The City that Never Sleeps. They should call it the City that Never Changes. I've been there so many times and for some reason I keep expecting it to change, but I'm disappointed each time. Albert said it best when he dictated the definition of insanity: "doing something over and over again and expecting different results." Yet, I look forward to it every time.
Wonderful city. Full of color, lights, sounds, smells.... Oddly enough it's clean (relatively) when considering the amount of people that live/visit there. My favorite thing about it, however, isn't the giant Coke ads or movie posters or going to see what used to be the TRL watch spot. It's the fact that you can walk down the street ten times and find a different shop you didn't know was there the first nine times you passed it. The plethora of mom-and-pop shops amazes me - especially considering you can have a multi-million dollar corporation squeezed in there somewhere and you'd rather pass it to go to your favorite small-time family pizza parler that serves it for twice the price, triple the waiting time, but somehow makes it taste so much better.
Tourists always go to the big spots: Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, Lady Liberty... But it's the little stuff that makes the city. Next time you're in New York City, try looking at the little side shops. Yeah, yeah... I know the Toys 'R Us has a Ferris wheel inside it and you can buy an actual bag from Gucci, Coach or whatever the latest name brand is, but be rational - are you really going to spend $105 on a sing-and-talk Elmo or $413 on a shoe? Just one shoe? Who buys just one shoe?
Stop following the flow of traffic and look left. I guarantee you you'll see something you never knew existed. And not only will what you buy be cheaper and help pay for someone's overly-priced electric bill, you can truly say you "got it in New York!"
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