During my time in NYC, I have been lucky enough to be writing about a few of my experiences for a local Western Australian paper - The Fremantle Rooster (yes, that’s its name) and the Fremantle Herald. Here’s a couple of the articles that I have written… I know it’s a bit self-indulgent, but enjoy!

New Yorker’s are notoriously ambivalent about fame. Whilst nearly every local you meet assures you they are really an actor, and only waiting tables until their “big break” makes them famous; no one blinks an eye when a cavalcade of 30 metre limousines, surrounded by a dozen police cars with sirens blaring, come hurtling down Lexington Ave.

I think I’ve discovered the reason for the latter - there are just so many famous people in New York. According to the incredibly glib commentator on the Circle Line river tour one apartment block alone houses Nicole Kidman, Robert de Niro, Henry Kissinger and Gloria Steinham (Gloria and Henry who??).

However, things are different inside the UN, where EVERYTHING depends on who you are.

I met Kofi Annan - the United Nations Secretary-General, the other day. Well, “met” is overstating it a little. My friend and fellow youth representative from Sweden, decided that she hadn’t come all this way (my “way” being a tad longer than hers) not to meet the main man. It just wasn’t happening. So through some wheeling and dealing the date was set.

So we assembled everyone at the universal photo shoot spot at the UN for about 30 minutes prior to the agreed time. Then in a blink of an eye, out of a side door (I like to believe it’s a secret door), walks this short, pepper haired man who greeted everyone and then smiled for the camera and wandered back into another side door (possibly also secret). It was the best 12 1/2 seconds of my life.

Inside the walls of the UN there are bucket loads of famous people. Ambassador’s and Minister’s from every country in the world simply wander around the halls. The problem is that, unless you’re from their country, you have absolutely no idea who they are. For instance, I sat next to a Thai princess in the UN cafe the other day, and only realised who she was when she later addressed the General Assembly.

There is one way, however, to tell the importance of people - the number of people surrounding them. I have devised a mathematical formula that confirms that the size of a person’s entourage has a direct, inverse relationship with your level of importance. That is, the less important you are, the larger your following.

I attended an event the other day where a Governor of a province from a small country was speaking. In relative terms, this guy was not THAT important. But 45 minutes late, he wandered in with a flotilla of no less than 32 people (all in dark glasses). There was one person filming him, another taking photos, two to clear people out of his way, another to pull his chair out, and 27 to look intimidating (it worked!). I wondered whether he was embarrassed that there were only 6 other people in the meeting.

It is only when you leave the UN building that you realise the bizarreness of the UN and New York City. Directly after I attended this event with the Governor, on my way home to my apartment I walked passed Roger Federer (the tennis world number 1) who was walking his dog (a tiny shitzu if you must know). Whilst I nearly fainted in unbridled adoration, not one local blinked an eyelid. Bizarre!

Maybe he needs to increase his entourage - a German Shepard should do it.

There are so many restaurants in New York City, that it feels utterly shameful not to utilise the opportunities presented to you. That, combined with a kitchen the size of a small breadbox in my apartment, means that I’ve been eating out a lot. God bless credit. From Dim Sum in China Town to trendy Soho, there are restaurateurs holding their breath to see whether they’ll eventually get their money from me. The thing with eating out in NYC is that despite the unfathomable variety, eating out is just not an easy experience.

The first difficulty is that you MUST book a table. Everyone in NYC eats out, so the chance of you finding a table without booking, in even the most dubious of places, is slim-to-none. This requires planning ahead- not something that has been a defining characteristic over my 24 years to date! Secondly, dinner time in New York is around 9pm. So if, like me, you are used to chomping into your steak and vegies just in time for Neighbours at 6:30pm, you will need to start snacking.

Third difficulty is that no restaurant will let you in the door unless your entire party is present. With the subway system less reliable due to terrorist threats and CONSTANT construction work), and New Yorker’s being perpetually late - overly diligent young Australian men are likely to be waiting outside the restaurant in the cold for quite a while.

But the greatest difficulty comes when negotiating the bill (or “check” [sic] as said here). It is never quite clear exactly how much you have to pay. Most waiters are paid about $3 per hour (I’m not kidding), so in a form of cost-shifting, the patron is expected to pay at least 16% of your check in a tip. Then you add on the 8% tax.

Once paid for these three (meal, tip and tax), on top of this, you are expected to leave a “gratuity payment”. I’m not exactly too sure what it’s for, but I do know that it’s worth paying. Not so long ago, I saw a patron who didn’t participate in the charade of gratitude, get chased down the street. Clearly the gratitude is for getting out of the restaurant alive!

Although the diversity may be high, but the quality of the experience really must be called into question. Coffee is perhaps my case-in-point. The number of “coffee stops” is prolific, with at least 4 per block. The done thing in NYC is to buy a ˜take-out” coffee on your way to work, gulping it down as you finish your walk. However, the smallest sized coffee you can buy is the size of a large fast-food soft-drink container. It is almost farcical when you see people standing by the rubbish bin outside of their work, skolling half a litre of coffee, in the vain hope that today they might actually finish their coffee.

There is quantity, yes but every sip you take, you can actually feel it stripping your oesophagus of life. The saying is “quality, not quantity” was created for New York coffee (or “cor-fee” in New York dialect).

On my first day at the United Nations, my boss, an Australian lady, wise to New York, handed me a list of places where you can get “half-decent” (her words, not mine) coffee in New York. It was a self-styled list, written on the back of an envelope, with handwriting you could see was shaky with desperation. The list was only 3 long.

Having said all this, I must admit to having fallen in love with the hotdog vendor. On every second corner there are men, usually Hispanic, selling any number of foods out of tiny backyard-fashioned carts. You can get hotdogs, pretzels, pizza, gyros (kebabs), rice, salads, icecream, patisseries, coffee (of course!) anything you want. They remind me of one-man bands and it just baffles me how so much can be done by one person - you expect 2 cymbals to be connected to his knees that clang every time he walks. As long as you don’t internally question how long the food has sat in the cart, $1.50 will by you a veritable (and cheap) feast.

Yes, I can feel these hotdogs peeling my insides too, but it’s also a good kind of feeling. Plus, there only gratitude required is a “thankyou”.