New York city is craaazy. there are so many people here. its a 12 mile long island that has millions and millions people living on it and then tripled with tourists. walking around new york is hectic but the only way. roads are out of control but mainly there is only taxis and buses and trucks. there are still cars on the roads mostly cars like limos, mercedes, lexus, dodge, bmw's and massive SUV'S etc etc i think they are just on show!

shopping is hard...shops are so scattered. i was expecting them all to be together. oh and you can buy a sort of ugly, floppy shirt type thing from stella mccartney's store for only $5000.....hmmmm is it because her dad was paul? because the clothes are hideous!!

anyway, so far new york has been O-K. i HATE big cities so you can imagine what i really thought of going to new york. the fact that it is new york sort of minimised my dislike of the big smoke. i went on a hop on hop off bus that takes you to all the touristy spots, so i saw the statue of liberty-very impressive, i saw the WTC-ground zero=very haunting museum around the back but it looks like any other construction site in NY. i saw some amazing cathedrals=st pauls, statricks, st johns-all amazing.

i saw empire state, broadway, rockerfeller centre, times square of course, radio city, central park, 5th ave...the lisgt goes on and on....its just a big city with some amazingly high buildings...yes, the empire state is massive...114 floors. but i am ready to leave this big city and get back to wide open...clean....grassy spaces. there is NO grass in the city...every now and then i get a glimpse of one of the roof top gardens. i imagine they have a bit of grass, but everywhere except central park is cement...even the kids playgrounds and school yards! weird.

new york is surprisingly clean streets too. they have MONSTROUS city budget and invest a lot keep streets clean and safe. there are cops standing on every block of times square and lots of other blocks around the city centre...makes u feel safe but sorry for them as it woiuld be an extremely boring job during the day...i suppose its a break going to work in times square for them rather than the craaazy gettho areas where they would have worked prior to times square!

at least NY loves cops and fire fighters. they are like idolised...as they should be...because of 911. they have merchandise with stuff saying in love NYPD and NYFD which is awesome and t-shirts based on NYPD etc etc. they are respected and it is so good to see for once.

anyway, i am leaving NY tommorrow for my last 3 days in San Francisco (so it is freezing there, like adelaide winter-so i can ease back into cold-NY is hot!)

take it easy and see u when i see u!

Zoe

xo