The Race Against Time
This meant that I had to get to a theatre in the East Village of Manhattan, from Calgary. In short, my Wednesday was now a race against time. A very relaxed, low impact race against time, with a lot of stops and only a couple of bursts of motion, but a race against time regardless.
No, the first 13ish hours of said race were not particularly stressful or… race-y. The cab ride to the airport, maybe, since I’ve been a little paranoid about missing the deadline for baggage drop-off ever since that time it happened, but after that… Waffles and a mimosa at the airport, four hours on a plane, a shorter than expected shuttle ride into Manhattan, and then an hour and a half to kill before checking in.
Back in 2016 my friends Matt and Kate had found a great bar called Beer Authority right by where my shuttle dropped me off, so filling those 90 minutes wasn’t challenging. But one could be forgiven for seeing me sipping Belgian beers and having a leisurely dinner and not thinking ‘That man’s in a race against time, sure enough.”
I knew very little about the neighbourhood I’d be staying in, Washington Heights, on the northern end of Manhattan, but I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to drag my suitcase there on the subway without specific knowledge of where I was staying. Which meant Uber, something that had served me well in LA. Mostly well. Pretty well. Better than cabs would have. So my plan had always been “Uber from the shuttle to my Air BnB.”
I hadn’t planned on Ubering to the theatre, and approximate travel times from Washington Heights to the East Village were similar between car and subway, but again… an Uber would take me right to the theatre’s door, not somewhere nearby and hopefully I don’t walk the wrong direction. So… pricey options, that meant the actual high-pressure parts of the so-called race were totally out of my control.
Suggested arrival time was by 7:15. Last possible entry was 7:45. Traffic was slow, because it was Manhattan at 6:20… but I just remained calm. Trusted we’d make it. That the Google maps estimates weren’t lying to me.
They weren’t.
Next page: My brain betrays me a little
