Arrival in New York:

I arrived in New York on Friday evening.   Not knowing what to expect exactly, I decided to make things easy on myself by reserving a car service, and paying the extra $15 to have the driver meet me inside the airport.  That way I wouldn't have to worry about not being able to find him.

Well for some reason, the guy didn't come inside, but stood outside, pointing his sign at all the taxis.  How he expected me to see him, I have no idea.   When I'd been waiting for a ridiculously long time, and was about to call the car service to ask where he was, I went outside into the cold, and found him.  He took my luggage, and we practically ran about a mile and a half to a parking garage way over on the other side of the airport.   Not exactly fifteen dollars well spent, but at least I never got lost.

We drove into Brooklyn, which was about a 40 minute drive.   There's lots of traffic, like in the Bay Area, but I noticed that New Yorkers all seem to follow the same traffic rules and philosophies, so it all runs smoothly and efficiently.  It's not like here, where people float around aimlessly at varying speeds, tailgating, driving in each other's blind spots and changing lanes willy nilly.   In the Bay Area, when I'm on a freeway (even as a passenger), I'm gripped with fear, because other drivers are so unpredictable.  I didn't feel that in New York.

When I arrived at my hotel,  I was informed that my reservation was actually for the other Holiday Inn Express, four blocks over.  Aaack!!  How the hell did that happen??  I had been living and breathing Google Maps street view, memorizing the route between 279 Butler St. and the Harvey Theatre at 651 Fulton, and now they tell me I'm not in that hotel at all?

Well, the nice lady behind the counter made it right, and did a hotel switcheroo, so I ended up in that one which I had planned for.  It was only $93 per night, too, which was less than the other one.  Yay!

Since it was too late to do any exploring, I went up to my room and worked on the knitting project I had brought.  It was my first pair of Norwegian mittens, in honor of the Ibsen experience.   I had vague fantasies of giving them to Alan, but I knew that wouldn't really happen, because a) the poor guy gets inundated with gifts from adoring fans--cockeyed pencil drawings of Severus Snape and whatnot,  b) I'd never finish them in time because I was having to do each row twice to take care of mistakes, and c) my tension was too tight in the first one, so it's smaller than the second.  Still, it's good to have something to daydream about while you're working on a complicated pattern which requires extreme focus.