Creative Writing: New York Town

I can hear the hum of taxi cabs whizzing past me as I stand on the corner of the busy downtown street. New York City! I still can't believe that I'm here or that I'm staying here. Aunt Allison was so sweet to let me live in her place whilst she travels around south America. I step out onto the road when the traffic light changed from green to red. I've loved this city since I was knee-high everything about it sprung out at me, the bright bold lights of times square, the hustle and bustle of Greenwich village and China Town and the serenity of central park. Everything about this city made me feel at home.

I stepped out off the corner of pearl street and skipped into the Starbucks coffee shop on the other side of the street. The coffee shop

what can I get for you?" The line in the store was already building up and I could see it was a rush hour so I wondered why I hadn't decided before I came into the store. My eyes danced quickly over the menu above her head.

"I'll just take the Iced Carmel Macchiato, please." My thick Scottish accent stood out like a sore thumb.

"Is that tall, venti or grande?" She asked.

"Just the tall please." She grabbed the standard cup and wrote the order onto it, before ringing up the order she asked my name.

"Catriona Drummond." The girl scribbled the name onto the side of the cup and punched the order into the cash register.

"That's three bucks twenty." I fumbled around in my purse and pulled out a five dollar bill. She handed the change back and gestured for me to wait in the group of people surrounding the coffee machines. I placed one of the earphones back into my ear and continued to listen to the vampire weekend album that I had paused on my iPod classic.

A song or two later one of the barista's called out my name and I picked it up off of the bar. Starbucks was the one thing that never changed across

The city seemed less hectic here and a little less crowded. I had read online that the once murder capital of New York City was now the fourth safest neighbourhood behind the upper east and upper west sides. I unlocked the door into the lobby of the apartment, the lobby was small and had one wide stairwell at the back of the room. Aunt Allison's apartment was a third-floor apartment, but the third floor seemed to be less of a trek than I had expected. I hadn't been in this apartment before but I remembered her tiny loft back in Brooklyn that I had visited once or twice when I was younger. The door creaked open and revealed hardwood floors and exposed brick walls that made me strangely nostalgic for industrial living spaces. Our home in Edinburgh was far more traditional than this small two bedroom modernised apartment. I dumped my rucksack onto the bed in the spare room that Allison had made up for me before she left and decided to explore the apartment - not that there was a lot to