Apple#131 (but should have been #61)
First observations of a Brit in NYC, the week I arrived ie in early December. Without judgment, without comment; it is just what I saw. I found this list again today and thought it was cut
e. Should have posted it when I wrote it.
· the world lives and works together here - all shapes and sizes and colours in all sorts of places. Much more than in rural Hertfordshire anyhow.
· the pavements are crummy
· at pedestrian crossings with lights the traffic stops and everything goes silent: many cars are hybrid, and in any case the engines do not run when the cars are stationary
· there are sophisticated and unsophisticated ways of trying to get business, but false friendliness doesn't attract trust, nor does bright, brash chatter. Realestate agents come in all forms.
· food is really really expensive, whether in shops or in restaurants/ cafes. Really really really expensive. But the price variation between supermarkets is crass.
· some strangers are very friendly, and want to help. Then they like to tell you about themselves and about the area and about the houses and about the shops and about the and the and the and the ... but some are NOT.
· musicians get to busk on the station platform of the underground. It gets in the way pretty much at rush hour, but it's a nice sort of homegrown shabby thing
· the subway is very dirty
· the mobile network is slow to patchy to nonexistent. Sometimes it also works normally. That’s nice.
· the sky is blue and the clouds wispy and pretty
· it helps orientation that the streets are numbered and that the island is so narrow. You can only go so far before you hit water, and then you realise you should have turned left (or right) sooner.
· the grid system makes it difficult on the other hand to remember where that super little thrift shop you spotted yesterday on your way from the x to the y actually is. Nothing memorable about “14th and 2ndth” (or was it “15th and 3rd”?)
· the weather changes throughout the day, and from day to day, much more dramatically than in the UK: eg from warm to cold to warm again, to very cold to very very cold to warm.
· the table salt has sugar in it