Let the sunshine in!

Today is a sunny day in New York City.

When I say sunny, I mean so sunny that I didn't recognise my apartment door when I came home earlier, thinking I was still one flight below my own. That's because for some strange reason, my benevolent landlord hasn't installed a lightbulb in the hallway on my floor, but on the floor below. So my apartment door is perpetually shrouded by darkness. Today when I trekked up the usual four flights, the skylight was streaming sunshine directly onto my door - and, yeah, I struggled. So that's how pretty it is today.

Now spring springs (tee hee) differently here in NYC than it does back down under. In Melbourne, I remember those few days of sunshine and blossoms in September, but I don't think anything major starts happening until spring racing in October. Then the pretty dresses and fascinators start proliferating every Chapel Street and Chadstone boutique; the horsies, B-list celebs and marquee gossip are all over the Herald Sun news; and we gear up for our first "hot day", when after the first half hour of sunshine, everyone starts whingeing about the heat.

Over here, the hot days haven't begun, but the sunshine does something that changes the city completely, like some sort of colour autoenhance on Photoshop, or changing a sepia photograph to bright technicolour. Everyone is frolicking - literally frolicking - down the streets, the kids are out and about, the birds are singing, the sun is shining - yeah, it's all because THE SUN IS SERIOUSLY SHINING, Y'ALL.

Now here comes my question as a first year New Yorker and all: Back in November, after my fourteenth fight (out of about sixty three this year, and counting) with the landlord regarding the temperature of my frigid home, he introduced me to the concept of plastic on the window panes to keep the chill out. Which has been all nice and lovely this winter, as I've shivered away, because it's meant that my fourth-floor-walkup-front-facing-windows on a rather busy street have remained curtain-less while I kid myself that the cloudy plastic shields my goings-on from the neighbourhood. Now the sun is shining, so what happens with the plastic? If I take it down, what happens if it gets cold again?

In the meantime, though, Imma make some sangria. And LET THE SUNSHINE IN!

Foursquare Stalkerazzi: Big Town versus Big Apple

Tonight I found myself explaining to someone what foursquare is. It's always interesting hearing the explanation to people out of the technotard universe, and in this case, the focus was on marketing:

"It's for people to check in where they are, and as the owner of the business, you have data of who was there, who they are, that kind of thing."

Huh.

Obviously it set off all the lovelies present in a panic over privacy issues, before they were reassured that no, it only gets shared with your friends, unless of course you press the glorious Twitter or Facebook button, or decide to keep your settings way way open. I then admitted that actually, I only check in to places that are fairly open and public and full of people if I'm alone, because, you know, stalkers abound.

Which got me thinking about how much more comfortable I've been checking in since I got to New York rather than back in Melbourne.

I joined foursquare a year ago, right before I departed the island shores. In Oz, checking in at Orange Cafe on a Monday night, in a town that I now view as tiny, meant that the other 37 social media whizkids in Melbourne who also had Foursquare, would know precisely where I am. And who knows, might decide to pay me a visit. So unless I was swarming at the MCG for a football match, I kept it way on the down low.

In NYC, everywhere I go has nineteen people already there, trending places nearby. Why wouldn't I spread the love, and keep a record of where I've been for the evening?

Well, because you could get stalked too... Like the evening I had a few weeks ago, when a friend visiting from Melbourne texted me to meet up. I had my phone open, then another text came, then I went to get a drink, and as you do, closed the text to look at something else - and promptly forgot to reply.

Twenty minutes later, while heading outside to meet a friend who had just arrived, who pulls up in a taxi? Yeah, the new kids on the block. Turns out they'd done a total stalkerazzi on me, in NYC.

What do you reckon? Do you change your checkins based on where you are in the world? Talk to me in my comments, oh reader or two of mine.

Hasta la pasta,

Aussie Girl in NYC