How do you tackle a city like New York in the space of five days? I prepared an empty suitcase, a good guidebook, a well-credited bank card and the will to ignore aching feet in my quest to pack in one of the world's biggest cities.
A proposal of marriage was hardly the first thing I expected upon entering JFK airport. But after a hot humid wait in a long snaking line for non-U.S. passport holders, the possibility of obtaining a green card was rather tempting. Unfortunately the immigration official offering his hand was more than old enough to be my father.
Despite having to force a smile and give a polite "thank you but no thank you," I was heartened by the friendly nature of my first encounter with a real New Yorker, especially as I had been previously warned that the city's inhabitants could be somewhat brisk.
So when a man offered to take my suitcase and show me to a cab I assumed this was all still part of the greatly unreported generous Big Apple attitude. Not so. My guard quickly went back up when the seemingly chivalrous man told me not only that it would cost $100 to get to Manhattan in his black cab, but also thought I was gullible enough to believe that New York's famous yellow taxis only serviced Brooklyn and Queens. Did he think I had never switched on a television set or been to the movies?
After a brief confrontation -- suitcase and wits firmly back in my grasp, I got hold of the real deal yellow thing, at half the cost, and set off for the sparkling lights in the warm night. 
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