I went home for three hours today and finally got the digital photos from the Eastern crash tour my mum and I took last week. One hundred and seventy-five photos, taken in Vancouver, Denver, NYC, and Toronto, and most of the photographic evidence points to my mum being a lone traveller with a penchant for looking off into the distance and holding up small stuffed bears.
I thought the trip had settled things -- I just didn't get a vibe from New York City. Maybe it was a bad time of year, maybe it had to do with the rather flippant Asian law student I had as a guide, or maybe I had just spent too much time on the NYC subway over the course of 72 hours, but what I saw in Manhattan was the Everycity. Critics said that about the city in the Matrix too; rather than being the city to end all cities, NYC is every North American city. The bustle, the people, the stores -- Robson on steroids. How else can you explain a Bebe store as big as the one on Fifth Avenue?
Don't get any wrong ideas, New York and I got along just fine. The water was better than in Los Angeles, and Manhattanites achingly nice. I felt like I was perpetually in a Law and Order episode, which is a nice and homey place for me to be. The Met really did its job as a museum and reduced my feet to aching extensions of legs while keeping our stuff in a free coatcheck and entertaining me with a gift shop I was actually inclined to buy things from. No hot dogs, but their sandwiches weren't half bad. Columbia University literally took my breath away.
But NYC wasn't fun for me. It was nifty and novel, sometimes engaging, but a place where you (being me) wait for the subway and spend life with glazed eyes if you're not into conventional entertainment. Quite a few people asked if I "caught a show" or whatnot once I got back, but here's the raw deal with me: my evenings are spent drinking hot chocolate, watching Law and Order, reading and sleeping. I joke that I want to work at the U.N., but I really just want to live quietly and help a few people with my loudmouth skills. My most ambitious dream at this point is the private library, which I won't back down from -- for now.
Reflections on Toronto tomorrow, perhaps, and some photos too. My chosen method of procrastination happens to be calling up relatives and going out to lunch or dinner with them, so I think now might be an apt time to catch some Zs and let the tummy settle.
I thought the trip had settled things -- I just didn't get a vibe from New York City. Maybe it was a bad time of year, maybe it had to do with the rather flippant Asian law student I had as a guide, or maybe I had just spent too much time on the NYC subway over the course of 72 hours, but what I saw in Manhattan was the Everycity. Critics said that about the city in the Matrix too; rather than being the city to end all cities, NYC is every North American city. The bustle, the people, the stores -- Robson on steroids. How else can you explain a Bebe store as big as the one on Fifth Avenue?
Don't get any wrong ideas, New York and I got along just fine. The water was better than in Los Angeles, and Manhattanites achingly nice. I felt like I was perpetually in a Law and Order episode, which is a nice and homey place for me to be. The Met really did its job as a museum and reduced my feet to aching extensions of legs while keeping our stuff in a free coatcheck and entertaining me with a gift shop I was actually inclined to buy things from. No hot dogs, but their sandwiches weren't half bad. Columbia University literally took my breath away.
But NYC wasn't fun for me. It was nifty and novel, sometimes engaging, but a place where you (being me) wait for the subway and spend life with glazed eyes if you're not into conventional entertainment. Quite a few people asked if I "caught a show" or whatnot once I got back, but here's the raw deal with me: my evenings are spent drinking hot chocolate, watching Law and Order, reading and sleeping. I joke that I want to work at the U.N., but I really just want to live quietly and help a few people with my loudmouth skills. My most ambitious dream at this point is the private library, which I won't back down from -- for now.
Reflections on Toronto tomorrow, perhaps, and some photos too. My chosen method of procrastination happens to be calling up relatives and going out to lunch or dinner with them, so I think now might be an apt time to catch some Zs and let the tummy settle.
