Walking "Right Through the Very Heart of it - New York, New York"

I have been all over this great Country by car and plane. From Virginia to California and Maine to Florida, I've traveled asphalt expressways and back country roads paved with dirt. For all the spacious skies, the amber waves of grain and the purple mountains that rise in majesty above the fruited planes, nothing compares to that first jaw dropping moment when you find yourself standing in the middle of Times Square.

"It's real, I am really here." You'll repeat this mantra like a giddy prayer as you try to take it all in. Your awe is only magnified at night. The lights, there are a billion lights, and people flow through the streets in mingled currents of magnificent diversity. It is raw, unedited, the kind of place where the daring can find adventure and the ready can find each other. And then you remember to breathe.

The first day was a spectacular blur. With my hair freshly coiffed at the Frédéric Fakkia salon on Fifth Avenue it was off to Bloomingdale's for my first pair of Christian Louboutins. A word of warning ladies; once within the pack of locals shopping at a Louboutin sale do not let go of the shoes you plan to try on next. These women will snort those puppies right out of your lap like a crack junkie.

The visit to Ground Zero was a humbling experience; the walk through the 9-11 Memorial, heartbreaking. As we passed through each room, making our way deeper into the painful memory, the cacophony of hushed voices in a multitude of languages diminished to whispers and ultimately to reverent silence. It was before the wall where the letters and photos were displayed, those desperate pleas of people searching for loved ones, that's where the silence gave way to the universal parlance of weeping.

For all its raw, unedited garishness, New York can feel like a sharp elbow to the ribcage for those who are easily intimidated. But there are few other places in America where its citizens have been so tested and paid the price for our freedoms. Rub them the wrong way and they'll shove back. Recognize their determination, respect their hallowed ground and the people of New York will embrace you with a kind of strength and a depth of compassion that comforts even the loneliest places in your heart. And again you remember to breathe.