I know too much has been made of the red state/blue state divide, but the cliche is personified in New York. You can tell who the tourists are: they all wear shorts above the knees, with checked or golf shirts tucked into them, white socks, immaculate white sneakers, and baseball caps. The women can be distinguished by the colour pink. It's like they all don a uniform at the city limits.

Moreover, they're all pudgy, a double chin nestled above their chests, a 3-month-pregnant paunch lovingly held in by a braided brown pleather belt. They stand in large groups in the middle of subway aisles, holding maps, with SLR cameras slung around their necks, their crows-feet eyes squinting as they try to figure out the difference between 'uptown' and 'downtown'.

I'm not stereotyping all Americans - just those white people not from New York. New Yorkers are very different. For one thing, they're all extroverts. If you cross them, they'll tell you; if they like you, they'll let you know. I'd imagine that shy introversion isn't a personality trait much sought after by the centre of world financial liquidity. I asked a young woman for directions on the subway, and she proceeded to ask me where I was from, what I was in town for, what I did, what I could do with a PhD, invite me to the bar where she worked, and then tell me about her experience on 'shrooms that she was coming down from. That doesn't happen in Canada.