New York in November

As I said in the last blog, one of the upsides to the new gig is that I will be visiting the US more often.  A couple weeks ago, I had the chance to go the New York for a week of strategy meetings.  A very long week of very intense strategy meetings!

Meetings aside, it was great to be back in the Big Apple.  The last time I was back in NYC was about 10 years ago when Olga and I decided to visit over Easter weekend.  Before that, the last time I was in the city was roughly 1984 during parents weekend at Avon Old Farms School. 

I took my usual flight from Delhi to Newark which arrives at 4:00am.  Usually, I have to sit in the Newark airport for a few hours, but this time, I was whisked away to the city in a comfortable black Lincoln to start my day off adventure.  We arrived at the hotel, a trendy little boutique hotel called the Eventi, around 5:30am and since I slept a good 5 hours on the flight (thanks to seats that completely lay flat and are actually comfortable), I was ready to see the sights.  I unpacked and headed out to a dinner around the corner for a wickedly greasy diner breakfast – it was awesome!

A very good friend of mine from Chautauqua, Roland, who I had not seen in 20+ years, was coming into the city to meet me for lunch, so I had to combine our reunion with some important shopping tasks.  About 10:30am, I headed uptown to Columbus Circle to meeting Roland. 

I jumped into a taxi outside the hotel and was quickly acquainted with a talkative Bangladeshi.  For the 15 minute taxi ride, we covered all the usual sub continent topics including corruption, politicians and the future of Bangladesh.   I paid the driver, jumped out, walked across the street and realized my phone had fallen out of my pocket in the taxi.  Shit!  I scanned the landscape for the yellow, non-descript car I had just exited and, if it were still on the circle, it blended pretty well with the 500 other yellow, non-descript cabs driven by Bangladeshis. Double Shit! Maybe I was too tired or just simply realized it was completely out of my hands, but I actually did not really care and wondered over to the statue by which I was meeting Roland.

I often joke that no matter where I am or what language is spoken there, strangers always approach me when they need something. From Moscow to Krakow to Delhi, people are always asking me for directions.  Olga tells me it is because I have a kind face, but I think it is the same laws of metaphysics that drive cats to people who do not like cats.  Anyway, there I was minding my own business, when an elderly man approached me and asked me in Russian if I would take a photo.  Now, this guy spoke no English, so the fact that he picked me out of a crowd of 1000 people on a Monday morning in the middle of New York was, well, astonishing.  I had some time, so he and I conducted our own little photo shoot.  When Roland arrived, he was mystified.

He was mystified for two reasons.  Not only had I managed to become a photographer for an old Russian, but a few minutes earlier he had called to say he was almost there and a Bangladeshi answered my phone.  The cab driver was on his way back to Columbus Circle to return the phone.  No shit!  This is New York, for Christ sake.  I guess there is something to Karma.  The elderly Russian man got a few great pictures of himself in Columbus Circle and I got my phone back.  Well, there you have it!

Roland and I had a great time.  He helped me shop for the critical items and then we went to lunch where I gorged on a huge hamburger.  We then walked over to Central Park where Roland once worked as educator and I got the insiders tour.  It was 70 degrees, sunny and I had a great time.  Thank you, Roland. 

The week, after that, went by in a flash - meetings from the early morning that ran into long dinners.  One dinner that was memorable, though, was Thursday night when we dined at the Four Seasons Pool Room (which is not actually in the Four Seasons Hotel). This is New York dinning at its finest and really captures the quintessential New York restaurant experience - not a place for the 99%, if you will.   The dinner culminated with a huge pile of cotton candy placed in the middle of the table.  You can't beat a large, pink pile of sugar for impact!

Saturday arrived and it was time to go.  My flight did not leave until 8:00pm, so at 7:30am, I hailed a cab to take me to the Manhattan Target to finish my shopping.  The Target is located in Harlem, so I had to be strategic on when I wanted to go.  Calculating for traffic, I figured, I wanted to be there and back as early as possible. At 8:00am on a Saturday, New Yorkers are not really up and about, so the cab ride was short and cheap.  The opposite side of that is that since no one is up, there are very few taxis roaming about that far up town.  This looked like it was going to be a problem.   After my shopping, I meandered about moving towards the more active streets until finally an off-duty limo stopped.  For a few bucks more than the cab, he was willing to take me back to the hotel.  It was a great find.  I ended my New York experience cruising back downtown in the back of a limo enjoying the sunny autumn morning.   

With all my shopping done, I packed up the huge suitcase … barely…, had lunch and troddled off to the Newark Airport for my flight back to India.  I look forward to next year!