Live, from New York

New York is an utterly mind boggling city. I'm struggling to come to terms with how much there is to do here. In the past three days I've been to five museums (three of which were absolutely huge), up the Empire State building through central park, and walked about five hours every day. I'm getting slightly museum/galleried out.

This city is overwhelming though. I've been exploring for these three days, and I've covered a tiny fraction of Manhattan. There's just so much here, especially with food. My lord, so many places to eat. I could live here, and eat out every day and barely make it down Broadway, let alone anywhere else. Every block is filled with cafés, delis and restaurants.

I'm also surprised by how many dogs are in this city. Wherever you walk, someone is out walking their creatures. Many of them are wee toy ones, but there are some proper big dogs too. Dog ownership seems to be huge here, and it's nice that central park has dog sections just for them.

What about the infamous NY rudeness, I hear you ask. Well, yes and no. Most people I've encountered haven't been rude, so much as brusk. And they really don't appreciate you standing still and humming and hawing while trying to sort things out. Some people have been obnoxious, but that happens everywhere. Most of the time I get the feeling they just expect you to know what they know, being NY natives. That it's blindingly obvious, and that you may have been dropped on your head repeatedly as a child (kinda like Chris's first year tutorials). Though, I've seen more people give up their seats on public transit in NY than anywhere else I've been. For kids, old people, everyone. They really seem to care about helping each other out there. Curious.

I'm also amazed at how polyglottal (is that even a word? It is now) it is here. I figured it would be like most cities, mostly English with a smattering of Spanish. But here I've heard more languages in one place than I thought possible. Not just in tourist places either. I've got an okay ear for identifying languages, and so far I've definitely heard Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Hindu, Russian, French, Italian, a few different African languages, and a whole bunch that I had no idea what they were. There are times when I've been what seems to be the only English speaker around. It's an interesting experience, and far more diverse than I expected.

And nobody's tried to mug me. Woohoo!

TB/AC