I heard there was a big snowstorm in New York City so I went to check it out. I was really excited because New York City is the biggest city in America. There must be a lot going on there.
I wanted to see if New York gets as much snow as South Dakota does. Judging by the size of this snowbank, I would say that this time it did! That's me sitting on the snowbank. It was cold!
New York City got two feet of snow in this blizzard. But usually it doesn't get that much snow. Lots of people got stuck at the airport around Christmas because of the blizzard.
My friend Erin showed me around New York City. She has lived in New York for 11 years, so she knows her way around pretty well. That's her in the black hat. Erin is a writer. She
writes articles for newspapers and magazines and websites. New York is a good place to do that because there are lots of magazines and newspapers there.
Erin lives in Brooklyn, where we took these pictures. See those brown buildings behind us? Those are called brownstones, and instead of living in houses with big yards and garages, families live in these. They are all really close together which means you get to know your neighbors well.
Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City. Most people think of the borough of Manhattan when they think of New York City. But Brooklyn has more people than Manhattan. And Queens, another borough, is the biggest in area. Manhattan does have the most tall buildings, though, and also Central Park!
I noticed that there are people here from all over the world. In this neighborhood in Brooklyn, there are lots of people whose grandparents are from Italy. In other parts of the city, there are a lot of people came from Europe or Mexico, Caribbean islands, Africa, and Asia. When you are on the subway, you see people with all different colors of skin and types of hair and many of them speak different languages. It is very interesting!
By the way, the subway is a really cool underground train that people use to get around the city instead of cars. It runs all day and night and you buy a special card so that you can ride it whenever you want. It can take you to lots of neat places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see famous paintings, Central Park, or the Bronx Zoo, where they have whole families of gorillas you can watch play together.
Our last stop on our tour of this part of Brooklyn was in a local park, where I took a seat on this big monument. I look really small down there at the bottom!
I really like New York, even in the snow. I'll write back when we have more adventures here!
Signed,
Monkey Flat Stanley
In the picture above you can see just how narrow some of the streets are in the old sections of Naples. Many people have motorcyles for transportation so they can travel these narrow streets quickly. 
