A small-town boy in the big city

Hey look ... over there ... the Empire State Building

I live just outside of Boston. I've been to London, Vancouver, Miami, San Diego, Los Angeles, Montreal, New Orleans and a whole bunch of other places.

But New York City is different, especially if you're from a small town in upstate New York like I am. Granted, to some of the people where I grew up, "New York City" is synonymous with all the things they don't like: too big, too liberal, too dirty, too mean, gets all the attention while the rest of the state is ignored, gets all the money while the rest of the state is ignored.

And while I do find it humorous that what passes for "upstate" in some people's minds is basically "all the stuff that's not New York City" -- I once had co-workers excitedly tell me about the intern we were going to have from upstate ... as in Plattsburgh, near the Canadian border (I'm from the Albany area; we weren't neighbors) -- I've always thought of New York as kind of a mythical place.

I actually hadn't noticed the Victoria's Secret ad until just now.

Times Square, Broadway, the United Nations, Central Park, Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade (even though I've never liked it ) ... with the exception of Central Park, which I rode through a few years ago, these were all just things I've heard of or seen on TV, since aside from Yankee games and a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my wife that included the aforementioned Central Park cab ride, I had made it to my 40s without actually ever having really gone to New York City.

So I was excited when we went to New York for a few days earlier this week, and I'll admit it was in a "Wow ... look at that" sort of way.

Just your ordinary, average one of the most-famous venues in the world.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, and walking around the scaffolding.

I actually asked my wife if there was a sign that said you were in Times Square, or if you just knew. She told me that I would just know, and she was right. From seeing it on TV, the size and the color of the signs have always been what caught my eye, so that was what I noticed most (including one for a rather unfortunate show on Fox) when we got there.

It wasn't until after the show that it hit me ... I saw "Les Miserables" ... on Broadway.

After Times Square, lunch, Central Park and dinner of a hot turkey sandwich that could be spoken of favorably against the ones from the diners in my hometown (as a bit of a small-town diner snob, I can give no higher praise), we went to see "Les Miserables" on Broadway. I actually liked London's West End better, but still, it's "Les Miserables" and it's on Broadway.

By the way, the show was terrific, although I got confused when Eponine didn't sing "On My Own" when I thought she would. Fortunately, the "Les Mis" expert I'm married to reminded me that the order of the songs was different in the movie.

We didn't get to see the U.N. General Assembly chamber, but we did get to see the Security Council chamber.

We didn't expect to be part of history when we went to New York, but we were.

The rain started Tuesday afternoon, and basically didn't stop until Thursday morning. And it was cold, to boot. By the time it was done, New York City had experienced its 10th-rainiest day on record, and the city has a lot of records.

It'll do a lot to ruin your day, and not just because the Yankee game we were supposed to go to Wednesday night got rained out. It was a rain that soaked through your clothes, and it never relented. For another whole day, when I went outside, I braced myself for rain, even after the rain stopped and I was back home.

There actually wasn't a ton to see at the United Nations, especially since the General Assembly chamber was closed for renovations, but we got to walk through a couple committee meetings where everyone looked really, really bored, and we were able to see the Security Council chamber.

So that was cool, but I'll have to get back to New York sometime when it's dry and warmer than 45 degrees.