Monday, August 25, 2008

Life in the big city—and Newark

I never really had an issue with Newark, until I started staying there. (To know it is to hate it.)

This past weekend, I was in New York for meetings, but stuck in Newark at night. The commute itself, a little over an hour on a good day, wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the 11-hour work days.

I’ve been staying at the Robert Treat Hotel, which is a Best Western. (Not to be snobby, but that pretty much sums it up.) After having dinner with colleagues in Manhattan, I got there that night at 10:30--incredibly early by my internal clock. Since I had spent almost every waking hour that day and the day before in the company of my colleagues and I don’t like being confined in a hotel room (even though most are about as big as my apartment), I decided to go to the hotel restaurant for a drink and a change of scenery.

Well, as it turned out, there was a wedding party staying at the hotel and they had closed the restaurant for a private party. There was no other place nearby to go, and I was under strict orders not to walk around downtown Newark at night. (One warning I might have ignored, but by the time I heard the third one, I figured if I didn’t heed it I would be a prime candidate for a karmic dummy slap, so I decided to stay put.) The host-person at the restaurant told me they would serve me a drink, but I would have to drink it “over there.” I assumed that he was pointing to a lounge. So I got my drink and went “over there.” But, to my surprise, “over there” turned out to be this little room off to the side of the restaurant that had four tables set up. A waiter came over and promptly took off the settings on the table I selected, and then I was left alone to drink my drink, totally defeating the purpose of going there in the first place.

A funny thing did happen on the elevator going back to my room. I was going to the 10th floor, and this crowd of people got on the elevator with me. (It had been an African wedding, by the way, so most were dressed in traditional attire.) The mother of the bride and some members of her family got on (going to the 7th floor) and a friend of a friend of the mother got on, also going to the 10th floor. While we were waiting for everyone to get on board and all the way up, the friend effused to the mother about how beautiful her daughter was, what a wonderful couple they made, how delightful the wedding was, she barely took a breath between praises. However, as soon as the family got off the elevator and we resumed our ascent, she promptly stated, “I pray they last the year” and then laughed a humorless laugh as we reached our floor, said goodnight, and parted ways.

No comments: