I can't believe I've only been here three days, it feels like a week already.I can't say I love the place yet but it is growing on me. I am having so many 'oh look it's the Statue of Liberty' moments I haven't really let it wash over me. I am also aware that I'm comparing it a lot to Britain and London in particular which I'm trying to stop myself from doing. What is interesting is that,compared to Europe, everything does feel 'new', the history isn't there as in over hundreds of years. I get a sense of how Europeans must view Australia when they visit and they see A couple of times I've seen something here and thought 'gee is it only a hundred years since that was built?'
The people have been a revelation really, they are very friendly and kind, helpful and willing to make you comfortable. I have had a bloke in a wheelchair call me an 'f**king jerk' because (I think) he thought I wasn't getting out of his way - on a six feet wide pavement with he and I being at least three feet apart I feel innocent of all charges. I felt a little like a local though to have copped at least one moment of angst. Mind you some of the conversations I hear on the subway and in the streets makes me think there is a whole lot of unhappiness and anxiety being played out behind the smiles and kind words.My lord people sweat over the small stuff.
And those accents! If I heard actors using some of the voices I hear out and about I scream 'phoney- get a dialect coach' but they actually 'tork loik thart' I love it.
When I haven't been walking I've been catching the subway, I have a station five minutes walk away for one set of lines and another maybe ten minutes tops for another set. I haven't had to do any transfers yet so it's been quite manageable and really it takes you near to everything on the tourist trail. And cheap...$2.50 for a single trip or a MetroCard for 7 days works out to about $4 a day so if you keep travelling it's very economical - and you can use the buses too. I caught a bus today but they are a bit squeezy I find. If you're concerned I can tell you the trains are super clean, fast, regular and some of the stations are lovely with most having tiled mosaic signs. A lot of stairs though - I'm getting calves of steel.
I am struggling a bit with the coins, I can''t work out quickly enough when there is a line of people and I'm wanting to pay for my bottle of Mountain Maid and a banana (69c a pound-the bananas that is) so I keep handing over notes (they still have dollar notes). As a consequence I have enough coins to feed the homeless (of which there are surprisingly few beggars)and I spend endless minutes at the omnipresent friggin security screening areas at every major bloody tourist attraction removing coins and then having to put them back in to my pocket afterwards (while juggling coat, gloves, belt, watch, bag)...and of course they are such small slippery buggers that I can't quite grasp them properly so the process is even slower. I hate terrorists, I hate the 'war on terror' and I particularly hate the atmosphere of fear that makes us slaves to screening screens,officers with loud harsh and formulaic voices 'keep moving along folks, remove belts please, have your bags ready for inspection'. And as for the people who hover over the tray still at the belt so you can't grab your stuff...that's when they need to be told to move on and get out of the shitfuckingbastardcrapping way!!!! And I just wonder what it all actually achieves or is it just to make us all feel better to feel 'safer'...from what? Has any 'attack' actually been stopped through any of these measures? it seems to me most of the so called baddies have been sprung in their own homes or via their phones or their stupidity...can't remember the last one who got caught with something 'prohibited' at the airport, let alone on the way to the ferry going to the Statue of...what's it called again? Oh yes LIBERTY!!!
Anyway travelogue and piccies will follow
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