The Big Apple - In Words

A friend of mine once met Ralph Benmergi, CanCon TV semi-star. She said she was really surprised at how short he was in person. Without really realizing it, she'd formed an idea of what he was really like from what she had seen on-screen. And though I hate to draw any kind of parallel between the city of New York and a has-been 90's TV host, it's sort of the same deal when you visit NYC for the first time.

The images, place names, personality and of the Big Apple are onmipresent in North American pop culture, from the Jazz Age to Sex and the City. So you have a strong idea of what you're going to encounter before you go. Actually it's usually because of the pre-conceived ideas of what NYC is all about that you decide that it's somewhere you just have to visit in the first place. Don't many people want to see Broadway, Time Square and the Statue of Liberty at least once in their lives?

There were no disappointingly unmet expectations during my introduction to New York City this past weekend. But because we stayed and spent most of our time in the borough of Brooklyn, as opposed to Manhattan, it was kind of like getting invited to Michael Jackson's for a family barbeque, and ending up spending most of your time drinking beer and chatting with Janet. Brooklyn's the down-to-earth, less glamourous but still famous in its own right younger sibling to glitzy, frenetic, centre-of-the-world Manhattan.

But New York's New York, and my short time there only deepened my fascination and made crystal clear the necessity of a second visit to really get to know this absolutely humungous city.