What I learnt While in New York

Gail Armstrong
Aug 28, 2017 · 5 min read

Today is our last day. We fly to Heathrow at 8pm and arrive back home tomorrow afternoon – hopefully. I can honestly say I’ve loved New York, more than I thought I would to be honest. It took me a few days to settle into the routine, learn how to navigate and get used to the abrupt manners of the locals. Now it’s time to leave I feel a little sad to go, but will take a lot of wonderful memories away with me.

Looking back over the last ten days I’ve realised I learnt a lot from this wonderful city and would like to share my pearls of wisdom with you.

  • The traffic is chaotic a lot of the time, but seems to be very few accidents. Cars park over pedestrian walkways, weave in and out of lanes and cabs stop wherever they please to pick up fares. Street vendors push their carts up the middle of a busy street amongst the cars, trucks and cabs without a care. This would never happen in the UK. I would imagine this would send most UK drivers well over their stress threshold, especially at rush hour. Drivers seem to be more relaxed and let people through, drive at a reasonable speed and toot their horn occasionally when someone in front moves too slowly. You’d not catch me driving along 5th Avenue though, I’m more than happy walking and using the subway to get around.
  • New York is not scary. Not once have I felt unsure about my personal safety or security of my belongings. I didn’t like being jostled about in Times Square at night, but that’s more a personal space thing. There are odd people everywhere, street people, tour touts, eccentrics, pretty people, people dressed as superheroes, old women loudly objecting to us all having ‘phones’ on the subway. I also noticed that unlike London, locals had their bags open, phones in back pockets etc. and weren’t tense and stressed about it. I’m sure there are neighbourhoods where this could be a problem but the parts we walked through were fine.
  • Food is everywhere. We love a good meal, and will pay for a great meal if we wanted to, however, this trip we haven’t done that. We found the heat and walking took away our appetite in the first few days and so we ate very little. A couple of breakfasts in Irish pubs, Panda Express, street market food, Bubba Gumps and last night a fanastic steak. There are so many places that you can just pop into and get noodles or burger or a bowl of something, and it’s no wonder people in NYC just grab and go for lunch or dinner. LD’s favourite meals were the 99c slices of pizza from a shop around the corner from the hotel. Oh and the coffee…Coffee is everywhere. Apparently there are over 300 Starbucks in NYC. Most of which don’t have toilet facilities as I discovered on more than one occasion!
  • Loose change is a pain. Not just in NY but everywhere in the US. We always have loads of it. Shops don’t seem to want it and when you hand them a couple of dollars of quarters they seem really put out, never mind a handful of dimes.. What do the locals do with it all? Personally I’d round everything up to a whole number or or 0.25's and get rid of the piddly dimes, 5 cents and penny coins. The only thing they are good for is to give to the street people, who I’m sure appreciate them a lot more than we do. Quarters are good though. When in Florida and staying at hotels with laundry rooms, I save them all for the washers and dryers. A UK 10p piece will suffice if you are a couple short too!
  • Street people. Sadly there are an awful lot of them. I find it hard to walk past and ignore them. I wonder what happened to them to make them end up in this situation. Many have pieces of card beside them with an explanation, but you never know if this real or is just a way to get more from passers by. Some wander around the subway, rummaging through the trash, having seen someone drop a half eaten burger or something in there. Others stand by doors, holding them open for customers telling them to have a good day. Most don’t even acknowledge them – but then they do the same with everyone else too. There is one man who sits/stands by the door to the Walgreens store close to the hotel. He’s there all day and night. The other day I had to go in and thanked him for holding the door for me as I would anyone else. On my way out I gave him all the loose change I had in my purse and told him that was for his kindness holding the door earlier. He smiled and said “You’re more than welcome ma’am”. I noticed he only had one eye and his face had some kind of serious injury, maybe the cause of him being there. I wish people would see them as fellow human beings and not treat them as though they are invisible, and if nothing else say thank you for a small kindness.
  • Beautiful things aren’t always at eye level. When I was at school we went on a geography walk around our town of Clitheroe, in Lancashire. We were told to do something that has stayed with me all my life. ‘Look up!’. During the walk we were told to make sketches of the rooftops for an art project. Until that day I hadn’t realised how many types of chimney pots or roof tiles or ornate stone carvings there were up there above eye level. The same here in New York. So many people are looking ahead or worse at their phones, following maps, texting, talking etc that they have no idea of what they have high above them. At street level most buildings look the same, some more modern than others but very little detail. As you crane your neck and follow the vertical lines of tall offices, hotels and apartment blocks you often see beautiful stonemasonry, mosaics, ornate pillars, bell towers and rooftop gardens. Months and years of work by those commissioned to make them. Churches and quirky houses sit nestled between modern blocks and tenement buildngs – even them, with their pretty brickwork facades, iron fire ladders and concrete backs covered in graffiti have a unique beauty. In New York you can really appreciate the tops of buildings from one of a few high vantage points such as The Rockerfella Centre or Empire State Building – which was my favourite.

I hope you enjoyed reading about our trip. I tried to keep it fairly brief so not to bore you too much, we did such a lot each day that it would have been more like a guide book if I’d told you everything.

Finally, thank you to everyone who read my posts and ‘clapped’ for me. I really do appreciate it.

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