Monday, July 6, 2009

First Impressions Of New York City

New York City is nothing like what you've seen elsewhere. It's a concrete jungle, that's what it is. You look out of your window and you're lucky if you can see the sky and the clouds. Most people there can just see the really tall buildings in front of the really tall buildings they live in. I guess it would have been different if I'd gone straight to the city from Delhi. But once you see the suburbs and get used to the wide open spaces and tall trees and green grass, it's not a nice feeling. People tell me that it's a nice place to see in the night, and we are planning to go back and do that sometime soon, but in the daytime, it's a mess. Crazy traffic, people rushing off on the streets and occasionally bumping into each other, and, well, the roads are not as badly littered as Delhi roads, but you can see litter in places. That's something I never saw in Boston or its suburbs. Or New York's suburbs, for that matter. But the good thing about the city is that it's well-planned, the streets are all numbered so you can easily find your way, even if you are new to the city, and the subway system is planned in order to take you to any part of the city conveniently, so that you don't actually need to own a car, if you live in the city and work in the city. I happened to visit the city on a relatively hot day of the season, and it's generally warmer than Boston, being a little south of here. I realised that, in just about two months, I've lost whatever little ability I had for tolerating heat!

Oh well, I need to form a second impression of the city. I need to visit it some time in the late evening.

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