Letters from Gotham

If I haven't posted for a while, it's because I've been frozen into the icy cistern at the bottom of the ninth circle of Ikea hell. I've been in New York City for more than a week now and can honestly say I know my way around the labyrinthine Swedish superstore in New Jersey better than around my new neighborhood. Luckily, Q. and I -- with the help of our lovely mother, who turned out to be a beast with a power drill -- now have a couch to sit on and beds to sleep in. We even have some pictures on the walls courtesy of this up-and-coming Minneapolis artist, whose City of Lakes print is the first thing you see when you walk in our apartment door.

Since I've spent the past several days on the floor doing battle with products with names like Linnarp and Micke, I haven't had much time to get my bearings. This goes for both the city and my university, the latter of which seems to think me more self-sufficient than I really am. Unfortunately, I was absent the day they handed out the get-your-grad-school-life-in-order instinct. If I hadn't stopped by my department to speak to one of my future professors the other day, I would have registered for all the wrong classes.

To the university's credit, they hosted an ice cream social for us newbies. They also held an orientation meeting in which they made it clear that there's a support system in place to lend us a hand if we ever need it. Still, I couldn't help feeling a bit disoriented on my way home. And that's when it happened: As I was leaving the subway, a woman stopped me and asked me for directions. And -- get this -- I actually knew what to tell her.

I would feel a rush of self-satisfaction whenever this happened to me in Chile, and I felt it again here in New York. I may be disoriented, but I guess I hide it well!