New York - The Good, Bad and Weird

Numbers of NewYork

1 = Restaurants where the staff actually smiled and were friendly

2= Crazy people seen ranting to themselves (quite impressed as thought it would be a lot higherthan this. NY definitely seems a lot more sane than San Francisco)

3= Homeless people who came onto our carriage on the subway begging

4=Blisters on feet after walking up and down the streets of Manhattan in a pair of heels in search of the Taj Salsa club.

5=Honks of horns in any 10 second period

6= Hot dogs eaten from street vendors before getting food poisoning

12=Nights spent in NY

35=Temperature on 4th July

53 ¾=Number of American Hot dogs eaten by the winner of the national hot dog eating comp

86=Floors to the viewing platform of the Empire State Building

688= Photos I took in NY

3056= Kilojoules in a Cinnabon (the most delicious cinnamon roll ever!)

New York – The Good, the Bad and the Weird

The Good

• Fresh out of the oven raspberry filled Krispy Kreme Donuts. Mmmmmm
• Devils Food Cheesecake at Juniors – layers of chocolate mousse, chocolate cake and cheesecake
• Cinnamon and sugar dusted Pretzels
• Never going hungry – you can’t take more than 10 steps without hitting a hotdog/pretzel vendor
• Giving out free samples at the Food Courts. A few circuits and you don’t need lunch anymore!
• Wearing shorts and singlets in the middle of June
• Being surrounded by tall buildings with concrete in every direction but still being able to chill under a tree in a nearby park
• Strangers. Rich and poor, black and white; coming together to enjoy a game of chess in a park
• Entertainment everywhere – gymnasts, breakdancers, musicians…or even just watching people
• Lots of street cleaners (both the vehicles with the sweepers on the side and people with the rubbish-picking up sticks) meant the streets were generally clean and the odour of stale urine, vomit and alcohol wasn’t nearly as pungent as in San Francisco
• Stomp – awesome show, shame you had to be under 5ft tall to fit in the theatre seats

The Bad

• Paying for trolleys at the airport – Welcome to America – either struggle through the airport laden down with 92kg of luggage plus a laptop and camera bag or hand over your money for a trolley
• Security and bag checks everywhere from going to a Museum to getting on a Ferry
• Waiting in a que for everything from using a toilet to buying a pretzel. I became the master of ‘holding on’ when seeing the length of the queues to use the women’s bathrooms.
• The worst customer service you will ever receive
• Having to phone the Mexican Takeaways 3 times before they understand you enough to take your order – then when it comes it’s still wrong!
• Constant honking and sirens. There mustn’t be more than 3 seconds between the sounds of an irate taxi driver warning pedestrians to move or become road kill
• Going out for dinner at 11.30pm and still having to wait 20 minutes for a table.
• The button popping on your shorts after scoffing too many hot dogs, donuts and pretzels.
• Waiting 2 hours in a queue at Central Park for Macbeth tickets, only to miss out by 4 people (see photo to right)
• Getting an arm caught in subway door. Fortunately they aren’t as vicious as the Underground so I got away with minor bruising rather than losing a limb
• Chinese obscenities being hurled at me after having my camera pointed in the direction of an old Chinese lady rummaging through rubbish bins collecting aluminium cans. (Warren thought she put a curse on me- but I’m still here so it must’ve been a mild one)

The Weird

• 6 seater bikes, not in one big line but in a circle. And driving on the road (see photo)
• Chinese people running a Mexican Fastfood joint- and it actually tasted really good. Maybe that’s stereotypical of me but I kinda expected Chinese people to run the Chinese Takeaways and Mexican people to run the Mexican Takeaways.
• Crossing the road. It may have painted white stripes on it which you would think is a pedestrian crossing but step onto one of these and you will be flattened by a taxi in seconds.
• Being the minority race and not being able to understand the language being spoken (as was the case in Chinatown, Coney Island and many of the subways in Brooklyn)
• Watching a guy weave in and out of traffic on Time’s Square on rollerblades without so much as a knee pad. The man obviously had a death wish
• Security guards in clothing and shoe shops. They don’t like it much when you ask them if this sandal comes in brown either
• Guys with guns guarding banks and national parks
• A clothes store with no changing rooms (the ultimate in inconvenience yet the shop was still crowded)
• The toilets. Flushing means the contents (which are much bigger than in NZ) are whirled around and around 5 or 6 times then the entire bowl is completely emptied. After a few seconds, water then squirts in from the bottom of the bowl and fills it up again. I even saw a toilet that when you pressed a button, plastic toilet seat liner emerged and covered the seat.
• An shabby looking 70 year old guy packing your groceries at ‘Metfoods’ for tips
• American flags everywhere. We get it America, you love your country, we don’t need to see the star spangled banner on every corner to be reminded of this
• Having to stand on one spot and tip your head back as far as it will go in order to see the top of a building