A couple of notable things:

Two things that are really standing out: 1. If, as an American, you do work for your community/country, people respect you. That means if you are a bus driver/teacher/garbage man/waiter/(the list continues), you are treated with respect and dignity. You have great self esteem. You are successful! In fact the guy who is my bus driver is a highly educated man and proud to do what he does. A difficult thing to get my head around as a South African. There is no judgement, no looking down upon here. I'm sure if I lived in Beverley Hills it would be different, but I'm speaking about the general ethos of the place. People are happy and proud to serve. 2. People drive within all given limitations here. Why I hear you ask? Because if you don't there are consequences:

• If you are caught driving without a license your car gets taken away and SOLD. That's right. No asking nicely and getting it back. They sell the damn thing.
• When you receive your drivers license you start off with 11 points to your name. This is good. You want points. No points means license gets revoked and that's the end of the line. Different amounts of points get deducted for different offences. I mean they take off like 2 points for tailgating... If they did that in SA no one would be driving anymore!
• If you get caught driving drunk they take like 5 points off your license and you get a red mark put on your license. This makes it difficult to get insurance at a reasonable rate, and can make it difficult to get a bank to help you finance a car. There is also a website with a "wall of shame" where your photo gets published for all to see.

3. Contrary to what we see on tv, New York City is one of the safest big cities in the world. No morning newspaper stories stuck to every telephone pole you see telling you about the latest gruesome and sticky ending of so-and-so. Nope. That doesn't mean that there aren't shootings and the like, but nowhere near what we have in Jozi or Cape Town. I think I might be starting to relax a little.