When the sidewalk guitar busker gets a sound system, your neighborhood no longer qualifies as gritty.

There is a bongo player on the sidewalk, and a woman has stopped to dance. She has only one leg.

She raises her arms above her head, hitting the air with each beat, bending at the knee and bumping her rear to the music. She’s an excellent dancer.

All of us crane our necks to watch. The two young men next to me let out low whistles. “Damn,” one of them says. “She got it.”

The bathrooms have little “security seal” stickers all over everything. I think they’re supposed to indicate that no one has placed a bomb in the paper-towel rack. By day three, all of the seals are broken. While the absence of security seals wouldn’t concern me, for some reason, the broken security seals are making me think twice about using the soap.

I’ve always known that I tear up when I hear large groups of people singing patriotic songs. So it was no surprise when I had to bust out my hanky for the “Star Spangled Banner.” “This Land is My Land”? Check. “America the Beautiful”? Check. And then “Johnny Be Good” came on.