Laying on the grass in Bryant park, and eating a salad from my favorite place nearby, where the employees put extra cheese and dressing on everything I order, I started making a list of the things I love about New York. I was planning on including it here, but it turned out to be more than sixty points long. Instead, I decided to tell you how this amazing and crazy city that I am still madly in love with changed me forever.

Coming from another cosmopolitan city (even though far smaller than NY), I have always been surrounded by big crowds, noise, and busy life. Sofia, my native city, made me street-smart and loud, taught me how to deal with life and its many obstacles. However, it was not until I came to New York, that I really understood what to fight every single day meant.

First of all, I became more independent and free. Now I don’t think twice, I am braver and more confident in myself. I feel free to wear my flip-flops during the winter, my cute shorts and tank-top during the summer (without being conscious of whether I look fat/too skinny, or too provocative), to do my make up on the subway, singing and dancing to my favorite song, to sit in the middle of a park/street/basically everywhere, and to do my stuff. People here have seen everything. They don’t care if you wear socks with your sandals, eat curry with garlic in the subway right next to them, or you haven’t washed your hair for days. New York is freedom. And this type of freedom I haven’t seen anywhere else.

New York showed me how colorful and eclectic the world could be. It introduced me to people from different ethnicities, to cuisines from different parts of the world, to knowledge I can acquire only here.

New York made me a complete extrovert: wanting to go out all the time, even if this means just walking along the streets; it made me want to explore new places and people, to see and try everything that is out there. Maybe two lives won’t be enough to do so, but at least I am young and inspired…I will do my best.

New York made me a fighter. Every single day starts with a battle: running to catch my subway, pushing people who are on my way; and ends up with a lot of work that has to be done, or another gym challenge that my instructor gives me, because, apparently, my chicken arms can handle it. It’s not easy to live in New York, but who said that I like my life to be easy?!

Since I’ve come here, my life changed completely: I left my family and friends, my language and culture, most of my clothes and my old but gold hot pink bedroom back in Bulgaria. I didn’t have any friends here, didn’t know anybody except my mom and a couple of her friends. For one year, I changed the place I live two times; moved with my mom and her boyfriend to Brooklyn; was a witness to my mom’s wedding; broke up with one boyfriend; made a lot of new friendships that I hope will last.

As Emilia Clarke once said: “being a single girl in New York…it’s what you should be doing in your twenties!”  I am just starting Emilia; I am just starting!

“There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless” said another great woman named Simone de Beauvoir. No matter where I go, no matter what I do, New York will always have a special place in my heart. I will be returning now and then, going to my favorite Bryant park, sitting on its green grass, and eating a salad from my favorite place nearby, where the employees, I believe, will still give me extra cheese and dressing. And I will never forget that a bad day in NYC is still better than a good day anywhere else.

Nona Bankova