Shona's New York Impressions

It was my first time to The Big Apple and in this new and much heard about city I noticed a number of interesting facts or oddities. 1. Dogs An amazing amount of people have a dog or dogs. And they take them everywhere. On the subway, sunbathing in the park, to the restaurant, everywhere. Jason says that a lot of people live on their own and so they like to have a dog as their companion. Makes sense. But in this crazy city full of high rise buildings it doesn't seem right to have an animal. But despite the dogs, I did not see one dog dropping on the pavement or road. At least they are clean! 2. Taxis ...are everywhere. A guestimation would say that 60 - 70% of cars on Manhattan island are yellow taxis. 3. Subway Awesome! This really is public transport at it's best. Coming every 8 minutes and often there are multiple trains that you can catch to your destination. Plus they know when events are on, e.g. Yankees match and therefore boost up the schedules to get the some 40K+ fans to and from the game! Additionally the subway runs 24/7. You can always get somewhere using the subway. The trains may be less frequent than 8 minutes apart, but they do come and take you to your destination or home again in a less than normal state. 4. It really never sleeps They say that New York is the city that never sleeps and it really is true. Sometimes we were up till 3am just sitting on a bench talking about the world. The garbage truck came past, a man out walking his dog, various taxi's, cars and walkers. All along West 10th Street which is a side street and not so busy. 5. Diversity of people There are people from all walks of life in NYC and everyone gets on. I was fascinated with Jewish people, their strange dress code (weird curls for guys, wigs for ladies) and they amount of other languages spoken. 6. Jobs With the NY Stock Exchange being the centre of American commerce are a number of business people work normal hours. For Jason who works in the Financial District his hours are 11am - 7pm. But a large number of people work random hours on any number of days. Whether it be at the 24/7 diner down the street, or even the garbage collectors. This means that there are always people about and doing crazy things at any time of day. 7. Shops Don't generally open until 11am. Some open at 10am, but you can guarantee 11am. Rather late by NZ standards, but then they are open later than 5pm.