NYC Times Square

Well we have munched on a first bite of the Big Apple. It's a sensual city...the sights sounds smells and tastes all seem amplified and right in your face. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes not. There is a gritty reality here, at times squalid, which the natives seem inured to but for a couple of Kiwis from Htown it can be a hard swallow. Bodily wastes from various orifices of man and beast are studiously ignored as the well heeled and the destitute compete for space on the crowded sidewalks. Towering corporate edifices of steel and glass scrape the sky while historic buildings of brick and brownstone await gentrification or ruin. Decay and decrepitude are battling it out side by side with refurbishment and renewal and it is difficult to pick which will ultimately be triumphant.
So what have we been up to?
As our apartment is close to Central Park we wandered there for a lazy afternoon as we both felt jet-lagged despite sleeping well on the plane. Mind you, in effect we had only 4 hours sleep. The day was warm and springy. We were by no means alone but the park seemed a serene place, a much more natural and treed space than I had envisaged. There were plenty of buskers to help while away the time and the coconut ice block was a treat!
Our apartment is a cosy wee space. The bathroom shares a wall with the boiler room which creates a kind of inadvertent central heating....it must keep the heating bills down in winter.
There is not a lot of natural light but we will not be spending much time 'at home' during daytime.
Yesterday we walked downtown through Time Square. Picked up some theatre tickets and our NYC passes and after a leisurely lunch, carried on towards Chelsea stopping for libations at the Ace Hotel then onwards to the High Line, an old elevated rail line that has been transformed into a park/walkway. There was much to see and discuss so the hours slipped by until we found ourselves a casual and friendly restaurant for a latish well earned dinner. By day's end, we were beginning to feel a little like New Yorkers.