We were so happy to be back in New York: for Lena, it had become home over the last few months, and I was still in awe of this city.

The first thing to do upon returning was to find me a place to stay for the next 5 days in New York. A hostel was too expensive, and I couldn't stay with Lena. Oh well, let's keep looking. You won't believe it, but I found a place with a guy from Tajikistan. Lena has a work friend from Tajikistan, and he put me up with his brother. I am still grateful to him, as I saved a ton of money. Thank you for your hospitality.

Anyway, that's how we returned to NY, and the housing issue was solved. Lena decided to pick up some extra work for the remaining days, as it turned out the trip to Vegas had hit our wallets hard.

I lived on Staten Island, an island a half-hour ferry ride from Manhattan. This ferry is called the Ferry, and it's actually free. So every day I took a 20-minute train ride to the Ferry, then sailed for half an hour, and only then ended up in Manhattan. But that didn't bother me at all, because it offers a beautiful view of Manhattan.

Also, we didn't regret spending $30 each to buy weekly transit passes so we wouldn't have to worry about transportation. It's really very convenient, considering that a single ride costs $2.25. And we rode the subway quite a lot. By the way, about the subway - it looks terrible, it's wildly stuffy, and New York itself is stuffy, but when you go down into the subway, it feels like you've ended up in hell. Huge rats leisurely crawl from one track to another. However, I fell in love with this subway immediately - it's very, very, very convenient. You can really get to almost any point in New York without breaking your head over it or wasting a ton of time. And in the subway cars, just like in all public transport, there is air conditioning, so the heat isn't that scary there.