Former Minnesotan, total vegetarian, and current Google intern Eric Hielscher has been at his job for a couple weeks now, and he's been blogging about his experiences moving to New York and starting a new job. He met "a nice ex-Puerto Rican (lots of them in NY)" who helped him move! It's a familiar tale, to be sure, but one that is getting played out in the way that only an intern for one of the richest companies in the world, who grew up in an 800-person town in the Midwest, can play it.

The other day, for example, he blogged:

Yesterday at work I got in at around 9:15 or so and after a couple hours received an email telling everyone in the New York office that they could leave at 2 to enjoy the 4th of July holiday. Cool. It didn't seem like my officemates were going to take advantage, but I felt as an intern I shouldn't feel pressure to work overtime and left around then.

Good idea! What else has Eric learned in his short time so far in New York?

I was told about the apartment which was on E 109th (apparently Spanish Harlem is a part of the Upper East Side, or I wouldn't have come there in the first place) and this new guy took me via the subway up to the place. It was my first glimpse of Harlem, and it looked pretty ok. Definitely nicer than the areas of central Brooklyn I'd seen last week. The guy did go on about how I'd need to buy window guards to prevent break-ins (yay) and told me both about this sketchy tunnel separating the 4,5,6 trains from the apartment and the housing project right near there.

Yeah. "Apparently Spanish Harlem is a part of the Upper East Side." Here, come with us to West Bushwick!

Erik's [sic] Blog