year’s Eve was ruined by the pouring rain. We visited the World Trade Center. The trip was nice but it marked a new cycle in how I perceived New York. It’s good for tourists, but nah, it’s all concrete.

Then in my mid-20s, I visited the city again, with my wife and my first child. I was doing then my two-year MBA program in Boston.

Then I visited New York again, a couple of times. We traveled from Russia to ski in Colorado and spent a couple of days in New York before flying back.

Then in 2010, I ran the New York City marathon.

During those two trips, my fascination with the city was reignited. Though I was visiting as a tourist, I loved the spirit of the city so…