Day Trip to BEA (sort of)
I made a day trip up to New York City yesterday, not for BEA, but to finally meet someone who was attending BEA, whom I've corresponded with online for almost four years. I didn't realize it had been that long until she reminded me. I also got to meet up and chat with my main contact at Heroes and Heartbreakers, which was awesome, as the one time we met before was very brief.
Yay for Megabus! Round trip cost me $10.50. There was almost an hour's delay in my evening departure, but it was otherwise a smooth trip. Waiting in line for the bus was the only time I felt really tired, because by then I was starting to stiffen up from the previous day's weightlifting. Plus my ankles and knees don't like long standing. Next time I should probably go home either before or after rush hour.
There was a Starbuck's right across from where the bus lets off, near FIT, so I met Megan there and we discovered that we have a Seven Sisters connection - if I knew that before, I had forgotten. It's not a mafia, really, it's just that I seem to connect with people who, it turns out, went to womens' colleges. Repeatedly. (In two cases, it turned out we went to the same college, once even overlapping with each other!) After Megan headed back to work, I cabbed over to the Javits, to make sure I had enough time to find a restroom before meeting up with Jessica.
We noted that we looked just like our photographs. Only of course, we were not in tiny boxes on a screen. There's not much stuff right around the Javits Center, so we walked up to 9th Avenue, which has a plethora of restaurants. We ate at a Mexican place that appeared downscale but had pretty good food; the best thing was that it was not all all crowded, and it was big enough that the tables weren't jammed against each other. In Manhattan! We talked about our lives, somewhat, but mostly about the politics of blogging, and about the blogging conference associated with BEA that she'd attended the day before.
I had left enough time to do a little wandering on my own before I had to go home, with the particular intent to visit Muji, a Japanese import store full of tiny...things. After lunch, I first visited a cheap jewelry shop and bought some costume jewelry rings; I've been wanting some simple bands to match up with other rings I already had, for days when I want to cover all the fingers on my left hand. This store had a really wide selection of styles, which made me happy. Then I headed over to Muji, where I browsed ecstatically for quite some time before purchasing many tiny plastic boxes, which I've discovered are excellent for carrying jewelry on trips. I also bought a couple of divided containers for my dresser, to replace my stolen jewelry box. These will do nicely.
It was so lovely going to NYC instead of to the dayjob. Today, back to the grind.
Yay for Megabus! Round trip cost me $10.50. There was almost an hour's delay in my evening departure, but it was otherwise a smooth trip. Waiting in line for the bus was the only time I felt really tired, because by then I was starting to stiffen up from the previous day's weightlifting. Plus my ankles and knees don't like long standing. Next time I should probably go home either before or after rush hour.
There was a Starbuck's right across from where the bus lets off, near FIT, so I met Megan there and we discovered that we have a Seven Sisters connection - if I knew that before, I had forgotten. It's not a mafia, really, it's just that I seem to connect with people who, it turns out, went to womens' colleges. Repeatedly. (In two cases, it turned out we went to the same college, once even overlapping with each other!) After Megan headed back to work, I cabbed over to the Javits, to make sure I had enough time to find a restroom before meeting up with Jessica.
We noted that we looked just like our photographs. Only of course, we were not in tiny boxes on a screen. There's not much stuff right around the Javits Center, so we walked up to 9th Avenue, which has a plethora of restaurants. We ate at a Mexican place that appeared downscale but had pretty good food; the best thing was that it was not all all crowded, and it was big enough that the tables weren't jammed against each other. In Manhattan! We talked about our lives, somewhat, but mostly about the politics of blogging, and about the blogging conference associated with BEA that she'd attended the day before.
I had left enough time to do a little wandering on my own before I had to go home, with the particular intent to visit Muji, a Japanese import store full of tiny...things. After lunch, I first visited a cheap jewelry shop and bought some costume jewelry rings; I've been wanting some simple bands to match up with other rings I already had, for days when I want to cover all the fingers on my left hand. This store had a really wide selection of styles, which made me happy. Then I headed over to Muji, where I browsed ecstatically for quite some time before purchasing many tiny plastic boxes, which I've discovered are excellent for carrying jewelry on trips. I also bought a couple of divided containers for my dresser, to replace my stolen jewelry box. These will do nicely.
It was so lovely going to NYC instead of to the dayjob. Today, back to the grind.