New York City lived up to every preconception I had of the city thanks in part to old gangster movies and Seinfeld reruns. In a way then, NYC was like visiting an old friend that I'd never met, complete with bright, flashing, neon, car horns blaring, steam rising from the sewers and the smell of roasted peanuts and car exhaust perfuming the air.
Laura and I actually covered a fair bit of ground in only a couple of hours, heading first to Times Square where we were bombarded by American consumerist propaganda, and then down to the WTO site, where we were bombarded by American patriotic propaganda. I'm really looking forward to the day "Freedom Tower" is finally built. We made our way to Chinatown (which felt like a slice of home), and then to Little Italy, where I enjoyed some quality stuffed olives from a neighbourhood straight out of Scorsese's Mean Streets.
We ended our Manhattan journey at Battery Park, where I experienced my biggest let down, and which almost ruined my entire experience of the city. You see, I was really looking forward to a big, juicy, greasy smokie smeared in chili and cheese served to me by some fat, middle-aged cart jockey from Brooklyn chompin' on a stogie and sporting a grease-soaked apron that hadn't been cleaned since his grandfather came from Italy. What I got instead made Hot Dog Day in elementary school seem like fine dining. Instead of a nicely barbecued dog, similar to the quality street meat I've come to expect from cities such as Vancouver or Toronto, I was served a very thin, gangly tube steak that looked as if it could have used a few more hooves and snouts. Added to the horror of the experience was the fact that the dog wasn't even barbecued, rather boiled in a large pot, hence removing the unique taste and texture that so pleases the refined palette. Frankly, I'm surprised city officials haven't stepped in to regulate what should be considered a cornerstone of New York's cultural identity.
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