Techy Arty Political Innane Ramblings

So we’re in New York City for 5 days. I love it. It’s huge but the sense of community and just how chilled and friendly folk are is wonderful. London and Manchester aren’t like this. Yeah I’m a tourist and this is a tourist city that caters for them but I don’t feel like one.

Everyone we’ve asked for directions or help has obliged. I made a very funny/lame joke, quietly to my wife, on the subway and we both burst out laughing as I looked around a lady on the train looked at us and (shock horror Brits) maintained eye contact! Then she started laughing ‘cos we were. She hadn’t heard the joke, the laughter just spread. People all around smiled.

We in the UK see, hear and are influenced by a lot of American media through TV, film, music, news online and products. Even our kids, when they role at with their toys they use American accents. The ‘Special Relationship’ the ‘two nations separated by a common language’ the everything you expect America to be from everything you’ve been shown, it’s wrong. It’s at least wrong in New York City and I love it.

The first day we were here (a Sunday) I was a little spaced out from the long day travelling. Something didn’t feel quite as I expected it to. I couldn’t get my head around how the sky looked the same as it did at home. How quiet some places were. How people talked about the same things we do. How it haddn’t been graded, polished and post produced into how someone thinks New York should look. Just how normal it all was (Apart from the guy in the Bikini but I may talk about that later).

I wonder how New Yorkers feel and what they experience coming to Britain? Or even more specifically coming to Guernsey? I love to be with them on that journey. Just as I’d love to have a normal native New Yorker show me their city. We’re visitors and we’ve come here to see one of the great cities of the world. So we’ve taken a walking tour, been to Grand Central Station, the 9/11 Memorial, Katz and walked the Brooklyn Bridge. We’re going to a Broadway show, visiting the Intrepid, Tiffanys, Rockefeller Centre, Ellis Island and The Museum of Natural History.