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Arriving for the first time I assumed that yellow cabs would know where I needed to be and get me there faster than I could walk. How wrong I was! I arrived travel worn from a 30+ hour Amtrak journey from the laid back southern hospitality of New Orleans to the fast unfamiliar pace of NYC with little more than 2 hours to spare before the curtain rose on the performance of “Grease” I had tickets to see. Having finally located my luggage from the bowels of the train, and a redcap to help me find my way out of the train station, I finally sank into one of those yellow cabs I’d seen thousands of times on TV, and gave the hotel address to the cab driver.
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We’d already run out of small talk when I realized that despite the cabbie’s assurances that my hotel was just “around the corner”, we’d only moved about 10 feet from the station and were now sitting in a bumper-to-bumper line of cars. 10 minutes later I figured we were moving along at a rate of about 1 foot per minute and my show was going to start without me if I didn’t do something. So despite the cab driver’s assurances that we were almost there, and it was just normal traffic, not to worry I had him pull over and let my luggage and I out. I paid him what he requested only too pleased to be back in control of my destiny and hurried in the direction of “around the corner”.
The reality was that “around the corner” was about 15 minutes of walking with an assortment of luggage, but as I figured the cabbie would be still working his way TO the corner, I was still ahead of the game!
The lesson I learned? If you’re going somewhere in NYC get a good up-to-date street map and make sure it’s not quicker to walk or even take the subway because that “Big Apple” traffic can take a big piece of time out a mini break stay! |
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