Manahattana etc.

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It's been a nice first 10 day or so. I cold see myself getting a habit.

First impressions first I guess. Crazy. Thankfully my fears of the border guards was not fulfilled. Though they were not the friendliest by any means. And I guess I was pretty drunk from the plane... good old British Airways. Great company too, as me and the guy next to me had a great time chatting and exchanging ideas. He was an architect and a pleasure to talk to really.

Oh my god! the trains were so dirty! rats everywhere, seriously. After designer subways in Bilbao, 3 year consecutive cleanest metro in Europe, I was entirely prepared for it. Well well, right now I'm getting the hang of it though. So it's very different from the Tokyo train ride I treasure in my memory. There the vibe is more let this city engulf you, free yourself of your body and let the city become you. Sure here you sink in, but I think the edginess of the experience forces you to hold on to yourself and see everyone as discrete entities and very original ones at that, as you might expect of New York. I guess there is more in terms of languages being spoken around than I remember London, but I think London is getting top marks for multiculturalism still. But give me time I could change my mind. The cute thing is every area has languages according to the communities that live there, so Chinese where there are Chinese, Italian, Spanish, of course ubiquitous. I wonder if they drop English in certain 'barrios'. Like my current Barrio. Williamsburg. This is little Puerto Rico. We had to look up the flag, so close to the Cuban! So I'm chatting to the locals in Spanish and taking advantage of the readily and cheap availability of coriander, and preparing some mean meals. Flatmates rejoicing. If only for the break in cooking chores.

I was less impressed by downtown financial district, but I'm getting to like midtown area around the Chrisler building and such and I'm also getting to love happy hour. It really works here...I mean you actually get half price drinks and the such... so I'm bar crawling, and meeting people. It's so nice that people come up and talk to you in bars. I guess it might be a gay thing, but hey, we had to be luck for some things right? So, so far both times I went to bars I ended up chatting to people and having a great time. Meeting the locals.

An appropriate topic to follow is WAW people are so friendly. I mean I'd heard it a lot, but thought New York would be an exception, being so big and all. Well, no. First day and people were smiling at me on the streets! That was shocking enough, but then they just go how's everything going? and stuff, and you know it makes for a lovely feeling. So I actually have begun to smile more just walking along. A big no no in Bilbao, if I must add. Not that I don't like it there, it's quite nice to be left alone too, just different.

Well those are some basic first impressions of this little forgotten country surrounded by big oceans and even bigger neighbors.

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