Stuff that doesn't fit inside your head #3: New York City

It's ironic - while on the one hand, I will never again go to a city whose details are so familiar despite having never visited it before - its yellow cabs, the awnings of apartment buildings, the subway stairs - on the other hand I was not prepared for New York at all. Its sheer scale came as a shock to me, and even now it's hard to fully comprehend the bigness of it; you either see the city shrunk down to a mere pocket-sized island on a map or from the air, or you're in it, and too close to a thing so big you can't even see one of its edges.

We spent eight nights there, which, while clearly inadequate for a city with as much to offer as New York, is not nothing in travelling terms. Each day was pretty furiously paced, which was necessary due to the sun going down at 4.30pm, and we saw a lot, but probably not even half of the things on our list. When I think about the pace at which we would have had to have gone to see all the New York icons alone, I start to sweat.

Still, we saw our share of icons, and we saw our share of the intimate details that you don't see on 'Sex and the City': a farmers' market, a soul-food restaurant in Harlem, all the Obama/Biden posters in windows, a sneak peak through the windows into the Met from Central Park after closing time. And it's not a bad thing to leave a city knowing there is so much more to see; it's a good incentive to return one day.