MY DREAM CITY

New York..... New York.....New York.....
I have been there in February 2005 for 10 days with my husband (won the tickets through a newspaper competition:). We both loved New York so much that we want to go back very soon, but this time in the summer or at least the fall!
Find here above a photo of me in Central Park, and as you can see, it was freezing!

I had very high expectations of New York, as I have been dreaming of going there for many years, and I must say I was not disappointed in the least. It was even better than I imagined. The people we met were always so friendly, apart from a very rude subway worker, but that's another story altogether.
Once we were standing on a pavement in Greenwich Village, just looking at the beautiful houses and checking on our map what we should visit next. In the 5 minutes I was standing there, 3 different people asked for directions, and fool that I am, I tried to help with my map and soon they lost patience and left. Then a local guy approached us and asked us if we needed help or were lost.

Before this I must explain that many people have asked us if we needed help or were lost in NY, something that would never happen anywhere else, as far as my experience goes. Everybody is always in a rush and certainly doesn't have time to help tourists, unfortunately I know, as I am like that in London sometimes.

Anyway, as this guy looked so eager to help and so friendly, I decided to say yes, we needed help in finding the subway, even though it was not true. Don't ask me why, I am just too nice and hate to disappoint people :). He looked happy he could help and proceeded to describe the way to the subway, but then, an idea came to him and he asked us to follow him somewhere nearby and reassured us we could trust him. As he said this, we were not sure if we should trust him at all, but we followed him anyway. He took us in this courtyard and told us that behind an old door, there was a lovely bar called Chumley's. We all entered after him and found ourselves in this lovely bar, hidden away and unknown to most people but locals ( I then found out the bar is on every tourist guide), but that's beside the point.

What the point is that the guy just wanted us to have a good time and went out of his way to take us to a good place. Needless to say, we offered to buy him a drink, but he wasn't having it, he had to go, as he told us he narrowly escaped death that day, apparently his building burned in a fire and he was the only one to get out. He said he felt he needed to do a good deed that day and show a couple of tourist this gem of a bar. We ended up spending the all afternoon and evening in the bar and met a nice guy Matthew and all his friends and spent a lovely time with them, they were really nice guys and we had a great time drinking with them. Turns out that Matthew actually met SJP in an elevator once and he loves her as much as I do, so talked a lot about SATC and movies in general, (he is trying to be an actor and I wish him all the best luck).

So, to everybody I say I love NY and love the New Yorkers too!