I loved New York. I made enough money and studied acting with Kenneth McMillan, which was my first formal training.
Filming is physically and emotionally hard, especially acting in something like this, where we go into the honest feelings of these people. But it's also very exciting because there's an adrenaline that's pumping (through you) when you're doing these scenes.
To make money in New York, you have to add gigs when starting out, so while I was acting quite a bit, I would do modeling.