Saturday, October 11, 2008
$600 Caesar Salad and Wine. Wanting to take a break from pretending this San Francisco chick knows what she is doing to "promote agricultural sustainability" in the Massachusetts Commonwealth, we decide to take hubby up for an offer to go to NYC for Anna Bloviation's birthday. The plan is that hubby and son drive down and that Anna Bloviations leaves work early, walks along the Boston harbor front to South Station and hops on an Express train to Penn Station. As a sign of the times, the train is fully booked out but we manage to find a window seat in a "Quiet Zone" car (no talking, no cell phones). This means 3 1/2 hours of peace and day dreams with one text message to hubby telling him I can't pick up in the "Quiet Zone" and that I'm sorry they are stuck in horrendous traffic.
At exactly 8:57 p.m. we pull into Penn Station. My luggage is sitting comfortably in hubby's car stalled in traffic and I decide I'll walk from Penn Station the 40+ blocks to the West 77th Street hotel we booked via Expedia months ago. If walking up 8th Ave. amid the eclectic throngs is symbolic of the collective mood of the country then boy oh boy we are in trouble. At 9 p.m. people were already drunk, belligerent, and by the time I got up to 77th St. I thought I'd read 10 novels.
But before I could delve into the bowl es of America's mood I needed food. I ducked into a corner non-descript restaurant and ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio and half-way descent Cesar Salad. The waiter flirted unabashedly for a good tip and in true Anna-needs-food fashion I was done in under a half-hour.
Once past the masses of Mid-Town we hit 8th and Central Park where a very well-to-do woman exited her apartment building disheveled and tears streaking her cheeks. The plummeting stock market perhaps? Was her husband having an affair?
8th and 77th St. still looked promising for a nice hotel but the 250 77th St. West addressed told me I needed to veer west. West got a bit sketchier but still tolerable until I arrived at the hotel with a store front window of suggestive t-shirts. Time: 11:45 p.m. I enter said "3-Star" hotel to find out that our $296 room has a "shared bathroom" with three other rooms. Now hubby pulls up and won't even enter the lobby. Calls back and forth to Expedia reveal that other potential hotels are either sold out or want $450 per night even at midnight. And sorry, the sketchy hotel with the shared bathroom will be charging us $294 cancellation fee. We consider our options when a man walks by and throws up all over the sidewalk. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE NY. But that doesn't stop me from turning to hubby and saying, "This just isn't our weekend to be in NYC." I buy starving hubby a slice of pizza, hop in the car, and drive back to MA. Arrival time: 4:12 a.m.
Cost of Cesar Salad on 8th Ave.? $600. Ride to Penn Station, Cesar Salad, wine, and snatches of conversation on 8th Ave.? Priceless. Expensive? Yes. But sometimes you have to just cut your losses...
At exactly 8:57 p.m. we pull into Penn Station. My luggage is sitting comfortably in hubby's car stalled in traffic and I decide I'll walk from Penn Station the 40+ blocks to the West 77th Street hotel we booked via Expedia months ago. If walking up 8th Ave. amid the eclectic throngs is symbolic of the collective mood of the country then boy oh boy we are in trouble. At 9 p.m. people were already drunk, belligerent, and by the time I got up to 77th St. I thought I'd read 10 novels.
But before I could delve into the bowl es of America's mood I needed food. I ducked into a corner non-descript restaurant and ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio and half-way descent Cesar Salad. The waiter flirted unabashedly for a good tip and in true Anna-needs-food fashion I was done in under a half-hour.
Once past the masses of Mid-Town we hit 8th and Central Park where a very well-to-do woman exited her apartment building disheveled and tears streaking her cheeks. The plummeting stock market perhaps? Was her husband having an affair?
8th and 77th St. still looked promising for a nice hotel but the 250 77th St. West addressed told me I needed to veer west. West got a bit sketchier but still tolerable until I arrived at the hotel with a store front window of suggestive t-shirts. Time: 11:45 p.m. I enter said "3-Star" hotel to find out that our $296 room has a "shared bathroom" with three other rooms. Now hubby pulls up and won't even enter the lobby. Calls back and forth to Expedia reveal that other potential hotels are either sold out or want $450 per night even at midnight. And sorry, the sketchy hotel with the shared bathroom will be charging us $294 cancellation fee. We consider our options when a man walks by and throws up all over the sidewalk. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE NY. But that doesn't stop me from turning to hubby and saying, "This just isn't our weekend to be in NYC." I buy starving hubby a slice of pizza, hop in the car, and drive back to MA. Arrival time: 4:12 a.m.
Cost of Cesar Salad on 8th Ave.? $600. Ride to Penn Station, Cesar Salad, wine, and snatches of conversation on 8th Ave.? Priceless. Expensive? Yes. But sometimes you have to just cut your losses...
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