Love Thy Neighbour

As you've pobably figured out by now, we have just come back from a 10 day trip to New York. It's a trip that we began planning about 14 months ago, so it seemed like it would never actually arrive. But it did, and it was great. This was my first trip to the US and I didn't quite know what to expect. My first hand knowledge had previously been limited to episodes of CHIPS and Petticoat Junction. Overall it was a very pleasant experience, I have to say. You can't predict or control the weather and, while it wasn't brilliant sunshine 100% of the time, the weather behaved itself well enough for us to do everything that we wanted to do.

We had visions, being there 10 days and all, of travelling outside of New York City itself. As it turned out, I had grossly underestimated the size of the city. 10 days flew by and we felt like we had barely scratched the surface of the city, let alone find the time to travel further afield. We have also begun to learn lessons from our previous holidays. In the past we've tried to fit 2 weeks worth of activity into a one week time slot. The result was typically a real Boot Camp which left us more tired than anything else. So now we've scaled back our expectations and allowed time for us to enjoy the moment. Of course it costs a lot to travel and you shouldn't waste your money, but a balance can be found in the middle. I think that we've found that balance quite well now, which explains the enjoyment factor.

If you haven't been to New York before, I can recommend it as a holiday destination. I wouldn't ever want to live there, but it's a fun place to visit. I found the people to be very interesting. At first glance they appear to be extremely self focused. But once you get their attention, they were pretty friendly people. I came to the conclusion that the sheer volume of people in a confined space means that physical personal space isn't always possible. I think that the people get around that limitation by mentally tuning out the people around them, creating an appearance of distance and self-focus. It wasn't just limited to people either. We spent a lot of time just wandering through Central Park, as our hotel was located right beside the park. Central Park is one of the few places where the people of Manhattan can exercise their dogs. A lot of people equals a lot of dogs. Based on the number of dogs we happened to see each time, there must be a couple of hundred dogs exercising in the park at any one time. I was amazed to see that the majority of these dogs were running free in the park. I was even more amazed to see the lack of interaction between the dogs. I expected them to be running up to each other, chasing one another and generally doing doggy group things. But there was very little of that. They weren't miserable or fearful dogs, they were all clearly very happy and well cared for. It was also clear that they were all aware of the presence of other dogs around them, they simply chose not to interact with them. Again, I think that the sheer volume meant that they chose to tune out the other dogs around them and focus on their own exercise or entertainment needs. An interesting example was when I saw a dog owner throw a ball for their dog. Despite there being maybe 15 dogs roaming around the same area, the only dog who chased the ball was the dog who's owner had thrown the ball. A short time later I noted a different owner throw a ball. Again, it was only the dog belong to that owner who chased the ball. It was an interesting observation of close quarter co-existance.