It is with great joy and thanksgiving that I submit my first blog posting. My wife, Monica, and I moved from Ohio to Manhattan on August 11, and we are amazed by all that the Big Apple has to offer. Because we have only been here for about a month, we still feel like tourists roaming through a maze of buildings and subway stations, trying to find our way through a sea of people and heavy traffic. It takes some getting used to.

The decision to move to New York City was wrought with several reservations on my part. A flurry of anxious questions occupied my thoughts: Where would we live? Will we be able to afford it? How will we find our way around? What if the people aren’t nice? The anxiety was raised even more when we filed the paperwork for our new apartment. And yet, with the help of friends at Marble and new friends in our neighborhood, we have found the transition to be easier than expected. In this big city, we’ve found out that we’re among millions of other “transplants”—people on a journey from other parts of the world who at this time call New York City “home.”

Months before our move I purchased a helpful little tome called Relocating to New York City and Surrounding Areas by Ellen R. Shapiro. Perusing through the guide at a bookseller’s, it was the opening lines of Shapiro’s introduction that captivated me:

“If you want to become a real New Yorker, there’s only one requirement: You have to believe that New York City is, has been, and always will be the greatest city on Earth. The center of the universe. The Big Apple. Every native New Yorker absorbs this knowledge in the womb, and every successful transplant acquires it on arrival. That’s what gives the City its strength.”

There’s an energy to this city that pulses through the sounds of the streets, the smells from the corner vendors, and the tastes of a thousand different ethnic restaurants. But New York’s real gifts come from her people. Each face is different. Each story is unique.

And yet people reach out to others and offer a word of advice: “Make sure you cross at the stoplight. A lady got hit on this street by a cab last month.” “Get a membership to the Met—you won’t regret it.” What binds us together—despite our differences—is our humanity. And, perhaps it helps that most of us really do love this city.