18 Jul 2010

I've been to New York Three Times.

I firmly beleive that the best feeling in the world is coming away from JFK airport in a yellow taxi, with a cab-driver who is freindly and chatty and the map of Manhattan on the back of his seat. You'll drive through suburbs and past big billboard signs for Broadway shows, and then you'll go under a bridge and when you come out the other side you'll see it. It won't be for the first time, because it's everywhere. In films and TV shows and on adverts and in postcards. You'll see it all the time but when you see it in real life it's completely different. The Manhattan Skyline is a site you'll never get bored of seeing.
The first time I saw it, it had been raining for a week. The kirb was flooded. Out of the mist rose the sykscrapers. I thought I might cry.
The second time was about 4 months later. It was the hottest summer in 5 years. The street steamed. I had the window down and my head out and the sun was warm and the car fumes in my hair and then I saw them again, in the heat-haze. It was beautiful and magic, like the first time.
The third time it was Christmas and it had snowed. It was so cold the windows in the cab were frozen shut. The snow transforms everything and makes it better and that's what it did to New York, even though I didn't think it was possible. That time I really did cry.

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