One for the City

//via Water Secrets//

I'm leaving the Empire State today after having spent a lovely yet rainy & tiring five days in NYC/Brooklyn. I'll be in the midst of SXSW madness upon my return, so I may not have a chance to update this until next week.


In the meantime, a few musings about the Big Apple:

• Eating in NYC is far cheaper than Dublin. Who would've thought?
• Transportation here is such a bitch that people often opt to stay home rather than brave the 1-hour commute to visit their friend who lives 4 miles away. Not a fan.
• New Yorkers get a bad rep for being unfriendly. As a perpetually confused Texan with extremely limited exposure to public transport, I frequently found myself at the mercy of very friendly NYC passersby to help get where I need to go. They may keep to themselves when compared to Texans, but once you approach them, they can be as warm and friendly as people from the heart of the South.
• Finally, the biggest thing that stuck out about NYC is that most restaurants are gracious about letting non-customers use their restrooms. And by gracious I mean they leave them unlocked, which means non-patronizing miscreants such as myself can sneak in without having to splurge $3 for 8 oz. bottle of water or a 3rd king-size cookie for one day.

 Dear France, are you listening? Specifically, Nice, Paris, Monaco, and Cannes?? My lovely memories of you are marred by the gratuitous expenditures I racked up just to use restrooms. Even your public restrooms required annoying fishing through my ginormous bag to find spare change to cover the cost of use. My bladder is a weaker beast because of the near-militant attitude of your shopkeepers.

Perhaps it's a cultural/economic thing but I'm still classifying it as a France FAIL. And plus one for NYC.

Have a good week/weekend!!