Oh Josh, I am so on your side: NY is 1000x better than LA.
We spent January in LA and NY. LA was just awful - I had forgotten how bad. Traffic, sprawling freeways, grotty malls (where every shop had it homeless person "concession"), generally awful food - the whole place was soulless. Some part in the were sort of ok, but they were few and far between.
Meanwhile in NY, yes it was grotty with piles of grabage, fire trucks racing about day and night, weird scammy guys on every corner and a general population of crazy people.
But... It had a brilliant train system (albiet ihabited by extremely odd people doing extremely odd things, without fail on every train we caught). The food was wonderful, the shows were fantastic and the whole place was fascinating and alive.
It has changed a lot in the 30 odd years since we were there last, and my 14yo daughter found it all a bit scary, but ultimately none of us wanted to leave - whereas we couldn't wait to be out of LA. 🙂
As a corollary... I was driving my (now 15yo) daughter to school and mentioned this NY/LA debate and my posted response... And she totally agreed that NY is great (and LA is awful) but then added "but the venice canal area is really nice".
I didn't say it's still the case. I moved to the US before 2012, after electronic clearing had been the norm in Europe and Australia since the 1990s, when I came of age. I'm glad you got there eventually! -JS
I'm Australian and lived in the states for 8 years, this is my jam. I love the place and I love hating on it's strangeness.
I have a glass shower wall with a glass door. I hate shower curtains.
You're the one! -JS
Oh Josh, I am so on your side: NY is 1000x better than LA.
We spent January in LA and NY. LA was just awful - I had forgotten how bad. Traffic, sprawling freeways, grotty malls (where every shop had it homeless person "concession"), generally awful food - the whole place was soulless. Some part in the were sort of ok, but they were few and far between.
Meanwhile in NY, yes it was grotty with piles of grabage, fire trucks racing about day and night, weird scammy guys on every corner and a general population of crazy people.
But... It had a brilliant train system (albiet ihabited by extremely odd people doing extremely odd things, without fail on every train we caught). The food was wonderful, the shows were fantastic and the whole place was fascinating and alive.
It has changed a lot in the 30 odd years since we were there last, and my 14yo daughter found it all a bit scary, but ultimately none of us wanted to leave - whereas we couldn't wait to be out of LA. 🙂
As a corollary... I was driving my (now 15yo) daughter to school and mentioned this NY/LA debate and my posted response... And she totally agreed that NY is great (and LA is awful) but then added "but the venice canal area is really nice".
I thought you would like that 🙂
"Paper checks have virtually disappeared from the clearing process, following the adoption of the Check 21 legislation in 2004. In 2012 nearly all commercial checks processed by the Fed were converted to electronic images for presentment, payment, and record keeping." from https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/doctor-econ/2012/04/check-processing/
I didn't say it's still the case. I moved to the US before 2012, after electronic clearing had been the norm in Europe and Australia since the 1990s, when I came of age. I'm glad you got there eventually! -JS
My apologies for having misunderstood/misheard. Btw I'm actually a fellow Aussie :)