I LOVE NY

I spent a few days last week in DC at a conference. It was weird to be back in a place I had lived for so many years (1993-2001) and yet did not miss when I left. So much has changed. DC is more gentrified, hipper (by yuppie standards) and so much more bland than I remembered it. Gone are the small African cafes where the staff made fried plantains for my boyfriend’s daughter’s first grade class because she told them she was studying Trinidad in school - instead there is a slick and wanna-be hip, but really kind of generic Latin-Asian fusion restaurant with mediocre food and expensive drinks.

And yet for all this gentrification, I was still informed that I could not walk the 6 blocks from dinner back to the hotel at 10pm because the area was “dangerous.”

I am so happy to not live there anymore.