New York was good. Today, though, I’ll catalog the mistakes we made.
1. We flew into Islip (on Long Island) because Southwest flies there, and we got the $99 fare. This wouldn’t have been a big mistake if we had gotten in a little sooner, so we didn’t feel like we were in a rush, and so we could have taken the train into Manhattan. Unfortunately, we were in a hurry and we paid $150 for a two hour cab ride during rush hour. We later found out that the train was $6.50 (plus a $20 shuttle to the train station) and it only took an hour and a half.
2. I made Margaret order the “National Dish of Brazil” which consists of smokey black beans and black, boiled meat. We’re not sure that there is any good food in Manhattan. We haven ‘t managed to find any yet, anyway. If you know differently, you can take us out next time were in town.
I think these are really the only two mistakes. The good points of our trip were:
1. The Paramount hotel, on W. 46th (about two blocks west of Broadway) is excellent, and cheap compared to the other hotels in the neighborhood. Small rooms, but very stylish….retro-cool sort of thing. Amazing furniture in the lobby. Go there even if you’re staying somewhere else.
2. We had good meetings and fully justified making the whole trip tax deductable.
3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art rocks.
4. We saw a taping of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. He’s not very funny, but it was a good pre-dinner thing to do. Vince has a friend who is a writer with the show, so we got tickets and a little bit of special treatment.