I'm going to skip past my uneventful time in Philadelphia (the highlight of which was hearing a German guy sing some frankly scary German love songs) and go straight on to New York.

New York, New York

It's hard to know really where to start with a city like New York. In a way it's a city take to its logical conclusion. A place where more and more people have just crammed into the same space (because as Manhattan is an island things need to build up and not out). But as more and more people crowd in the pace of life seems to speed up and up. It's a very involving place but also an exhausting place.

Crazy

Rarely have I seen so many crazy people in one place. It sometimes feels like a big open air insane asylum. You simply have to go into the subway and there is probably a crazy person waiting to show off or scare you. Maybe its something about the anonymity of the city and the lack of sympathy people have for each other. Either the city drives people insane or the insane are drawn to NYC like moths to a flame. Who knows? The guidebook calls Central Park as the single thing that makes NYC livable for a lot of people. I can imagine. It is an oasis of tranquility in what can often be a mad place.

On a few different occasions I went in Central Park and it always made a refreshing change from elsewhere in Manhattan. I sat on the rocks and watched the ice skaters. I walked through the trees. I saw people playing baseball and frisbee and kids playing on the carousel. It really helped that the sun was shining but I truly think Central Park is a great space.

Districts
To mix things up a bit Howard and I decided to move out to Brooklyn to see a bit of a different perspective on NYC. On balance it was probably a mistake. It was good to see a really ethnic district (we were in Greenpoint which is majority Polish) - it was interesting to compare this district to 'Little Italy' for instance which is not so authentic and just a street of rather nice but somewhat pricey restaurants. So Brooklyn was ok but given that most of the sights are in Manhattan we were just commuting back there every day.

What I did
Went to two concerts.
Walked the Brooklyn Bridge.
Bought some Jeans in the World's biggest store (Macy's).
Took the ferry to Statue of Liberty / Ellis Island.

I'm sorry that I had to write it as a list but after my other thoughts of New York I kind of just ran out of time.

Richard, 19th April, Ottawa, Ontario.