Things I've learnt

So a few things I've noticed over the last couple of weeks:

Drivers around New York do not use their signals. This seems to be so much worse than back home. The worst is on the expressways with three or four lanes and cars just flying from lane to lane all over the place. With everyone driving so close too it's like a cycling peloton, everything is fine as long as nobody hits the brakes or goes down.
For the couple of times we've been on those roads going back and forth to the airports I've already seen a smashed up car in an accident on one of the expressway exits.

 

That the reason the roads through town are three or four lanes wide is that they need one lane to park in beside the kerb and another lane to double park in! You know, when you're just nipping into shops, delivering stuff, etc and then you've got the other lane(s) to move into when those vehicles pulls out (without signalling).

A sunny cold light breezy 10˚ morning temperature is not the same as a 10˚sunny cold light breezy 10˚ morning temperature back in Aberdeen!! I certainly don't miss that North-East wind when going for a morning run. Although I now realise I've not to put so much clothing on.

If I do ANY form of exercise that is not "normal" for me I ache for the next few days (well, I already knew this). Goalkeeping has left me with some strained chest muscles and achy wrists, triceps and quads. It's not old age, I'm just sensitive!

I miss the radio on in the background during the day. For mostly (new) music but also for news. I rarely read the news online but might have to as the limited tv channels we have are either rarely on or are purely centered on New York news only.  It's very easy to avoid all football results (if I stay off twitter) and I've manged to watch the highlights on Match of the Day2 three days after the games were played without knowing the scores! I even woke up at 7am on Wednesday morning (after getting to bed at 1.30am) in order to watch the Barcelona/Chelsea highlights as we were out the previous day when it was on.

I'm glad we have cats. One was crouching down beside the oven. We pulled the oven back and a tiny mouse ran back under the oven. Tis truly a different world I'm in now. A few spiders were the most I had to deal with previously.

That it really is a small world. We went out with Byron on his last day and were having lunch in a small cafe in SoHo. Just as we left he bumped into a friend who was just coming into the same place. The friend was also from Portland and she was just here with work for a few days! What are the chances that two people from nearly 3000 miles away would bump into each other in a city of over 8M people. When you think of factors like going to the bathroom before leaving or her cab getting lost on the way there meaning we just happened to be literally exiting the place as she walked in. Pretty amazing I think.

That I do enjoy the wide availability of cherry flavoured diet soda drinks such as Diet Pepsi Cherry and Diet Dr Pepper Cherry.

 That even though this could've been a stupid comment from anywhere in the world it didn't help dispel the American stereotype of not knowing what goes on outside your country. At the baseball in the row behind us some guys were chatting non-stop (loudly), as is the deal here. Then a guy called Ronaldo from Brazil and another friend turned up, so they began quizzing Ronaldo on various things. This included asking Ronaldo "do you guys get YouTube in Brazil" and "Is Facebook big in Brazil". Classic! One step short of asking if they get the internet in Brazil.