Man, I say I'll update this, but I never do. Ugh.

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We walk along the New York streets, in the cold, and the wind whistles in our coats, mussing our carefully-primped hair and reddening the tips of our ears. It playfully ruffles the skirts of the girls clopping over the road crossings, high heels snagging the potholes and cracks in the badly-tended roads, and pries at the hats of the cigar-chomping giants in business suits. It blasts up from the gratings at our feet, hitting us with the heady perfume of chlorine-petrol-cigarette-smoke. I like the smell. It reminds me of our city back home, with its grimier, seedier streets and alleys and the harsh cockney accents alongside the plummy estuary ones.

The big apple is much cleaner. We don't know why, remark on it in hushed tones, and note the absent gum stains and loss of the ever-present dark film over everything.
Save the vents, which sprout cigarette butts like a fertile soil in a forest sprouts tree shoots, everything really is more wholesome. Less dirty, and sharp. Even the people know it to be so, with their three-piece suits and conservative blouses. There are not walking piles of charity shop finds, with a pale china face peeking out, or sports ads gone mobile. There is less dirt, but also less... Colour.

I think to myself how wrong people are when they say that to see one city is to see them all, and hurry for a cab.