"I'm walkin here!"

Larna and I have been doing bad imitations of Dustin Hoffman's famous line in 'Midnight Cowboy' (playing Ratzo 'Rizzo)- "I'm walkin' here, I'm walking here!" - while crossing the streets of Manhattan. We've also drunk lots of "cawfee" and seen lots of stylishly dressed "gooyls". Ok, so we have been behaving like dorks!

Yesterday we walked all the way from east 63rd Street to the Brooklyn Bridge and the financial district at the bottom of Manhattan. En route we stopped for a coffee in a tiny little Italian place in Greenwich Village, meandered through Little Italy and had lunch in Chinatown, which appears to be steadily swamping it's next door neighbour. It is fascinating how one Manhattan neighbourhood gives way to another as you cross a street. One city block we crossed was full of Indian restaurants and shops, the next lined with Vietnamese, Chinese and other Asian eateries.


It is so energizing walking these streets. And I don't know why I had this perception in my head that New Yorkians are rude and unfriendly, because everyone has in fact been super helpful, courteous and friendly. People have come up to us while we have been studying our map to ask if we need any help, cars slow down for old ladies, even the taxis appear to move at almost normal speeds. Certainly things are very normal and orderly compared to some of the other cities we have visited, and not just those in the third world.

Today we walked into Greenwich Village and Soho. Very cool neighbourhoods with their specialist shops (one store had a giant enamel bath shaped like a high heel shoe and covered in gold mosaic tiles) and those old brick loft apartments with the zig-zag steel staircases running down the outside.

Oh and the other cool thing about New York, all those people walking their dogs. Some of the dogs wear more outrageous outfits then their owners. We had a look in one pet store called "Unleashed" and it had biscotti and other dog biscuits that I would have munched on if I did not know they were baked for canines.

We have loved staying in my brother and his wife's super swanky upper East side apartment. It will be quite an adjustment going back to hostels and backpacker pads in Mexico. We depart Monday morning for Cancun.