The noise and smell of the city

Coming from little old Newfoundland where the horn on a car is used mostly for greeting, it is quite an experience to be in a place where they consider it a weapon. At any given time there are ten or twelve horns blaring in your ear. I am sure that nobody listens.... at some point you would have to tune out. So what is the point? And the brakes on the buses are constantly screaching and grinding. You can barely hear yourself think.

To accompany that, garbage is collected nightly and there are gangs of people who attack the garbage bags as they are placed outside people's doors. They sit on the sidewalk and scavenge thru them looking for recyclables and anything useful. Before the garbage truck gets to them they look as tho they have been attacked by dogs. These groups of people (often families) parade thru the streets with carts on wheels that are the size of a small car. It often takes two people to push the carts because of their size and weight once they are full. You can only imagine the smell. Last nite when coming back from dinner I stepped over a bag of open leftover food and almost chucked my cookies. The smell was not one I choose to remember.

All of that aside, it just adds to the colour of this city.