"Technically it's not the capitol," she admits, "it's not where the state legislature lives, but culturally it kind of functions as one. The country's got a kind of complicated political structure, but we don't have to go into that unless you're really curious about representative democracy."

It hasn't escaped her awareness that he pronounced New York without recognition of the syllables or the language they fit into; she's not going to assume he knows anything about the United States of America, in any part.

"But yeah, cities like that ... they're complicated. They show different faces depending on who's looking. The New York I know isn't always the same as the New York someone else knows, even if we're close neighbors."